Companies

Kanpur-based publishing house Jagran Prakashan's plans to enter the English newspaper segment have once again been thwarted. Its talks with Delhi-based publication, the Pioneer, hit a roadblock with the Pioneer management refusing to part with the controlling stake to Jagran. Last year, Rs 480-crore Jagran Group, whose flagship brand is Dainik Jagran, was in talks for buying an equity stake in The...

CALL centre and technology jobs have been the main target of offshoring to low-cost operations in places such as India and the Philippines, but journalism is in the sights of one of India's largest offshorers. Satyam Computer Services, the $US1.39 billion ($1.81 billion) software development firm that counts among its clients Coles Myer, Woolworths, AMP and Mayne Logistics, is planning to build up...

Everybody knows that online news is free and that technologically brilliant search engines like Google and Yahoo have been stealing readers -- and revenues -- away from technologically challenged newspaper companies and wire services. It's a common perception, but it's false. Google and Yahoo, along with dozens of other Internet companies, have been quietly agreeing to deals that compensate some...

Opponents of The McClatchy Co.'s sale of a group of Northern California newspapers asked a federal judge Monday for a temporary restraining order to block the deal. Sacramento-based McClatchy (NYSE: MNI) planned to sell the newspapers as part of its divestiture of assets from the acquisition of Knight Ridder Inc. Four newspapers -- three of them in the Bay area -- would have wound up in the hands...

The print media's coverage of last week's announcement of changes to media ownership laws provides a telling illustration of just how important - and how difficult - it is to get media reform right. Federal Communications Minister Helen Coonan released details of her legislative package last Thursday outlining how restrictions on foreign and cross-media ownership would be lifted as soon as...

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Big media deals and strict regulation don't mix well. But will the fear of potential change in control of the White House in 2008 spur mergers and acquisitions before then? That's the question some Washington watchers and bankers are considering as they look beyond this fall's congressional elections to the next presidential contest. "The regulatory environment is probably as...

OTTAWA, July 14 (Reuters) - Canadian regulators' reviews of a proposed mega-merger in broadcasting will focus on how it affects advertising markets and whether the new company will reflect a diversity of news and opinion, officials said on Friday. Bell Globemedia Inc. agreed on Wednesday to a friendly C$1.7 billion ($1.5 billion) takeover of radio and television group CHUM Ltd. (CHM.TO: Quote...

The Zee group has been denied a toehold in the Hindi newspaper market as the battle for control over Hindi daily Amar Ujala’s parent company has gone in favour of the principal shareholder group led by Atul Maheshwari. Company Law Board (CLB) Chairman S Balasubramanian on 11 July passed an order, which directed the Atul Maheshwari group to buy out the 35.33 per cent equity in Amar Ujala...

Australia has scrapped its foreign media ownership and cross-media restrictions today - giving Rupert Murdoch's News Ltd, Lord Rothermere's Daily Mail & General Trust and Tony O'Reilly's Independent News & Media the chance to expand their empires. The Australian government announced today that laws preventing press barons owning newspapers and television channels in the same city will be scrapped...

NEW YORK (Reuters) - U.S. newspaper publishers, including Tribune Co. and McClatchy Co. , posted lower quarterly earnings on Thursday due to circulation declines and the loss of advertising to the Web. Along with Media General Inc. and Journal Register Co. , they reported a drop in ad revenue from the auto industry and other national advertisers. Higher newsprint costs and the lure of free online...