Sirius Satellite Radio Inc. and XM Satellite Radio Holdings Inc. both rose Friday following Citigroup's recommendation that investors buy shares in both companies. Analyst Eileen Furukawa made the call. "In our view, satellite radio is one of the few areas within the media sector that offers attractive secular growth," the Citigroup analyst wrote in a report. "The industry has already experienced robust growth from 4.4 million subscribers at the end of 2004 to our estimate of 9 million by the end of 2005." Furukawa predicted XM Satellite Radio shares could hit $43 within the year; Sirius shares could reach $9.00. …

With the excitement surrounding Howard Stern's arrival on Sirius Satellite Radio early in the new year, the satellite-radio business is beginning to act a little like Proctor & Gamble's hugely profitable shaver franchise. That is, it sees the virtue of selling the radios inexpensively in order to sign subscribers to contracts that, presumably, will keep them hooked for years to come. Both Sirius and XM, together with other manufacturers of the specialty radios, are taking advantage of the holiday selling season to discount their models and get them into the hands of consumers. "This holiday shopping season is viewed as …

The headline at Editor & Publisher's Web site pretty much tells the story. "Hell Freezes Over: Wal-Mart Launches Massive Newspaper Ad Push." After a long stretch during which the powerhouse retailer placed its ad dollars seemingly everywhere but in the nation's local newspapers, it bought full-page ads in 336 Midwestern papers several days ago. The AP story reporting on the move described it as a "test" that, if successful for Wal-Mart, could lead to advertising in larger newspapers across the U.S. Wal-Mart executives said it was closely monitoring the results of its ad initiative to see if it drove sales …

As if People, Us Weekly, In Touch and the scores of other celebrity-oriented magazines didn't already have enough competition. Now AOL, in the midst of converting to a free, all-purpose Web portal, is making a deliberate move into the field. It has launched TMZ.com, a celeb-obsessed news site that will offer videos and an expansive archive of star-photo archives. Revlon, Hilton Hotels, and New Line Cinemas are charter advertisers. New Line and AOL itself are both units of parent Time Warner. Harvey Levin, a familiar TV presence on the syndicated TV show “Celebrity Justice,” will serve as managing editor …

The by turns mercurial, brilliant, impenetrable Jann Wenner has decided it's time to fix another of the magazines in his stable. This time he's focusing on Men's Journal, which is not perceived in the industry as being in trouble, but which has never broken through as a trendsetter or buzz-maker. To begin, he's lured Brad Weiners, executive editor of National Geographic Adventure, to serve in the same role at Men's Journal. Weiners' predecessor in the position was Michael Caruso, oft-traveled veteran editor, who left in October without much explanation. MJ reported an average paid circulation of 675,452 in the …

Explaining that News Corp. is basically "a pretty simple company," Peter Chernin, its CEO, told a group of investors attending a Credit Suisse First Boston Media Week Conference panel that, "We are trying to make content and then we want to be able to get it to viewers' homes... without gatekeepers, without intermediaries." It's a typically bold Murdochian gambit: Own "everything," from content to distribution. Why share the wealth? For his company, Chernin said, the rapid deployment of broadband was nothing but good news. The recognition that the Internet was driving so much distribution of content is what led to …

Magazine ad pages, off to a good start in 2005, have stalled, according to Media Life, which attributes the weakness to a "growing uncertainty across the entire media economy." Ad pages for November were actually down 1.1 percent, the third straight month of decline. Said the Web site: "Through the first 11 months of the year, ad pages are essentially flat with a year ago, up a mere 0.4 percent through November and reflecting a slowdown that set in during the fall. As recently as September, yearly growth was still above 1 percent, and through June ad pages were up …

Proving once more that you can't keep a pretty (and famous) face down, Kate Moss has picked up a string of new endorsement contracts and appears on the December cover of French Vogue.  The disgraced model, the object of a cocaine scandal just three months ago, has reemerged on the scene.  "If you use Kate Moss as a symbol of freedom, of transgression, you have to be honest," said Francois-Henri Pinault, who heads Gucci and Yves Saint Laurent. "You can't use her image to convey those kinds of messages and then be surprised that she breaks the rules in …

Despite a drumbeat of negative news about the present state of the newspaper industry and prospects for its future, the fact of the matter is that most newspapers still earn a profit, some a sizable one. Among the most profitable big papers are those owned by Knight Ridder, the second-largest newspaper company in the U.S., in terms of circulation, behind Gannett. Which is why media observers will watch with interest in the next several days as preliminary bidding begins for KR. The company owns 32 newspapers in U.S. cities, including Miami, Philadelphia, and Kansas City. The New York Times, in …

Gannett executives said the company, the country's largest newspaper chain, would garner record revenues in 2005, despite a difficult advertising environment. The increase in online revenues--up a whopping 52 percent this year--is partly responsible for Gannett's rosy picture. Online represents 7 percent of the company's total revenues, Gannett executives said. In related news, Craig Dubow, Gannett's president and CEO, acknowledged that his team is taking "a hard look" at the sale of Knight Ridder, but refused to say more.