Irish media group RTÉ will launch an online streaming news service Thursday, functioning as an Internet-based news channel, called RTÉ News Now, the Sunday Business Post reported.

The service will be available on RTÉ.ie. It may also be available on mobile phone networks in the future.

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A “tipster” e-mailed Gawker, stating that the Wall Street Journal's Page One staff will be absorbed into the news desk, and Page One Editor Mike Williams would become a “roving features editor,” Gawker reported Tuesday night.

The Page One desk has been increasingly marginalised as the newspaper's front page becomes more newsy, Gawker stated.

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Employees at the Portland Press Herald/Main Sunday Telegram were offered buyouts Monday, as executives there aim to cut more than 35 jobs in the face of increased energy and newsprint costs and advertising revenue declines, the Press Herald reported Tuesday.

Staffers who agree to take the buyout next month will receive extended severance packages, based on seniority as well as compensation for unused personal and vacation time.

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By 2013, U.S. consumers will spend as much time on video as on sleeping, stimulated by more PC viewing over the next five years, according to a new study from Solutions Research Group.

Today, the average American aged 12 and older spends on average of about six hours a day on video-based entertainment, increasing from 4.6 hours in 1996. The figure will continue to go up and reach eight hours in 2013.

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Making investments and focusing on the long-term used to seem like a good idea for private newspaper companies in the United States, but financial pressures are putting the squeeze on owners in the short-term, which is putting futures in peril, Fortune reported Tuesday.

Take, for example, Brian Tierney, who, with a group of investors, bought the Philadelphia Inquirer and sister tabloid Daily News, for US$515 million in 2006. At that time, the equation seemed simple: invest more money into the newspapers to boost circulation and revenue. But two years later, that strategy hasn't worked, and Standard & Poor reported last week that Philadelphia Media Holdings missed a June 1 interest payment on a mezzanine loan and is in violation of its covenants on its senior debt, according to the Fortune article, posted by CNN Money.

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Sporting News will launch an online daily national sports newspaper July 23, to be called Sporting News Today, the group announced Tuesday.

The U.S. magazine will also reformat and redesign its Sporting News Magazine.

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The U.S. advertising economy marked a tepid 0.6 percent growth during the first quarter of 2008, according to data released Wednesday by TNS Media Intelligence. However, concerns about the economy are still holding back ad spending in some major media, Media Post reported.

"Enduring concerns about economic conditions and consumer spending behavior continued to cast a pall over the advertising market during the first quarter. After a hopeful start to the year, the pace of ad spending slowed perceptibly during March and early figures from the second quarter indicate little immediate or sustained improvement in the core ad economy," according to Jon Swallen, senior vice president-research at TNS media intelligence.

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Google accounted for more than 68 percent of all search traffic in the United States, and for about 87 percent in the United Kingdom, according to data collected by Hitwise in May.

The online search giant reported year-over-year growth in both countries.

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