Major League Baseball seems downright brazen as it launches its cable network in more than 50 million homes Jan. 1--the biggest debut in the history of cable. The net's flagship show, "MLB Tonight," will air every evening except Sunday during the regular season, running until a half hour after the night's final game is over. Every Thursday night, the net will also broadcast a game and game-related events. The MLB Network's toughest competition could be local baseball broadcasts and coverage. To that end, the MLB plans to focus on big-picture coverage, including nightly in-game look-ins, live games and World …

The Seattle Times will freeze the 2009 pension accruals of its 500 non-union managers and staff. Those same workers also have to take one week of unpaid leave by the end of Feb. 2009. The pension freeze takes effect Feb. 6 and does not affect the company's 401(k) plan. The paper says it will negotiate with its unions starting next week to "figure out how they will participate in the cost savings." The McClatchy Co. owns a 49.5% stake in The Seattle Times. That stake is now worth $7.94 million, compared with $102.2 million in 2006. Majority owner, …

The FCC says a small percentage of television viewers who hook up converter boxes to their analog-only TV sets could still lose some or all broadcast channels after the Feb. 17 digital transition. A new FCC report states that after the digital switch, nearly a fifth of the nation's full-power television stations will no longer reach at least 2% of viewers now covered by analog signals, even with converter equipment. Concerns have been mounting that despite what digital transition ads say, some consumers with converter boxes will still lose over-the-air broadcast channels after the mandatory switch. The reason …

Media-related jobs have been declining for the last seven years, and 2008 didn't provide any relief. Media employment fell by 3.1% (27,600 jobs) from the start of the recession in December 2007 through October 2008. In contrast, ad and marketing-related jobs have enjoyed some boom times. In fact, marketing consulting jobs are now at a record high. Employment at advertising agencies and similar companies reached an all-time high in November '07, but since then has fallen by 1.1% (8,500 jobs). For perspective, keep in mind that the U.S. economy overall peaked in December 2007, then lost 1.4% of …

New York Times Co. is actively peddling its stake in the holding company of the Boston Red Sox baseball team. For months, rumors have swirled that the newspaper company is open to selling non-core assets. Besides its flagship newspaper and The Boston Globe, the company owns About.com and a 17.5% stake in New England Sports Ventures, which owns the Red Sox, Fenway Park and most of the cable network that airs Red Sox games. At a quarterly meeting of NESV's limited partners, the Times Co. indicated to the partnership its intention to sell the stake. Since then Times Co. …

The New York Times Co. has a rough month. Total revenues fell 13.9% in November compared with a year ago. Advertising revenues fell even further, down 20.9% for the month. Particularly worrisome is that Internet revenues slid along with print, even though traffic at the company's flagship NYTimes.com swelled 10%. Internet ad revenues decreased 3.8% in November. That decline is swift turnaround, since income from Internet ads had been growing until last month, increasing 11.6% from Jan.-Nov. 2008, compared with the same period in 2007. Despite the dip, the NYT's online revenues continue to account for a …

DailyLit shares novels and nonfiction books with nearly 150,000 subscribers in short, customized installments via email and RSS feed. Now it's opening its virtual pages to advertisers. DailyLit works with Alfred A. Knopf, Oxford University Press and other publishers to license digital rights for everything from romance novels to nonfiction how-to guides. Each installment typically takes up to five minutes to read, and readers can choose frequency and delivery time. DailyLit helps match advertisers with books and negotiates the duration of the sponsorship. All installments for the sponsored book feature the advertiser's logo and a link to …