Australia will get its first free mobile TV network beginning Thursday, when Bluetooth broadcaster YoMo launches, The Australian has reported Thursday.

The service will update a news and entertainment video feed throughout the day, and will broadcast it using Bluetooth technology to a network of transmission points in Eastern Australia.

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The Guardian’s podcasts will be bring in profits within the next 12 months, the paper’s director of digital content has said, Journalism.co.uk reported Tuesday.

Currently, guardian.co.uk has 12 podcasts, and profit from that content in the coming months will come from implementing a new advertising delivery system that will place ads in the podcasts, Emily Bell, director of digital content at Guardian News and Media told Journalism.co.uk.

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Free dailies continue to lead circulation numbers in Spain, March circulation data from Spain, reported by Publicitas and PRnoticias, has revealed, Newspaper Innovation reported Wednesday.

All four free national papers are higher in circulation than the highest circulated paid paper, El Pais, which counts circulation at 460,000 copies daily, according to Newspaper Innovation.

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The Times has become the latest British paper to offer readers a prepaid payment card, a trend started by the Daily Mirror, the Guardian reported.

The Times MasterCard prepaid card and "eccount" was launched by Tuxedo Money Solutions, which provided a similar services for The Sun and News of the World since last year.

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STAR India, a subsidiary of STAR Hong Kong owned by News Corp., is exploring the possibilities of getting into the print media market in India, the Business Standard reported.

Last week, top STAR executives met in Bangalore to discuss possible joint venture partners for the print foray.

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Telegraph.co.uk saw user numbers increase by five million last month, thanks in large part to improved back-end technology, higher news production and strong content, the Telegraph has stated, the Guardian reported Tuesday.

Unique users to the Telegraph's Web site increased by 38.7 percent from February to March, to more than 17 million, the Telegraph reported.

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Parent company of The Dallas Morning News, A.H. Belo Corporation, reported a US$8.7 million loss in its first quarter as an independent firm, The Dallas Morning News reported Tuesday.

During the period from January to March, A.H. Belo also saw revenue slide nine percent from the same quarter the year before, to $160.2 million.

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The mobile music market in Germany has long focused on ringtones, but now full-track downloads are increasing sales.

During 2007, 5.2 million full-track songs were downloaded to mobile phones, up 53 percent over 2006, according to new figures from BITKOM and GfK Panel Services.

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New York City Spanish-language daily, El Diario La Prensa, saw a 7.6 percent rise in weekday circulation, according to information released by the Audit Bureau of Circulations (ABC) Monday, Editor & Publisher reported.

Weekday sales of El Diario, published by ImpreMedia, were at 53,856 copies, up from 50,047 for the same period last year.Only three paid circulation, U.S. Spanish-language dailies are audited by ABC.

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Media conglomerate Cox Enterprises Inc., which foresees shrinking newspaper and television audiences and plans to keep an eye on the online market, spent US$300 million to buy a startup, the Associated Press reported.

The deal with Adify Corp., announced Tuesday, represents the latest evolution for the media company, which began over a century ago with one newspaper in Ohio, and later expanded to new areas including radio, television and cable systems in the United States.

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Ring launched last week in Bucharest, making itself Romania's second freesheet, Media Details reported.

The free daily has a print run of 50,000 copies, and is handed out through a street delivery network and at subway stations.

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The Financial Times will on Tuesday launch a Middle East regional edition, which will be based in the United Arab Emirates, the Guardian reported Monday.

Every Tuesday and Thursday there will be page dedicated to the Middle East, and the new regional edition will feature a new masthead specific to the edition.

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The Grand Island (Nebraska) Independent used new live blogging tool CovertItLive in a new way – to launch the redesign of its Web site using input from readers, Journalism.co.uk reported Monday.

Following the site's relaunch, the paper began using the blogging tool to start a live question and answer session between readers and the Web staff last week.

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There are currently 28 million HDTV households in the United States, which is about one-fourth of the population, according to a Frank N. Magid Associates study conducted in March 2008.

According to eMarketer, during the 2007-2008 holiday and Super Bowl season, 5.5 million households bought their first HDTV set, while another 3 million homes added their second HDTV.

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Only 11 of the top 30 U.S. newspaper Web sites reported an increase in the time spent per person in March, according to the latest data from Nielsen Online.

Those sites with big gains included The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal Online, Village Voice Media, the Houston Chronicle, and Politico, Editor & Publisher reported.

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Editorial staff at The New York Times are bracing themselves for layoffs in the next 10 days, the New York Post reported Friday.

About 50 unionized journalists have accepted buyout offers, and another 20 non-union journalists have done the same. This means “the ax could fall on as many as 30 editorial people in the company's first-ever mass firing of journalists in its 156-year history,” the Post reported.

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Madison, Wis.-based The Capital Times will print its final daily newspaper Saturday, and next week will begin publishing two tabloids a week, the Associated Press reported Monday.

The 90-year-old afternoon daily will use the paper's online version for daily coverage, and has shrunk staff numbers.

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The new free Dutch business daily, De Financiële Pers, was a two-day test run, an editorial in Friday's edition stated, Newspaper Innovation reported Friday,

De Financiële Pers is a business spin-off of free daily De Pers, which De Pers launched in a joint venture with business platform IEX.nl.

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The Evening Leader will carry out trials with micro-blogging platform Twitter, to cover local football in real time on its Web site, Journalism.co.uk reported Friday.

This Saturday, the UK newspaper will use Twitter to issue 140 character live updates from Wrexham FC’s home match against Accrington Stanley.

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Trinity Mirror will shut down eight loss-making free weekly newspapers in Derby and Peterborough, including the Peterborough Herald and Post and the Derby Trader, the Guardian reported Thursday.

When the company’s offices in Derby and Peterborough close, 23 employees, including six in editorial, will be made redundant.

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Web and radio are the two most accessed media at work, while TV the dominant at home, according to the 2005 Middletown Media Study II conducted in U.S. by Online Publishers Association.

In the United States, Web and radio are the two media most accessed at work, with a reach of 50 to 70 percent and 40 to 60 percent, respectively.

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E.W. Scripps Co announced its first-quarter profit is up 23 percent, with revenue gains at its cable-television and Internet units, Bloomberg reported Friday.

However, the company’s newspaper units marked a revenue drop in this period.

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Publishers should look to technology companies if they want to stay on top, keeping up with the online world and digital innovations, which means working more responsively and quickly, Ien Cheng, publisher and managing editor of FT.com, told the Guardian's Jemima Kiss.

Cheng's strategy appears to be working, as FT.com had 7.1 million unique users in March, a 33 percent increase from the same time last year. Additionally, page views were up 72 percent over the same period last year, to 72 million.

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Dutch free daily De Pers has launched spin-off business daily De Financiële Pers today, Newspaper Innovation reported Thursday.

The paper will be distributed throughout business centres in major cities.

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Current TV has created a new position for managing online activities and daily Web operations in the United Kingdom, and has chosen Rebekah Billingsley for the role as director of new media, Journalism.co.uk reported Thursday.

The a 24/7 cable and satellite television network and Internet site produced and programmed in collaboration with its audience is based in San Francisco, Calif., and has a UK branch.

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The global spending (both consumer and advertiser) on mobile media services will exceed US$102 billion by 2012, up from $47 billion in 2007, according to a Strategy Analytics forecast.

Consumers will account for the majority of this spending in the near-term, according to research firm eMarketer.

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Google is expanding into a new advertising domain - graphical ads appearing on mobile devices, according to an article on CNET News.com.

Along with Google's text-based mobile ads, the image ads are displayed based on keywords appearing on mobile Web sites people visit, the company said Wednesday.

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The future is unpredictable, but that doesn't mean you can't do something about it. That message is particularly important for the newspaper industry and is the basis of "Scenario Planning for Newspaper Companies," the latest report from the SFN project.

Scenario planning – the practice of imagining a variety of possible futures and planning strategies to cope with them -- allows businesses to take a pro-active approach and prepare for many contingencies.

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Should his tentative deal to buy Newsday from the Tribune Company, Rupert Murdoch will likely “pose the first significant challenge” to the Federal Communications Commissions' recently adopted media ownership rule, The New York Times reported Wednesday.

If the purchase goes through, Newsday will be Murdoch's third New York newspaper.

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Canwest Publishing Inc.'s 10 regional daily publications could see an increase in advertising revenues, thanks to the 2010 Olympic Winter Games in Vancouver.

The largest publisher of paid English-langugage dailies in Canada will be the “Official Regional Newspaper Publisher” for the Olympics, Editor & Publisher reported Wednesday.

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The east Oregonian Publishing Co. said it will buy the twice-weekly Hermiston (Ore.) Herald from Western Communications Inc., Editor & Publisher reported Wednesday.

The purchase is expected to close by May 1. Terms were not disclosed.

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U.S. newspaper publisher McClatchy Co. reported a loss in the first quarter as advertising revenues plummeted 15 percent, the Associated Press reported Wednesday.

The company is planning on buying back millions of dollars of its public debt, Reuters reported.

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Moody's Investors Services downgraded The New York Times Co. to Baa3, the lowest investment-grade level, from Baa1 on Monday, saying it believes the publisher's free cash flow leverage will remain "significantly weaker" this year than expected, Editor & Publisher reported.

According to Moody's, The Times' debt position will be weaker because of an "ongoing deterioration in newspaper advertising revenue" combined with the cash it will need to fund capital spending initiatives, as well as US$132 million in annual dividend payouts.

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Jerry Yang, the co-founder of Yahoo!, announced Tuesday that the company may still recommend a hostile takeover from Microsoft, after admitting that it had already spent US$14 million on advisers, including Goldman Sachs and Lehman Brothers, to fight the approach, the Times Online reported Wednesday.

With a nine percent raise in revenues for the first quarter to $1.82 billion, the company remained “open to any and all alternatives including a sale to Microsoft,” according to Yang.

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Dainik Bhaskar has launched six editions in India, exchange4media reported Tuesday from Mumbai.

The new editions were out Saturday in Chhatisgarh, Bhilai, Jagdalpur and Ratlam in Madhya Pradesh, Shimla in Himachal Pradesh and Pali and Nagpur in Rajasthan.

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Financial Times Group announced it is planning to launch a magazine in China, a move to expand the Financial Times brand into “fast-growing markets,” The Wall Street Journal reported Tuesday.

The magazine will target China's increasing number of affluent people in the business world, stated the London-based Pearson Plc, owner of the Financial Times Group.

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Mirror Group Newspapers is leaning towards becoming the most recent newspaper group to publish its Internet traffic data within the Audit Bureau of Circulations Electronic (ABCe) figures, the Guardian reported Tuesday.

On Thursday, MGN Web sites will be included in ABCe monthly traffic figures for the first time.

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Agora-owned Metro is Poland's third most read newspaper, following another Agora title, Gazeta Wyborcza, and Axel Springer-owned Fakt, Newspaper Innovation reported Tuesday.

Metro's weekly readership, from September 2007 through February 2008, was 2.4 million (8 percent).

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The Daily Mail increased its price to 50 pence Monday, for which rival Daily Express accused it of "staggering hypocrisy," the Guardian reported.

The company said its price increase was due to higher fuel charges, printing, production and distribution costs, according to the Guardian report.

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New York Times Co. Chairman Arthur Sulzberger Jr. on Tuesday disputed media reports of a possible sale.

"This company is not for sale," he told shareholders, calling recent media reports "ill informed", Reuters reported.

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Metro International sales were down in the first quarter compared with the same quarter last year, the company announced Monday.

However, although operating losses were at €5.6 million for the 2008 first quarter, they were less than the €8.8 million losses of the same quarter in 2007, Newspaper Innovation reported Monday.

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MySpace has launched an ad platform called Community Builder, which gives advertisers more control over their presence and allows them to build, maintain and customise brand profiles, Brand Republic reported Monday.

The platform is now in a trial phase. It offers advertisers with analytics to help them gauge campaign performance and make real-time adjustments.

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A newspaper that reported rumours of a marriage between Vladimir Putin and a 24-year-old gymnast has closed the day following the report, after the Russian president told journalists the reports were unacceptable, The Independent reported Monday.

Moskovsky Korrespondent first reported the affair, but Putin denied he and his wife Ludmilla divorced, and thathe is to wed Alina Kabaeva. Meanwhile, the newspaper's editorial team said the story had no factual basis.

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The UK-based Daily Sport is coming out with a new look, focusing more on sports, girls, and humorous material while staying away from showbusiness-type content. In other words, the paper will go for more of a “sexy” look, instead of “sleazy,” the Guardian reported Monday.

“If it is not about sport, if it is not about girls and does not make you laugh, then don’t bother,” Barry McIlheney, editor-in-chief of parent company Sport Media Group told the Guardian.

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New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg Monday dismissed media reports that he could be a suitor for the New York Times Co., announcing that he is not interested in getting into the newspaper industry, Reuters reported.

"I am not going to go into the newspaper business," Bloomberg told reporters at a press conference. "I am not a newspaper person."

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The Daily Herald in Chicago's suburbs laid off and unspecified number of staffers across its departments, Editor & Publisher reported Thursday.

Paddock Publishing President Doug Ray would not give the exact number of employees cut.

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South African Web search engine Ananzi is working with Google to allow users to search locally on Ananzi and internationally with Google in one place, Ananzi stated in a press release.

Google's international search function is being incorporated into Ananzi's search pages.

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The London Paper, News International’s London freesheet, has lost almost £17 million in its first 10 months of publication; the turnover for the period was £8 million, the Guardian reported Friday.

Launched in September 2006, The London Paper recorded a pre-tax loss of £16.8 million during the year ending in June 2007.

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The Asia Pacific region and Europe were home of the majority of online and mobile users across the world in 2005, according to a study from Morgan Stanley.

In 2005, about 36 percent of online users came from Asia Pacific, and another 24 percent were from Europe. North America took up another 23 percent, while South America only accounted for five percent. The rest of the users were from other regions, including Africa and Australasia.

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The Associated Press will begin using a new copyright protection system for online users of its content, called iCopyright, Journalism.co.uk reported Thursday.

Online copyright rights service iCopyright will help to create a Web-based licensing system for AP content.

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Media General Inc. reported a loss of US$20.3 million (91 cents a share) in the first quarter of 2007, the Canadian Press reported Thursday.

Newspaper ad revenue dropped 19.1 percent in the first quarter, while profit in its publishing division fell 56.4 percent on total revenues that were down 16.7 percent.

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The Malaysian government has shut down a paper serving ethnic minority Indians, a punishment for its news editor criticising the government on social and political issues, the Associated Press reported.

The Tamil-language Makkal Osai, or People's Voice, received a letter from the Home Ministry on Wednesday, stating that its operating license would not be renewed, according to its news editor B. R. Rajan.

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The New York Times Company announced it lost US$335,000 in the first quarter of 2007, the Guardian reported Thursday.

In the same period the year before, the company posted a $23.9 million profit.

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Torstar, owner of the Toronto Star, announced it will cut 160 jobs and charge C$21 million in an attempt to reorganise its newspaper division, the Associated Press reported Thursday.

The Toronto Star has the highest circulation in Canada.

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The U.S. version of the Wall Street Journal could be available to other parts of Europe, following its launch in London, the Guardian reported.

The U.S. edition of the financial paper began being sold in London for the first time Wednesday as part of News Corp.'s global expansion plans.

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Times Newspapers took a smaller hit on redundancy costs at its printing operations, causing losses to be cut in half for the owner of the Times and Sunday Times, the Guardian reported Wednesday.

Pre-tax losses were down 46 percent, at £43.9 million for the year ending June 2007, compared to losses of £81.8 million the year before.

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Fairfax Media is looking to buy a stake in national Indian newspaper The Hindu, an English-language daily, The Australian has reported Thursday.

The Australian cited reports by weekly magazine Business India and business daily Mint, both of which reported Fairfax was discussing the transaction with Kasturi & Sons, owners of The Hindu.

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The New York Times announced Tuesday that it plans to deliver content to the Chumby, a portable, coffee cup-sized wireless device designed for consumers who wish to access a condensed version online, Media Week reported.

The Chumby, designed and launched last year by Chumby Industries, is twice-size of an alarm clock and a mini-multimedia device. Users can use it to view photos, stream videos, and surf on their social networks, among other functions.

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UK regional newspaper publisher Newsquest launched jobs Web site jobSW.co.uk, for the south west of England, HoldtheFrontPage.co.uk reported Wednesday.

JobSW.co.uk aimes to serve job seekers as well as businesses looking to hire. The site also offers information on the main towns and counties within the region.

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MySpace launched a Korean service Tuesday, aiming to penetrate the highly competitive market dominated by local players, officials said.

The service exclusively features "minilogs" tailored to local users, which allows them to make daily jottings, AFP reported.

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The number of U.S. newspaper journalists declined last year by almost five percent to 52,600, the lowest in almost 25 years and the biggest drop in 30 years, according to the figures released by the American Society of Newspaper Editors.

The figures reflected the attrition happening in the U.S. media industry, and also aroused a debate over the number of "minority" journalists employed by U.S. papers.

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Last month, WSJ.com reported 15 million unique visitors, a 175 percent increase over March 2007, announced Alan Murray, executive editor of the Wall Street Journal Online, citing the latest figures from Nielsen.

Page views came in at nearly 165 million, up 75 percent year-over-year, Portfolio.com reported.

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News Corporation Chairman Rupert Murdoch will temporarily join the board of directors of U.S. news agency the Associated Press, ABC News reported Tuesday.

Murdoch will be replacing Jay Smith, president of Cox Newspapers, who retired after five years on the board. Murdoch will sit on the 18-member board until the next election of directors.

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The City Paper, a free daily in Nashville, will switch from a daily model to a twice weekly model at the end of April, Newspaper Innovation reported Tuesday.

The last daily issue will be printed April 25.

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Le Monde journalists went on strike Monday for the second time the newspaper's history to protest 130 staff cuts in newsroom positions, Reuters reported Tuesday.

Like other newspapers worldwide, the influential French newspaper has been struggling with rising costs and declining advertising revenues, as well as online competition.

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The New York Times could be losing some of its most senior staffers and top names if those taking buyouts and those leaning toward buyouts are accepted, Radar magazine reported Tuesday.

Those already announced to be taking buyouts include three Pulitzer Prize winners: Linda Greenhouse, the paper's Supreme Court correspondent, John Noble Wilford and David Cay Johnston.

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The Financial Times, impacted by the downward sales trend afflicting the quality daily papers, recording a 1.3 percent year-on-year circulation decline last month.

The business title sold an average of 454,937 copies worldwide in March, according to the latest figures from the Audit Bureau of Circulations.

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Global IPTV households reached more than 14 million last year, up from merely 4.7 million in 2006, according to research firm Parks Associates.

In Europe, the growth was particularly strong, with more than 250 percent increase last year. Now, nearly 60 percent of worldwide IPTV households come from Europe.

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The Associated Press adds a new feature to its Online Video Network, which allows members to syndicate local video to other newspaper, TV and radio station sites in the network, Media Post reported Monday.

Media outlets syndicating video will take a 30-percent ad revenue cut when it plays on other sites. Of the balance, 20 percent will belong to the site using the video and 50 percent will be divided between the AP and MSN, which bolsters the new platform.

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Baltimore will launch a second free daily called ‘b’ Monday, according to Newspaper Innovation.

The free daily is published by Baltimore Sun and will have an initial circulation of 50,000. The Circulation is predicted to increase 75,000 in September, and possibly reach 100,000 by the end of the year, Newspaper Innovation reported.

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MediaSpace, a newspaper ad clearinghouse partnering with over 1,900 American newspapers, announced Monday that it is moving towards speeding up the invoicing and verification process for print newspaper ads with a new e-invoice system.

The new system by MediaSpace transports electronic invoices and tearsheets to advertisers in half the time. Sometimes the ad will appear the same day, according to Beth Cohen, MediaSpace’s vice president of finance.

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AOL users will be able to receive news alerts and other features from USA Today via instant message, according to Media Post.

Using the new service, AOL AIM users can search the paper's headlines through instant messages simply by sending one or a set of keyword in the AIM dialogue window. With the same method, they can also set up to receive news alerts.

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Newspaper company valuations will still be depressing until the industry finds out how to connect with younger readers, according to the private equity firm Quadrangle Capital Partners said on Wednesday.

“Finding that new model, which is heavily dependent on the Internet and other electronic technologies, is crucial for publishers who want to remain relevant to younger readers,” Joshua Steiner, Quadrangle managing principal, said.

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The two free Singapore dailies, Today and MyPaper, have grown in circulation from 250,000 to 300,000 each during 2008, NewspaperInnovation.com reported on Friday.

The free daily Today (MediaCorp) launched in 2000, while MyPaper (Singapore Press Holdings), was launched in 2006.

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The Deutsche Post World Net AG plans to launch a free newspaper are opposed by German newspaper publishing houses, according to Wolfgang Fuerstner, the managing director of VDZ, Forbes reported Friday.

According to Juergen Gerdes, Deutsche Post’s board member, in an interview with the Financial Times Deutschland, the German mail services company is hoping to expand its advertising revenues in order to offset refusals within its core mail business, thus a free newspaper will be launched with a print run of 1 million, Forbes reported.

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Personal computers, the Internet, and broadband have continued to grow in Europe since 2003, and by 2010, computers and the Internet are expected to reach more than 60 percent, according to the data from Screen Digest and Eurostat.

In 2003, the penetration of computer (per household) was 49 percent, higher than that of online and broadband, which reported at 35.2 percent and 5.1 percent, respectively.

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Readers and editors both trust what they read on newspaper Web sites, but readers are generally not as troubled by anonymous reader comments at the end of online articles as editors are, according to an Associated Press Managing Editors poll released this week, the Kennebec Journal and Morning Sentinel in Maine reported Thursday.

More than 1,200 U.S. editors and 500 online news readers were surveyed.

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The founder of the Vail Daily in Colorado in 1981, Jim Pavelich is preparing to launch another daily in his hometown, Newspaper Innovation reported Thursday.

In 1993, the Vail Daily was sold to Swift newspapers, however, Pavelich has said he is not content with situation of the paper now.

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Roger Alton, formerly the editor of The Observer, will on Thursday be appointed editor of The Independent, the Financial Times reported Thursday.

This change is being made as part of a rearrangement of management in an attempt to stem losses at the flagship newspaper owned by Anthony O'Reilly's Independent News & Media.

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