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.

We are able to offer this new service thanks to the great response to our Media Sleuth project in which you, our readers, are contributing media information happening in your countries that  have escaped the notice of the international media, or you are providing us information on covered events that others simply didn't know about. We invite more of you to become Media Sleuths. For more information click here.

Europe Has No Business Leaders in Media – Except Sir Richard

One would think among all European business leaders CNBC Europe would find two, three or maybe four in the media sector who’ve shown bravery and/or skill above the usual, boring bankers and gizmo makers and sellers. But, no. Sir Richard Branson is the only nominee – for “outstanding leadership in business practices.”

There’s always next year…

Pope Doesn’t Like The Way The Media  “harms” Children

Pope Benedict said on Wednesday that he finds “repulsive” programs aimed at children, including animated films and video games, that exalt violence and portray anti-social behavior or the trivialization of human sexuality” and that producers cannot hide behind the claim that it is just entertainment. 

The Pope made his comments in a message for the Roman Catholic Church's World Day of Communications, whose theme this year is "Children and the Media: A Challenge for Education".

"How could one explain this 'entertainment' to the countless innocent young people who actually suffer violence, exploitation and abuse?" he asked.

"I appeal to the leaders of the media industry to educate and encourage producers to safeguard the common good, to uphold the truth, to protect individual human dignity and promote respect for the needs of the family," he said.

Belgium’s Royal Heir Doesn’t Like Criticism

Prince Philippe, heir to the Belgian throne, has been criticized in the Belgian media for the way he led a recent trade mission to South Africa, so he took the occasion at this week’s palace gathering of journalists to tell two in particular what he thought of the criticism.

“The prince felt it was inappropriate to write negative reports on the person whose destiny is to assume the throne. I told him politely but firmly that our job is to take a critical position,” Yves Desmete, editor-in-chief of the De Morgen newspaper said.

Pol Van Den Driessche, political editor of the VTM television channel, said he had presented a program on the visit in which he said the prince seemed disinterested on the trip. “How would you know? You weren’t even there,” the prince scolded him.

And then Prince Philippe reportedly he made the ultimate threat. “If you produce more negative commentaries we won’t be shaking hands any more and you won’t be welcome at the palace.”

More Than 1 Billion Mobile Handsets Shipped In 2006

Christmas, apparently, was the season to give one another mobile phones. Shipments during the holiday season totaled 295 million, pushing the number of mobile phones for the year to 1.02 billion, according to technology research firm IDC.

Nokia remained the industry leader, shipping 348 million phones for a 25.8% market share, with Motorola closing the gap slightly but still in second place shipping 217 million handsets for a 22.3% market share. But Nokia saw the bulk of its sales in entry-level phones where the margins are smaller and thus its profits were down on the year.

Samsung was third with an 11% market share, Sony Ericsson leaped ahead of LG to take 8.8% and LG was fifth with 5.8%.

Ringier and Dogan Team in Romanian TV

Romanian TV channel Kanal D, owned primarily by Dogan Yayin Holdings, picked up a new partner in Swiss publisher Ringier. Kanal D is a new license set to launch February 18th. Ringier is already Romania’s leading published with 15 titles.

Swiss PSB Relinquishes F1 Rights

The ever diligent SSR-SRG finance office made hard decisions in the face of lower than desired revenue from the radio and TV tax. First, from 2008 SSR-SRG television channels will no longer broadcast Formula 1 races, guaranteed to tee off several Swiss residents like Michael Schumacher. Second, new TV projects in the Swiss-German speaking region will not see the light of day.

Its One Thing To Give Away Newspapers, But Are They Read?

The Westminster City Council that controls a huge chunk of London says that since two free PM newspapers hit the streets in September –thelondonpaper and London Lite – it has to clean up daily another three tons of refuse and it is threatening to ban the newspapers unless they help pay the extra costs that clean-up entails.

The council says that in the main London shopping areas the free newspapers are responsible for around a quarter of the trash that is collected. It wants to install another 300 trash baskets, and estimates the cost of emptying them will be some £500,000 ($975,000, €750,000)  over two years.

But what must be more worrying about all of this to advertisers is that it seems clear that many of the 800,000 total papers distributed daily are being tossed after a quick read, so is the advertising message getting through – especially if people don’t keep the newspaper as reference?

As for the trash clean up, both publications are in discussions with the council and say they are working on resolving the problem.

The Agony Continues At The Boston Globe

As yet another in a long string of cost-cutting moves The Boston Globe is to close its last three remaining foreign bureaus – Jerusalem, Berlin and Bogotá. It estimates to save $1 million annually by shutting the offices and bringing the correspondents back to Boston.

That cut comes on top of a cut announced earlier in the month that The Globe was letting go another 17 editorial employees and that it would be shrinking its news hole.

One person who probably applauds the bureau shutting is former GE CEO Jack Welch, who has said he would like to buy The Globe from The New York Times Company and have it concentrate almost fully on local news.

LA Times Says From Now On It “Breaks It on The Web, And Expands It In Print”

The Los Angeles Times says it is transforming its editorial and business model so that no matter what platform people use to gain information The Times will be there as the primary  provider.

The newsroom will now be expected to “continuously break news online, and publishes in print the analysis, personality and utility that great writers and editors can provide in that medium” a company statement said.

“People choose different platforms and products to meet their varying news and information needs throughout the day, and we are positioning The Times to be there when they turn to us,” publisher David Hiller said.

No New Leads In The Anna Politkovskaya Killing

The Russian foreign ministry says there are no new leads into the killing of prominent Russian journalist Anna Politkovskaya who was shot to death October 7 in the entrance to her apartment building.

The foreign ministry denied claims by a visiting delegation of the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) that it had told them there were ongoing investigations into Chechen police officials who had feared Politkovskaya was writing an article about their torturing prisoners.

The claim by the CPJ “does not correspond to reality”, the ministry said. The CPJ insists it was told the Chechens were being investigated.

If the CPJ was correct then that would be reason for red official faces in Moscow for it was just last weekend that President Vladimir Putin told Germany’s chancellor Angela Murkel – Germany holds the EC presidency until June --  that there are no breakthroughs yet in the case.

Venture Capitalists Increased Their 2006 Internet Investments By 25%

US venture capitalists last year invested $4 billion in Internet startups – a 25% increase over 2005, according to a report from the National Venture Capital Association.

But that is still far short of the record $10.2 billion that was invested on Internet startups in 2001 – just before the bubble burst.

Also money is now being invested longer than during the 1999 – 2001 boom times. Then it often took less than three years for an Internet start-up to go public and-for the venture capitalists to cash in big. In today’s investment environment most investments are averaging five to seven years before they attract buyouts or try to go public.

IPod Sales Doing Well In Europe But Consumer Groups Have A Gripe

First it was the French that passed a law last August that Apple’s iPod and iTunes should be compatible with competing digital music players and other music download sites. Now French and German consumer groups are joining a Nordic effort to force Apple to introduce more compatibility.

Norway, Denmark and Sweden have already accused Apple of contract and copyright violations because of the iPod’s incompatibility, and the Norwegians are threatening legal action. 

“Apple is aware of the concerns and we’re looking forward to resolving these issues as quickly as possible,” an Apple spokesman said. “Apple hopes that European governments will encourage a competitive environment that lets innovation thrive, protects intellectual property, and allows consumers to decide which products are successful.” Ouch!

During Christmas iPod gained market share in France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Belgium, Sweden, Austria and Denmark.

Remember The Book Company That Was Going To Print OJ Simpson’s “If I Did It” Book?

First they fired the publishing company’s namesake – Judith Regan. Now they’re closing down the company. Welcome to life in corporate America!

You may recall it was Judith Regan who signed a deal with OJ Simpson to write his “If I Did It” book on how his wife and her friend had been killed back in 1994. After the so-called “trial of the century” the jury took about 30 minutes to find OJ not guilty.  Besides the book there was to be a two-night interview on the Fox Network during the November sweeps period. Already considered a great publishing star this was to have been Regan’s biggest coup.

Then all hell broke out. Even in America, it was all too much. And since ReganBooks was a division of HarperCollins which is a division of News Corp, as is the Fox Network, which is Rupert Murdoch and since the mud started to stick to Murdoch as people started to remember his past as a publisher of sleazy tabloids rather than the respected businessman he is today, it was just a matter of time before Judith Regan would no longer be a News Corp. employee.  In December she was gone. And now Harper Collins has dropped the other shoe – it has disbanded ReganBooks and has fired 10 employees in Los Angeles.

But that's not the end of it. HarperCollins has now been added to a lawsuit filed against OJ by the father of Ronald Goldman, the murdered friend of Simpson’s wife. Goldman had won a civil suit against OJ in 1997 for $33.5 that should be paid to the victim’s families, but OJ cleverly legally protected most of his assets such as a pension, and the families have nothing to show.

If OJ has money from the canceled deal, then the families want it. A federal judge this month froze the money until a hearing scheduled for Wednesday. OJ says the money, paid to a dummy corporation to avoid having to give it up for the civil suit judgment, has already been spent to meet bills.

The saga continues. Same time, same channel.

Magazine Auto Advertising Dropped 13.8% Last Year

Automotive was the largest sector to cut back on its magazine advertising last year, down 13.8%, according to the Publisher’s Information Bureau.

In dollar terms that means that US automakers cut more than $100 million of their spend with Time Inc., according to estimates by TNS Media Intelligence, and no doubt that is one big reason why Time, Inc., fired 289 staff last week.

Time Magazine used to carry more advertising from the auto sector than any other generalist US magazine. General Motors used to be Time’s biggest advertiser.

As a sign of the times, although Detroit cutback, Japan spent more with both Toyota and Honda increasing their spends, but that increase came nowhere near what the magazine lost from Detroit.

China Mobile Breaks Through The 300 Million Domestic Subscriber Barrier

China Mobile added 4.8 million new subscribers in December bringing its total base to 301.25 million. In all China has 461 million mobile users, according to the Ministry of Information Industry, meaning China Mobile has 65% of the market.

Being the world ‘s largest mobile phone operator by market value but only operating domestically could not continue, and the company announced Monday it was paying $284 million to buy 89% of Paktel, Pakistan’s oldest mobile phone company, which has just 1.38 million users.

Pakistan is growing its mobile users in a big way – some 34 million users added in the past 18 months – but Paktel has actually been losing customers. China Mobile will use its financial might to invest in new equipment and utilize its marketing know-how to revive Paktel’s fortunes.

And on the subject of mobile phones, a report by in-Stat says that sales of mobile handsets increased by 20% globally last year and that double-digit growth will continue for at least the next five years. Currently 25% of the world’s population has a mobile phone. In-Stat says that will grow to 50% by 2011.

Now Belgian Newspapers Are After Yahoo For Copyright Infraction

The Belgian Publishers Association has told Yahoo to stop publishing Belgian newspaper articles on its search engine because it provides free access to archived articles for which the newspapers themselves charge readers.

So far it’s just a letter to Yahoo and no court action. Previously the publishers took Google to court to stop it from producing reports from Belgium’s French language newspapers. Google did not show up at the September, 2006, trial for reasons it has never explained and it got slapped with a ruling that if it did not stop reproducing the content it would face a €1 million ($1.3 million) daily fine. Google was later allowed a second day in court where it was represented and a decision is expected by the end of this month.

The Belgian publishers gave already gotten Microsoft to stop similar publication on its Belgian search engine.

US Newspaper M&A Activity In 2006 Second Highest Ever

Merger and acquisition in the US newspaper business reached nearly $10 billion last year – led by McClatchy’s purchase of Knight-Ridder – And activity is forecast to be brisk again in 2007, according to newspaper broker Dirks, Van Essen & Murray.

Apart from McClatchy’s purchase of the 32 Knight Ridder newspapers, it noted the sellers were mostly public companies and the buyers were primarily private companies. “Privately held companies continue to see value in community newspapers,” said Owen Van Essen, president of the newspaper broker. “Prices in the private marketplace remain strong despite lower valuations for the public companies.”

The company believes values in the private marketplace will hold in 2007 as buyers focus on the importance of local news while they also grow their digital revenues based on community coverage.

Is Pearson, publisher of the Financial Times, In Play?

Pearson shares have risen to a five-year high of 841.50 pence on a lot of media speculation that private equity firms are interested in taking it private. Analysts believe that a bid of at least 940 pence will be necessary for shareholder approval, valuing the company at some £8 billion ($16 billion, €12 billion), although others say even that is too low.

Although management has said often in the past that the FT was not for sale, The Daily Mail reported last week, quoting market rumors, that just the FT and its website could be put up for sale with a £650 million ($1.3 billion, €1 billion) price tag.

The FT had fallen on hard times, but is on the road to financial recovery. After making a £81 million ($160 million, €120 million) profit in 2000, it then had four years of large losses before turning a £2 million ($4 million, €3 million) profit last year and it is expected to report around a £10 million profit ($20 million, €15 million) for 2006 with those final results expected next month.

Besides the FT, Pearson runs a major US education business, the Penguin non-fiction book publishing group, and Interactive Data Corporation – a financial market data business.