Times Newspapers has reported a loss of £51.3 million for the year ending June 30 2008, compared with a loss of £43.9 million for the previous year.The publisher’s losses reportedly came from a rise in the cost of newsprint, a one-off charge associated with moving the print-run from Wapping to Broxbourne and redundancy costs.The group’s… Continue reading Times Newspapers reports £51 million loss

The Association of Online Publishers has announced the shortlist for its 2009 Digital Publishing Awards.Winners for each of the 17 categories, which include innovation, mobile and commercial partnership, will be announced at an awards dinner on June 2 in London.Bauer Media’s digital sales team, Future Publishing’s digital ad team and IPC Media’s Ignite are among… Continue reading AOP announces Digital Publishing Awards shortlist

Virgin Media is planning a major push to encourage the half of its customers who have yet to try its VoD services to do so.The cable TV broadcaster also hopes to capitalise on its pay-TV rival Sky’s success with high definition services by launching more HD channels over the summer and increasing the amount of… Continue reading Virgin Media is set for video-on-demand push

ITV1’s one-off drama Compulsion peaked with 5.4 million viewers at 9pm last night but failed to hold the highest ratings during the full 9pm to 10pm peak-slot.The drama starring Ray Winstone and Parminder Nagra, which was loosely based on Jacobean tragedy The Changeling, pulled in its highest share during the first fifteen minutes of the… Continue reading Compulsion loses out to Ashes to Ashes

Setanta has slashed its subscription charge to just £3.33 a month in a bid to keep customers over the summer period.The sports broadcaster is set to offer existing subscribers live sports for just £9.99 for three months, a significant reduction on Setanta’s normal rate of £12.99 a month for satellite subscribers.Setanta is thought to be… Continue reading Setanta slashes subscription charges

Global Radio has implemented a further round of jobs cuts, which will mainly affect backroom staff at the group’s Xfm and Gold network of stations.Global declined to comment on specifics but the total number of job losses are expected to be between 20 and 30 staff on the two station networks, which have struggled to… Continue reading Global Radio starts another round of redundancies

Virgin Media added 7,100 new subscribers in the first quarter of 2009 but saw revenues fall below £936 million due to poor performance in its business communications division.The cable company persuaded 47,300 households to take up its broadband service, down from the 57,100 in the run-up to Christmas and 88,400 during the same period last… Continue reading Virgin Media gains 7,100 customers in Q1

ITV1’s new Taggart series secured the highest ratings during the all-important 9pm to 10pm peak-hour last night with more than 4.3 million viewers.The long-running crime drama, with Alex Norton and Blythe Duff, kick-started with a high of 4.36 million viewers and a 19.3% average audience share.Elsewhere, BBC One’s Crimewatch, which featured the hunt for the… Continue reading Taggart returns with over 4m viewers

The Local Radio Company has received a renewed takeover offer of £2.5 million from Hallwood.Hallwood’s new offer, which well exceeds its previous bid of £1.8 million, values the company’s shares at 3.5p each.The company’s renewed bid comes after rival bidder UKRD offered LRC 3.25p per share on Wednesday – UKRD increased its offer after its… Continue reading Shareholders increase The Local Radio Company offer to £2.5m

Disney has acquired almost a 30% stake in US online TV platform Hulu, the joint venture between NBC Universal and News Corp.The deal will see Disney broadcast full-length episodes of its ABC TV programmes, such as Lost, Grey’s Anatomy, Ugly Betty and Desperate Housewives on Hulu.Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed but all… Continue reading Disney acquires stake in Hulu