The Tickle File is ftm's daily column of media news, complimenting the feature articles on major media issues. Tickle File items point out media happenings, from the oh-so serious to the not-so serious, that should not escape notice...in a shorter, more informal format.

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The Word “Newspaper” Doesn’t Seem To Belong In Company Names Any More

Newspaper companies are putting out the word in the most direct way they know how that they are no longer just newspaper companies any more. They are media companies.

Thus in the UK, Northcliffe Newspapers, the second largest regional newspaper group, is to become at the end of January, Northcliffe Media Limited.

“This reflects the changing nature of our business. Northcliffe’s digital activities – editorial and commercial – are expanding rapidly, explained group managing director   Michael Pelosi in a staff memo.

Last year GMG Regional Newspapers was renamed as GMG Regional Media.

New York Times Biggest US Newspaper Web Site

The New York Times is by far the most popular US newspaper web site, according to Nielsen/NetRatings.  The site had 13.2 million unique visitors in December, 31% more than second place USA Today that had 9.1 million viewers. The Washington Post was third with 7.6 million.

Increased blogging by reporters is one major reason why visits to newspaper web sites are on the increase, the research company said.   It said the number of people who read blogs on the top 10 newspaper sites tripled to 3.8 million in December from the 1.2 million a year ago.

UK Big Brother Sponsor Quits

“We are totally against any form of racism or bullying,” said Carphone Warehouse CEO Charles Dunstone on pulling the £3 million sponsorship of Celebrity Big Brother.

UK regulator OFCOM reported receiving over 25 thousand complaints – 3 times more than were received concerning Jerry Springer-The Opera.

Cast members appeared to gang up on another cast member who is of Indian descent.

Celebrity Big Brother is broadcast on Channel 4 in the UK and produced by Endemol. The show’s ratings have suffered…until the recent publicity.

Broadcast License Fee Deal Shorts BBC £2 billion

BBC General Director Mark Thompson is “disappointed” saying “tough choices” are ahead. Expect strikes, say the unions.

The broadcast license fee charged to each UK household will rise but at a rate below inflation. The word was announced officially by Culture Secretary Tessa Jowell though the figures have been generally known for a month. She said she is “absolutely delighted.”

Funding through the license fee will guarantee the BBC about £20 billion over the next six years.

Médiamétrie - French National Radio Survey - November/December

Médiamétrie released November/December national radio survey results this morning (January 18)

Up(market share): RTL, RMC, Fun Radio

Down: Europe 1, RTL2, France Info

Top 3: RTL, France Inter, Europe 1

Global IT Spend to Increase 6.3% for each of the next four years

Global IT spending will increase from $1.16 trillion in 2006 to 1.48 trillion by 2010, according to global market intelligence company IDC.

Spending on hardware, software, and IT services are forecast to grow an average 6.3% annually, meaning that the global information market will expand by some 30% over the next four years.

Google Increases Its US Market Share

Google saw its US search share rise to 47.3% in December from November’s 46.9%, according to comScore Networks. The December figures translate into 3.2 billion searches.

Yahoo was far behind in second place with 28.5% (1.9 billion searches), with Microsoft’s MSN third with 10.5% (713 million visitors. Yahoo was up slightly from November; MSN was down.

There were a total of 6.7 billion searches in December by US web users, up just 1% from November but up 30% from a year ago.

FCC Wants To Protect Kids From E-Commerce Web Addresses

The US Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has issued new rules under which broadcasters and cable operators must not display web sites in programming to children 12 and under unless the address shown is at least two clicks away from the e-commerce section.

The FCC’s rules also declare that the web site must contain “a substantial amount of bone fide program-related or other non-commercial content“– in other words the site should not be primarily for commercial purposes.

Big Brother Unrest in UK, OFCOM and Sponsor Reviews

UK media regulator OFCOM received stacks of mail- presumably floods of emails, too – complaining about the behavior of the current Big Brother cast. Several stand accused of making racist comments directed toward Bollywood star Shilpa Shetty. Some reports say complaints have reached 10,000.

But the news worst for Channel 4, UK home of Big Brother, is a “review” by Carphone Warehouse of its €4.5 million sponsorship. Cast members have also walked out recently, for a variety of reasons, and, well, the ratings are slipping.

Just because reality TV is unscripted doesn’t mean a director isn’t standing in the wings yelling “Let’s spice it up, people.”

Financial Services Advertising Picks Up On The Internet

When Yahoo announced last year that it saw a weakness in financial services and automobile advertising in its third quarter Wall Street savaged its shares. So it comes as particularly good news for the Internet portal that financial services, the top advertising sector, accounted for 29% of the online display ads in December, up from November’s 25%, according to Nielsen/NetRatings AdRelevance.

In the top five US sectors, telecoms increased their buy to 13%, up from November’s 10%, but web media and public services were down and retail was flat.

A New CEO For Bertelsmann This Week?

Gunter Thielen’s contract as CEO of privately held Bertelsmann expires Aug. 31, and the supervisory board is said to be meeting this Friday to choose a successor. Thielen is 64 whereas the normal retirement age is 60, but the supervisory board waived that rule for him in 2004 extending his contract until this year.

German newspapers are speculating the two most likely candidates are Hartmut Ostrowski, 48, who heads the company’s Arvato unit and Ewald Walgenbach, 47, who runs the Direct Group book club division.

The company’s main order of business this year is to reduce the debt it took on in its €4.5 billion ($5.8 million) buyout last year of the 25.1% of the company held by Groupe Bruxelles Lambert.

Most Dominant Media In Africa Is Radio

Radio is the dominant mass media channel across Africa, according to the African Media Development Initiative that surveyed the media in 17 sub-Saharan African countries.

The biggest growth area, however, are mobile phones with 10 of the countries reporting annual compound growth rates of more than 85%,

Television remains less accessible and only 50% of the population in seven countries that provided national figures  said more than 50% of the population watched television at least once a week.

Internet usage is also low, with only about 2% of the population in 10 of the countries able to go online. Only South Africa and Zimbabwe have more than 5% of their population accessing the web.

Tsk Tsk, White House Refused Still Photographs After Bush’s Speech

The White House broke with tradition and refused to allow in photographers to snap President Bush after his Iraq speech last week and instead gave out a handout picture. But Reuters and AP, in a huff, refused to take the handouts, probably figuring if they did the White House would continue the practice.

But was that really serving their customers? How about letting the end clients make the decision? Like move the handout and make clear it is a handout – it happens all the time on many other stories – and also move the less clear video grab and let the deciding newspaper make its choice.

Choice – isn’t that one of the things news agencies should be providing their clients?

Thus Reuters’ note to its clients was a bit disingenuous. “Reuters News Pictures regrets that due to restrictions imposed by the White House, Reuters will not be able to provide still photographs from President Bush’s White House address on Iraq.” What it should have said is “will not be able to provide its own still photographs, and can only provide a White House handout plus video grabs.” More honest.

The Washington Post ran the White House handout on its front page with the credit: ERIC DRAPER  – THE WHITE HOUSE. The New York Times used a video grab taken from cable TV showing the C-SPAN logo.

More Layoffs At Time Magazines?

Consultants from McKinsey have been all over Time, Inc magazines the past few week looking for ways to improve efficiency and profitability and to employees that usually translates into looking for ways to get rid of people. The report is in and job layoffs are forecast for this week.

McKinsey apparently has been looking closely at the editing processes and how they can be streamlined.

The general expectation is that the magazine group will announce around 20 layoffs at each of its titles across production, business functions and editorial.

The company dumped 27 employees in the consumer marketing department just days before Christmas. In the past 12 months the company has fired 577 staff.

Time Inc has put up for sale 18 magazines in September, hoping the process would have been completed by the end of last year, but because of the large number of those interested, and a lack of necessary information, things went slower than hoped, with the bidding closing last week.

Merrill Lynch Suggests No One Wants All Of Tribune

Merrill Lynch notes that Tribune’s share price continues to languish around $2 less than the $32.50 it paid last summer to buy back some 15% of its shares and that means, according to the investment house, that no one is really interested in buying the group whole, or if there are any such bids there will be no premium.

Analyst Lauren Rich Fine said in a note, “Investors appear to anticipate that no sale will transpire. Even if there is a sale, a big premium is unlikely.”

Billionaires have been lining up to buy the Los Angeles Times with a $2 billion price tag most heard, but Tribune has said it prefers to sell its broadcast and/or newspaper divisions whole rather than piecemeal.

Several private equity firms, and Gannett, have been sniffing around.

Fair Trade Office Looking at ITV/BSkyB Deal

The UK Office of Fair Trade (OFT) has asked for comments about BSkyB’s purchase of 17.9% of ITV. The question is whether or not a change in “control” has taken place. DUH!

BSkyB owner News International (aka Rupert Murdoch) already owns considerable media territory in the UK…and the rest of the world. It’s deal to acquire a sizable stake in ITV halted moves by NTL and its major shareholder Sir Richard Branson, and presumably others, to take over ITV. Sir Richard referred to Mr. Murdoch as a theat to democracy.

The OFT ruled Friday (January 12) that it has standing to hear arguments, a legal point but a substantial one.

Last year the German competition commission ruled that publisher Axel Springer’s bid to take over ProSiebenSat1 was anti-competitive.

ONDAS Satellite to Offer Talpa Radio Content

John de Mol’s wholly owned Talpa Radio joins Italian network Club DAB offering more radio content via the ONDAS satellite service.

ONDAS will use Talpa’s L-band satellite to cover the Netherlands. It plans to launch a satellite in 2009.

Wolf Out at MTV. The Beat Goes On.

Michael Wolf “left” MTV last week. So did Nicole Browning and Peter Low. Sacrificing Wolf, who came from the nether world of McKinsey & Company, is hardly a surprise. Nobody knew who he was and nobody cared.

But Ms Browning was the Sales Manager for 20 years. Fire all the bean-counters you want but not the sales manager!

A day before all this, Gail Berman “stepped down” as head of Paramount Pictures.

Obviously, the Sumner Redstone view of Viacom’s mission is just not getting across to the troops. Firing Tom Freston for blowing a deal for MySpace – “lost” to Rupert Murdoch – was just the beginning.

The end may just be in sight.