Advertising revenues at key US online content sites grew by 33.5% on average in the year to date, according to a poll of 14 of the Online Publishers Association‘s (OPA) member sites. Second quarter sales rose by an average of 34.2% year on year, painting a much rosier picture of the online industry than other… Continue reading OPA Survey Of Key Websites Disputes Ad Revenue Decline

Weak advertising conditions have pushed down revenue growth at French ad network Publicis, according to the group’s first half financial results. Ad revenues fell by around 6.0% in H1, resulting in an overall organic growth of -3.6% for the half, according to analysts at ABN Amro. Net new business wins were reasonably strong at E700… Continue reading ‘Total Lack Of Visibility’ In Ad Market, Says Publicis

European broadcaster, RTL Group, is to acquire the TV and radio assets of the German publishing group Georg von Holtzbrinck in deal worth E170 million. Under the terms of the agreement, RTL will take control of Holtzbrinck’s 47.3% stake in the leading German commercial news channel, n-tv as well as the group’s activities in 12… Continue reading RTL Acquires German Media Group

Telewest Communications, the heavily indebted UK cable operator, is seeking to sell its stake in SMG, the Scottish media company. Telewest, which is expected to imminently undergo a financial restructure (see Telewest Debt Waiver Is On The Cards), has requested shareholder approval to divest of the 16.9% stake in SMG. There will be an extraordinary… Continue reading Telewest Seeks To Divest Of SMG Stake

US advertising spend for first half of 2002 rose by 2.3% year on year, according to new preliminary figures released by Nielsen Monitor-Plus. Despite an expected upturn in internet advertising, the sector saw an 8.4% slide during the first half, with only syndicated television performing worse. National magazine spend dropped slightly, by 1.0%. It was… Continue reading US Adspend Up 2.3% In H1, According To Nielsen Figures

The number of UK internet users with broadband access has increased by 60% in the last six months, according to new survey from NOP. Approximately 8% of web users in Britain currently subscribe to broadband services and this figure is expected to rise to 15% by August 2003. This complements a recent report by Continental… Continue reading Britons Latching Onto The Benefits Of Broadband

Multimedia messaging (MMS) has been overhyped and analysts need to be more realistic in making revenue predictions, says a new report from the Wireless World Forum (W2F). MMS represents the next generation of mobile messaging and involves the transfer of text, sounds, images and video between handsets. Some industry observers have forecasted that annual revenues… Continue reading Potential Impact Of MMS Has Been Overstated, Says Report

Three bidders have been confirmed as potential buyers of the insolvent German media group KirchMedia but Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation will take no further part in the auction process, according to reports in the German press. A consortium including the investment bank Lehman Brothers, German retailer Rewe and Saudi Prince Al-Waleed is believed to have… Continue reading News Corp Out Of The Running For Kirch, Says Report

Almost 10% of the worldÂ’s population now has access to the web according to a new report from Nua Internet Surveys. Based on data collected from a variety of sources, Nua estimates that the global internet audience had increased to 580.78 million users by the end of May 2002. This represents an increase of 36.58… Continue reading One-Tenth of The Global Population Now Online, Says Report

Cable is to be the leading broadband internet platform in the US until 2005, at which point DSL (digital subscriber line) will just steal the lead, according to new forecasts from Park Associates. There will be 40.9 million broadband households in the US by 2005, according to the projections; 17.2 million of these will be… Continue reading DSL To Lead US Mass Adoption Of Broadband