United Business Media (UBM) has announced it is to acquire two US medical publishing businesses for a total of £37.5 million. The Oncology Group and Cliggott Publishing are being bought from SCP Communications and will be integrated into CMP Healthcare Media, the Healthcare division of CMP Media in the US. Publications changing hands include Oncology… Continue reading UBM Purchases Specialist Medical Publishers

Vivendi Universal, the France-based media and entertainment group, moved into the black in its third quarter, for the first time in two years. Net profits at the company came in at €131 million, up from a loss of €1.2 billion in Q3 2002. Vivendi said that the performance of its various media business units has… Continue reading Vivendi Universal Is Back In Black

Future Network, the international magazine group, has acquired the US’ second best-selling guitar magazine, Guitar One, from Cherry Lane Magazines for £1.5 million in cash. This is Future’s second acquisition of a US guitar magazine business this year; in September the company bought Guitar World and related titles for £10 million (see Future Network Profits… Continue reading Future Buys Second US Guitar Magazine Group

The Trade Union Congress (TUC) has called on shareholders to vote against the election of James Murdoch as a non-executive director of satellite broadcaster BSkyB. The TUC says that James Murdoch cannot be seen to be a sufficiently independent director of a company of which his father, Rupert Murdoch, is chairman. The move is the… Continue reading Murdoch Faces Pressure From TUC Over Son’s Appointment

Conditions in the US advertising markets are starting to look ‘a little brighter’, according to Initiative Media’s CEO, Alec Gerster. In a conference call with Merrill Lynch analysts, Gerster said that although the ‘tone’ of the ad market is improving, it remains uneven and there does not appear to be a swell in demand prior… Continue reading US Ad Market Looks A Little Brighter, Says Initiative Chief

Contrary to received wisdom, advertising revenues are becoming a less significant factor in the financial performance of global advertising and media agencies, according to analysts at Morgan Stanley. In an industry overview report, the broker advises investors that agencies have become decoupled from the advertising revenue cycle. This is a result of changes in the… Continue reading Agencies Decoupled From Ad Revenue Cycle, Says Morgan Stanley

The mobile games market will be worth â‚Ź1.65 billion in 2006, up from just â‚Ź0.46 billion in 2003, according to a new study from the Wireless World Forum (W2F). The forecast is at the conservative end of the range of recent figures from other groups, which have predicted revenues as high as â‚Ź38.1 billion over… Continue reading W2F Produces Conservative Mobile Gaming Forecasts

Free digital television and radio service, Freeview, has celebrated its first year of sales by revealing that between 1.7 and 2.1 million households now receive the service. Since January this year sales of Freeview boxes have been running at an average of 100,000 per month, placing it amongst the fastest-growing consumer electronics product ever. The… Continue reading Freeview Celebrates First Birthday With Record Sales

The standardisation of online advertising formats came a step closer today as the European Interactive Advertising Association (EIAA) and the Interactive Advertising Bureau Europe (IAB Europe) launched a new initiative to promote global consistency. The two groups are hoping that the development of a set of standard formats will make online as easy to plan,… Continue reading Industry Bodies Herald Standard Online Ads

Worldwide revenues from on-premise web conferencing are set to rise from $361 million in 2003 to $1.5 billion by 2007, according to a new report from the Radicati Group. As the technology improves, increasingly executives are turning to video conferencing via the web in order to save on corporate travel expenses. Anxiety over air travel… Continue reading Web Conferencing Revenues To Rise Fourfold By 2007