A study at Ohio State University reveals that men and women sometimes rely on media to help regulate their moods, and that--are you surprised?--they use them differently. "When men and women are angry, they both choose the news media articles they read with the goal of regulating their moods," reports Ohio State, but "in some circumstances men choose to read articles that will fuel their anger, while women choose articles that will dissipate it." Researchers discovered that when men were angered and anticipated the chance to retaliate, they chose to read negative online news stories, presumably to sustain their anger …

Among the topics covered by Professor Samir Husni in his latest blog posts is the relative paucity of magazine launches thus far in 2006. He's not worried. He ascribes the fall-off to three factors. First, magazines are not innovating. Instead, they are in a period of copying one another. Second, only a few companies control the newsstands, especially the ultra-valuable checkout-counter pockets. And third, more magazines than ever are dependent on a so-called "print-plus" strategy. Husni: "Companies are spending more money on expanding their Web sites and creating additional content for their already established titles. Anytime we focus on our …

Despite the huge media blitz that attended Howard Stern's leap from terrestrial radio to Sirius satellite radio several months ago, the fact of the matter is that most of his former listeners did not follow him to his new home.  The impediment, clearly, was the monthly fee charged by Sirius.  "The self-proclaimed King of All Media once commanded a national audience of 12 million daily listeners before jumping to satellite in January," reports the Los Angeles Times.  "But since then, his kingdom has shrunk to a small fraction of that size. Meanwhile, the shock jock's main replacements thus far …

It's the same old same old: Cable industry executives eyeing demographic patterns and consumer media habits say they will focus their programming on young--mostly under-30--customers in the coming years.  Simply put, that's where the money will be. The message was repeated again and again at the start of the National Cable & Telecommunications Show and World Congress this week in Atlanta.  From Ad Age: "'We've been looking at a group called millennials, which are people ages 8 to 27,' said Anne Sweeney, president of Disney Television Group. 'In this group, 40 percent go home at night after work and …

Several top media and entertainment companies are objecting to a proposal by the Securities and Exchange Commission that would require them to disclose critical information about stars' salaries and perks, information that they regard as trade secrets.  Viacom and four other big media companies have filed a letter with the SEC maintaining that the compensation information, if shared, would put them at a competitive disadvantage. Joining Viacom in the letter, which was first reported by The Wall Street Journal, were CBS Corp., The Walt Disney Co., NBC Universal, and News Corp., which owns the Fox broadcast network.  "The regulation …

You don't hear much about newspaper launches in the U.S. these days, owing in part to the power of the Web, but newspapers are still thriving in parts of Europe. Next week Axel Springer, publisher of Bild, Europe's best-read paper, will launch Dziennik in Poland.  The daily, based in Warsaw, will be aimed at young, educated Poles. "Eastern European countries, especially Poland, are among the core growth markets for Axel Springer," says Andreas Wiele, responsible for Axel Springer's international properties.  Says Reuters, "The new title will be Springer's second newspaper in the biggest central European market after the tabloid …

With Katie Couric leaving and its crosstown morning competitors preparing to take advantage of a rare opportunity to pick up market share, NBC moved  swiftly to extend the contract of Matt Lauer, the show's popular co-host.  He's now signed on until 2011, which represents a three-year extension on his current deal. Says The New York Times: "He will be paid more than $13 million a year, according to a person who was officially briefed on the deal but not authorized to disclose it--at least a million dollars a year more than [Meredith] Vieira and in the range of what …

Speaking the other day at the International Symposium on Online Journalism in Texas, online publishing consultant Vin Crosbie struck a note of caution. It's all well and good that so many people are reading news on the Web, he said, but that doesn't spell the end of print newspapers--nor does it assure that Net news is up to the quality standards of its more mature cousin. "There is much less revenue in online journalism than in print and down the line, if newspapers have a downward trend in readership, then online journalism could follow," Crosbie said. He added that readers …

It's taken years longer than originally predicted by industry soothsayers, but cable is finally getting to the point where consumers are really in control. Video on demand, digital video recorders, and broadband Internet have conspired to transform the way paying subscribers view the cable programming that comes into their home. That was the dominant messages yesterday as the cable industry's annual trade show got started in Atlanta. Comcast CEO Brian Roberts and Time Warner CEO Dick Parsons, participating on panels at the confab, said they thought the changing business models were good for the industry because they would "grow the …

Reading everything you can about media (including the daily "Around the Net in Media") and feeling depressed about the industry? Bummed about what's happened to newspapers? Angry about the garbage that's on commercial television? P.O.'d that everything of legitimate importance gets demoted to the level of gossip by the time it reaches consumers? Well, then, read William Powers' latest column, which takes a completely contrarian point of view. Powers acknowledges that the situation is far from ideal, but that the bad news about media in the U.S. has been vastly overblown and that the good news is hardly …