The Tickle File is ftm's daily column of media news, complimenting the twice weekly 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.

The Tickle File is a time honored journalistic tradition. Invented in 1761 by Urs Tickes, editor of a long disappeared Swiss newspaper, it is an effective tool for organizing article ideas.

To each journalist Tickes would hand 10 file folders saying "Halten Sie Ihre Ideen organisiert und Ihre Schreibtisch sauber, verdammt!"

Unfortunately Tickes met an unfortunate demise. While personally escorting a shipment of 10 million file folders from Sweden, the boat was sunk and all, including Tickes, was lost. Rumors of involvement by a militant Swiss journalists guild - Die organisierte Gesellschaft des Rechtgehirns, durcheinandergebrachte schweizer Journalisten - were never proven.

The legend of Tickes continues...

Here is the ftm Tickle File with notes from the ftm team...and you!

Tickle File Week of November 20, 2006

Mr. Murdoch, the Younger, Charges BBC With Megalomania

James Murdoch, who found his wings derailing Richard Branson’s bid for ITV, proudly pointed at the free market and disparaged the BBC at a London conference sponsored by regulator OFCOM.

“This is not public service; it’s megalomania.”

His reference was the BBC’s web ambitions, which Murdoch called “fantasies.”

Meanwhile, on the other side of the fence, Channel 4 deputy chair Lord David Putnam warned of “any further extension of Murdoch’s tentacles.” Lord Putnam is a leading candidate to replace Michael Grade as BBC chairman.

Oh, this is getting rich.

“Jamming” by Foreign Broadcasts Worries Bulgarians

Minister of State Administration Nikolay Vasilev raised questions in the Bulgarian Parliament about broadcasts from neighboring countries “conquering” the Bulgarian airwaves.

“Foreign stations are conquering and penetrating into our national airwaves without any sanctions,” he said on Khristo Botev Radio (from BBC Monitoring). “We must protect the national airwaves from interference from foreign radio stations.”

Vasilev was directing his attention to high powered Romanian radio stations interfering with public station Radio Horizont along the Romanian border. Along the Greek and Macedonian borders, according the observers, dozens of foreign radio stations over power Bulgarian stations on the same frequencies.

Secretary General of the Communications Regulation Commission (CRC) Luybomir Stoichkov said one problem is a lack of local license holders in certain border regions, something the agency wanted to correct.

“Apart from being a matter of resources this is also an issue of economic behavior,” he explained. “Some regions are not that attractive (for advertising).”

Bulgaria shares borders with Romania on the north marked mostly by the Danube River, Greece and Turkey on the south, Serbia and Macedonia to the west and the Black Sea to the east. 

Money Trouble at Slovak Public Radio

Financial worries continue to plague public radio broadcaster Slovak Radio (SRo). The enterprise released its 2005 audited financial statements showing a SKK 270.5 million (€7.2 million) loss. SRo has been in a state of turmoil over the last two years, only in April appointing Bratislava Old Town mayor Miloslava Zemkova General Director after six months of negotiations. Mrs. Zemkova was previously General Director of Fun Radio Group in Slovakia.

In its 2005 budget SRo expected to duplicate its 2004 positive results, primarily based on a proposed increase in the radio license fee. The Slovak Parliament suspended its deliberation on a new media law, which included an increase in the household radio and television license fee.

One of Mrs. Zemkova’s first initiatives was to renegotiate several lucrative “golden parachutes” extended to sacked managers by her predecessor.

BBC Radio Returns to Prague

The Czech Radio and Television Council (RRTV) approved new license conditions allowing the broadcast of BBC programs.

Last year BBC World Service withdrew staff and operations from several countries, including the Czech Republic. The BBC had produced about five hours of local Czech language news and information programming daily as well as broadcasting the BBC World Service in English.

BBC Radiocom, a wholly owned subsidiary of the BBC, was stuck with a license and no programs. Ceske Rohlas, Czech public radio, stepped in to offer its internet and DVB-T service Ceske Radio in a joint venture with the BBC. The RRTV objected as BBC Radiocom’s license did not allow re-broadcasting. The regulator insisted that the BBC broadcast it own programs.

BBC Radiocom re-submitted its license application to the RRTV, which was rejected at first. The BBC then “adjusted” the application and it was finally approved September 1st.

The prospect of losing BBC World Service programs, available in the Czech Republic since 1939, was highly controversial.

Is The New York Times In Play?

Stories that a billionaire wanted to buy the New York Times, and other stories that CEO Arthur Sulzberger is looking to take the company private have had the company’s shares up and down like a yo-yo this week.

But the more people think about it, it is the Ochs-Sulzberger family that controls the company via the dual class share system and there’s no way they’re going to let go, in spite of pressures from such shareholders as Morgan Stanley, with the exception of perhaps taking the company private.

But all the talk showed once again that when there is talk of a sale then a newspaper company’s shares can take off. For NYT, they gained 7.5% Wednesday, the largest single day’s percentage increase in nearly six years – but on Thursday they closed down 2.5%, still only $2.60 off their 52-week low.

If NYT went public then at what price? Its market capitalization is now $3.47 billion, nearly half what it was at its peak in 2002. If Sulzberger was looking to take the company private this would be as opportune a time as any.

Anheuser-Busch To Double Its Digital Spend in 2007

Anheuser Busch, the largest US brewer with such brands as Budweiser and Michelob, says its advertising spend in 2007 is going to reflect the viewing habits of its consumers, and that means doubling its digital spend and shifting considerable funds from network TV to cable.

Much of its digital spend – said to take up around 10% of the total – will support Bud.tv, an Internet based eight channel TV network.

Randy Baker, chief financial officer, says that its prime audience now spends two-thirds of its time watching cable TV as opposed to one-third of the audience doing that 10 years ago. So while the company will maintain its heavy sports events advertising on the networks look for prime time ads in entertainment shows to get cut.

China’s View Of The Internet: It Should Promote Social Harmony

“The Internet should play a bigger role in promoting social harmony,” according to Cai Mingzhao, vice minister of China’s State Council Information Office. He told the 2006 Forum on Internet Media in China that online fraud, gambling, and the spread of obscene and false information  “poisons the environment for the Web’s development and harms the credibility of Internet media.”

Min Dahong, a senior Internet researcher, told the gathering that offensive online behavior has greatly upset people. “For the sake of healthy development of the Internet, users need to strike a balance between freedom and obligation,” he said.

China is said to have 123 million Internet users, second only to the US.

UK OFCOM Survey Links Broadband to Declines in Traditional TV

UK media regulator OFCOM released a survey of media usage in 11 countries confirming the obvious…people with broadband access watch less traditional, terrestrial television.  Chinese lead the world in watching TV via broadband connection.

In the countries surveyed Sweden has the highest percentage of listeners to publicly funded radio, followed by the UK.  More than half of UK radio revenue comes from public funding. The US radio has the highest percentage of ad spending at 11.5%, compared with 4% in the UK.

10% of UK ad spending goes to the internet, the highest of the 11 countries surveyed.

Sports, Weather Play Well On Mobile TV

A larger proportion of mobile users access sports and the weather than do PC users, but when it comes to search users seem to prefer doing that on the office or home PC than their mobile. That’s the conclusion of a study by Telephia, a company that specializes in telecom and mobile research, and comScore Networks on analyzing the relationship between mobile and desktop usage.

The two most popular sites for mobile users were Accuweather followed by ESPN, whereas. Google and Yahoo were far more popular for PC users.

“Sports is an especially powerful category in mobile, along with weather and news, because they really lend themselves to getting quick snippets of information,” according to Kanishka Agarwal, a Telephia vice president.

But that doesn’t necessarily mean there’s enough revenue yet to support expensive mobile services – remember that ESPN (sports) recently closed its ESPN Mobile channel.

EU Clears Telecom Italia’s Buy Of AOL’s German Access Business

As AOL turns itself into a free portal business in Europe the sale of its Internet access business in Germany, France and UK moves forward with the EC giving approval this week to Telecom Italia’s purchase of AOL’s German access business for about $856 million in cash.

AOL has sold its French access business to Neuf Cegetel for around $365 million in cash and in the UK, mobile phone retailer Carphone Warehouse is buying the access business for some $688 million in cash. The French deal has already closed, the British deal should close Dec. 29 and the German one early next year. All told it means Time Warner gets close to $2 billion cash in getting out of the European Internet access business.

More Than Half The Emails In Europe Are Spam

Between 50% - 80% of all email messages arriving at European inboxes are spam, according to the EU that again has urged its member governments to get tough in enforcing a law passed in 2002 that was meant to crack down on the unwanted mailings.

The Dutch have been most prominent in trying to fight spam with the Dutch Telecommunications watchdog fining three companies last year €60,000 each for sending spam, but those actions are really the exception rather than the rule, and the Commission  says it wants its other members to get their anti-spam act together.

The most spam coming into the EU emanates from the US (21.6%), followed by China 13.4%), with France third at 6.3%.

Citigroup Cuts New York Times to Sell

One week after the New York Times said its Boston Globe was not for sale Citigroup has cut the company from hold to sell. The bank said it believes the stock, less than $2 above its 52-week lows, is still overvalued and there is little chance the company will be sold because of its dual share system that puts company control firmly in the hands of the Sulzberger family.

Car Dealers Say They’re Going To Increase Their Online Spend

US car dealers are planning to increase their online advertising spend in 2007, following in the steps of automakers.

Sixty-two per cent of car dealers in a survey by Cars.com said they were increasing their 2007 online spend. TNS Media Intelligence says automakers have doubled, even tripled their online spend this year.

“Dealers increasingly recognize the value of Internet advertising and the exceptional return on investment it offers, particularly when compared to radio, outdoor, and direct mail programs,” according to Mitch Golub, president of Cars.com. But then he would say that, wouldn’t he!

A Difficult Time For Yahoo China

It has not been a smooth transition time since Yahoo paid $1 billion last year for a 40% share in Alibaba, China’s largest e-commerce company, with Alibaba then taking over Yahoo China operations. The latest problem – Yahoo China’s president who had been on the job for just 40 days has resigned. Analysts believe the resignation is over conflicting strategies for the way forward.

And Yahoo still cannot put behind it that episode in 2004 when Chinese journalist Shi Tao wrote an e-mail via Yahoo about government restrictions in the run-up to the 15th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square and, with Yahoo’s assistance, Chinese authorities tracked him down at his newspaper and imprisoned him for 10 years on charges of “leaking state secrets.”

Yahoo received plenty of international condemnation – the company said it had to comply with local law -- and undoubtedly it had hoped that by now the issue would be forgotten. But the World Association of Newspapers (WAN) has ensured that won’t happen anytime soon by naming Shi the winner of its 2007 Golden Pen of Freedom award.

In announcing the award the WAN board called for the immediate release of Shi and at the same time blasted Yahoo. “The jailing of Mr. Shi is an outrage. It is also a sad example of a western company aiding and abetting repression in the belief that to refuse would harm its activities in that country. As a major media company that commands the world’s attention, Yahoo has an obligation to take the lead in support of freedom of expression on the Internet. Yahoo should be sending a message to repressive regimes they will be left behind if they continue to take information hostage, jail journalists, and deprive their citizens of the right to open debate. Quite the reverse happened in this case.” The WAN board declared.

The award is to be handed out next June at WAN’s annual Congress which will be held in Capetown, South Africa. Think the Chinese will let Shi loose for that?

Search Word Prices Drop

When Google’s shares closed above $500 last week there were plenty of analysts who said there was much more room for them to go higher what with all the revenue the search engine could expect from having half of the Internet’s search advertising business and the expected revenues from YouTube. And then Barrons, the respected financial weekly newspaper, burst the bubble.

According to Barron’s, the average price to buy a search word fell 11% in the second quarter, to $1.27, down 34% from its peak in April, 2005 of $1.93, and the newspaper says, therefore, that earnings will increase “only” 33% in 2007 instead of this year’s 81% growth.

Google is priced at about 37 times expected earnings for next year, and that is a price-earnings ratio that is two to three times more than other companies of similar size. Put it all together and Barron’s thinks its time for the shares to head south.

The shares nosedived on Monday, but closed up 1% Tuesday at $489.50.

Russian Reporters Remove Themselves

When three colleagues were denied entry to the Minsk CIS summit the Russian press corps staged a protest and walked out.

Television crews joined newspapers reporters protesting Belarus authorities’ decision to withhold accreditation from reporters from Moskovsky Komsomolets and Kommersant. Agency reporters remained on the scene.

"One of the reasons for denying access was the offense to the Belarusian head of state and the systematic offense to Belarus," said a spokesperson for Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko. It seems both reporters have been writing articles critical of Lukashenko for years.

Up Grade To ITV

BBC Chairman Michael Grade has been appointed ITV Chairman. Few beyond the principals were aware of the negotiations. Grade was due to become chairman of BBC Trust.

notes:

The fallout for the BBC could be devastating. For ITV: brilliant!

All Christmas Music, All The Time

Radio broadcasters in Europe typically restrain themselves from high volume Christmas music programming.  Traditionally US stations gradually increase through December the number of holiday tunes per hour until the last happy week when every station broadcasts all Christmas music, all the time.

Stations in Denmark and the Netherlands are jumping into the spirit, though it hardly looks like Christmas. Copenhagen’s 100 FM started November 20th with all holiday music and will continue until December 26th…when it launches another new music format.

RTL FM in the Netherlands, which lost its FM license but still operates on cable, is offering, through an arrangement with Sky Radio, “Sky Radio, the Christmas Station.”

notes:

Question: Have you heard other "All Christmas" stations in your city this year?

Let me know, OK.

Rwanda Shuts Down Radio France International Station

The local Kagali FM radio station broadcasting Radio France International (RFI) programs was ordered closed as the diplomatic crisis between the two countries reached a pinnacle. The Rwanda government ordered the French ambassador out, the France embassy closed, the French school closed and RFI’s FM station closed. All this follows a French judge issuing arrest warrants for Rwandan officials close to President Paul Kagame for the death of his predecessor, an act which sparked the murder of 800,000 in 1994.

The BBC, Voice of America (VOA) and Deutsche Welle continue to operate in Rwanda where English and French are widely spoken. RFI’s FM station in Kagali has been operating just over one year.

See  New FM for RFI in Rwanda

Berlusconi Remains Hospitalized Longer Than Expected

Former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi has been ordered to remain in hospital at least through Tuesday as doctors conduct more checks to see why his blood pressure suddenly fell so low that he fainted while giving a speech Sunday night.

Berlusconi, 70, has been under great stress since April when he lost his bid for reelection as Italy’s prime minister. Since then the courts have decreed he must stand trial on fraud charges – his current court case was postponed until Friday because of this illness – and the government is introducing legislation that would require one of his MediaSet terrestrial TV stations to move to the digital platform in a move that will cost him hundreds of millions of Euros in lost advertising revenue.

The fainting episode was quite dramatic and was caught on live TV. He was giving a speech when suddenly his voice started to fade, his eyes closed and his legs grew weak. Bodyguards and his personal doctor ran to the podium to support him before he collapsed. His doctor said he lost consciousness briefly. He walked out of the building later, but his doctor wanted hospital heart tests done and they will take longer than the 24 hours that Berlusconi had originally said he would stay at the hospital.

Putin Praises Independent Media

With so much of Russia’s main media – newspapers and television – coming under Kremlin control via one means or another, it might strike some as refreshing that President Vladimir Putin has heaped praised on independent Russian media.

At a Kremlin ceremony marking the 75th anniversary of television broadcasting in Russia, Putin told the gathering, “Today it is impossible to imagine the development of society and the state without the independent media, without the possibility to listen to various points of view, and without television.”

Monster Joins With Newspapers

Monster Worldwide, a web-based classified advertising giant, has made agreements with several US newspapers under which the companies will introduce co-branded sites.

Monster struck a deal with the privately owned Freedom Communications, North Jersey Media Group, the Honolulu Star-Bulletin, and the Wilkes-Barre Times Leader.

Last week Yahoo announced an agreement with seven US newspaper companies to cooperate on classifieds.

Oops, On The Biggest Online Shopping Day Of The Year And The Wal-Mart Site Crashes

Wal-Mart had really spread the word that this year it was really into discounting and the thing to do was visit their site the day after Thanksgiving – Black Friday – to discover the great bargains on offer in the stores. Great marketing idea but it didn’t take into account just how many people would try and access the site. It crashed and was out for most of the morning.

If it can happen to the world’s largest retailer with all the IT brains any company could wish, then it can happen to anyone. But having it happen to the world’s largest retailer caused dramatic drops on Wall Street on Monday following the company’s announcement on the Saturday that its Friday sales were below that of a year ago. That is not what Wall Street wanted to hear about the start to the prime shopping season.

Wal-Mart is fighting back. It says it is listing on its web site all this week more discounted items. It also says it believes the site won’t crash any more.

Online Shopping Jumps

Two surveys indicate that online shopping is becoming ever more popular. comScore in the US says that home shopping was up 23% in the first three weeks of November over the same time period last year. And in the UK a trade group says that October was the largest month ever for online sales.

In the US comScore says non-travel online spending from Nov. 1 to Nov. 19 was $6.35 billion. In the UK the Interactive Media in Retail Group (IMRG) says the October spend reached a record ?2.7 billion ($5 billion) beating the previous high in December, 2005 when Christmas shopping obviously had a big input.

One reason given for the increased spend is that more people now have broadband.

The IMRG predicts that UK online shopping will increase by 40% in 2007.

FT To sell Les Echos?

The newspaper Liberation that itself has just survived going out of business, says that the very profitable financial Les Echos financial newspaper could be for sale. The newspaper is owned by the UK’s Financial Times and true to its tagline “No FT, No Comment” the FT says “No comment”.

Liberation says that according to one investor the investment banks in Paris are falling over themselves to get involved in any such possible deal.

UK’s Press Gazette Media Trade Magazine Folds

Press Gazette, the weekly UK media trade magazine, went into liquidation over the weekend with its 20 staff made redundant as a last effort for an industry consortium to take over the title failed.

Associated Newspapers and the Telegraph Media Group said they were willing to help finance the publication under a special trust but other groups such as News International and Guardian News & Media said no.

The magazine lost about 20% of its circulation over the past year, from 3,433 to 2,776, and was losing around ?14,000 an issue. But the bulk of its income came from its annual British Press Awards at which many publications paid large amounts to attend and dine at the awards banquet. Attendance fell off this year after Mathew Freud, a PR executive, and Piers Morgan, former editor of the Daly Mirror, had bought the magazine and some newspapers objected to the PR connection and others were not overly fond of Morgan.

Kremlin To Get Its Hands On Russia’s Most Widely Read Newspaper

Whenever the West points fingers at the Kremlin’s increasing control over Russia’s media it usually points to Gazprom, the federation’s huge state-run gas firm with a media division that just seems to gobble up as much of the country’s leading media as it can. Now there will be even more finger pointing since Gazprom says it is buying the country’s most widely read newspaper, Komsomolskaya Pravda (KP).

The newspaper is being sold, completion set for early 2007, for some $70 million by Vladimir Potanin’s Prof-Media Holdings which itself has been on a buying spree in the last weeks buying Rambler TV, and then a controlling interest in Rambler, and also TV3, so the sale could well be to help finance some of that.

KP’s editor-in-chief Vladimir Sungorkin says that editorial policy will not be affected in any way because of the sale. That goes against the grain at what happened earlier to Izvestiya, also sold by Prof-Media to Gazprom, as that newspaper changed from one with a liberal editorial policy to one that strictly adheres to the Kremlin line.

Gazprom also owns NTV, Russia’s largest private television station, several other TV broadcasters, the Itogli news magazine, and one-half of a popular Moscow radio station.

“The sale of Komsomolskaya Pravda means the complete concentration of media in the Kremlin’s hands,” said Igor Yakovenko, general secretary to the Union of Journalists.

notes:

Prof-Media spokesperson Konstantin Vorontsov tells ftm a statement will be forthcoming "once the deal is accomplished."