Hearst is linking up with Mexican publisher Grupo Reforma for a new Spanish-language newspaper in San Antonio, Ad Age reports. Cancha, a twice-weekly paper based on Reforma's sports and entertainment content, is an indication that Mexican media companies are looking to the U.S., with its 40 million Latinos--two-thirds who are of Mexican heritage--for growth. "We hope San Antonio is just the first step," says Jorge Melendez, vice president-new media at Grupo Reforma. "From our side, we're ready to go. The newspapers have to make a commitment," Melendez says. Other possible markets include Los Angeles, San Francisco, Chicago, Houston, and Dallas. …

Advertising and ABC programming is coming to a filling station near you, reports TechWeb.com, with Monday launch of Gas Station TV. The service, delivered via 20-inch high-definition monitors on top of the pumps, is scheduled to roll out to 500 Murphy Oil stations by the close of 2006--with 400 of them in the top 10 markets. Content includes ABC and local news, segments from "Good Morning America," and weather forecasts and traffic updates. ABC's New Media Sales group will sell the time. The theory is that by getting at people in their cars, advertisers can coax them into immediate purchase …

Indicted publisher Conrad Black, with nine months to go before his criminal trial, is "surprising his many enemies by fighting back on every front, with lawsuits, a new newspaper column and frequent appearances on the Toronto social scene," reports a newspaper he once owned. And, according to the Telegraph, "the arrival of a conservative government in Canada--after 13 years of the Liberals, whom Black despised and fought with--has coincided with a shift in public opinion" more in his favor. ""There's a sense that the guy has been hit enough," says Paul Waldie, a Toronto Globe & Mail reporter who covers …

A new mantra of "how local can you go?" could herald a comeback for newspapers as they go through the stormy transition to the Internet, writes Randall Rothenberg in Ad Age. He talks to DotConnect Media, a network of more than 1,500 newspaper Web sites purchased in March by Lee Enterprises with the hope of building a national advertising medium out of the conglomeration of local products. "Broadcast media always had the advantage, because they could communicate instantaneously to a national marketplace," says David Teitler, head of DotConnect. "Yet people trust newspapers. That's newspapers' killer app. Everyone from Procter to …

As he describes his ultimate boss as a fellow with "silver-flecked hair and neatly trimmed mustache" with the look of Ted Turner, Phil Rosenthal of the Chicago Tribune notes that the company will soon find out whether Dennis FitzSimons has the same kind of vision as the man who built CNN. Rosenthal writes in the wake of news that Tribune Company will shell out at least $2 billion to buy back shares of its battered stock by borrowing money, cutting costs, and selling off "non-core" assets. "This strategy, meant to stand as a testimonial to the company's confidence in …

Inspiration Networks hopes to use a little bit of entertainment to spread a whole lot of its version of Christianity, reports the Charlotte Observer. The company is breaking ground on a new 93-acre, $98 million "City of Light" headquarters that will contain a state-of-the-art media production and distribution facility. And while its programming is designed to spread the Word, it relies less on old-fashioned fire-and-brimstone than 21st-century bells and whistles. Some shows feature action sports like skateboarding and surfing along with music for teens, and there are religious cartoons for the youngest set. The company is also pioneering Christian programming …

After years of trading pretty much together, the two main satellite radio companies "appear ready to put some space between them," writes Peter Lauria in the New York Post. "Sirius Satellite Radio, lifted in large part by Howard Stern joining its ranks, has been hitting its subscriber-growth targets and doing everything right in the corner office, while rival XM Satellite Radio has been hit with a litany of negative issues," he says. Lauria notes that in May, Sirius' stock was down 5 percent versus a more than 21 percent swoon from XM. "We seem to be at the inflection point …

Privately held Hearst "is gaining a higher profile at a time when publicly traded companies like Time Warner and Tribune are under mounting pressure from disappointed investors," reports The New York Times. Flush with cash, it has the ability to move in any direction it wants, without worrying about the reception on Wall Street--something that is "is looking more like a strategic advantage," the Times says. "Since I became CEO of Hearst, people have said: 'Do you like running a private company?' and I've said 'yes,'" says Victor Ganzi, who took over in 2002. "Now I say: 'No. I love …

"When wrestling with all the problems of managing the digital revolution, it's instructive to talk to advertising people who remember 1955," writes Martin Sorrell, chief executive of WPP Group, in The Times. At that point, advertising agencies were preparing for the new medium of television and "all that agencies had to do was acquire the same skills and confidence in the production of film as they possessed in print." The agencies developed a variety of strategies to deal with the new medium but were often hampered by the "all-too-human resistance to novelty and change." Fast-forward to 2006 and "again, it's …

With carriage deals in place with the main cable systems operators and DirecTV, News Corp. could roll out the Fox News Business Channel as early as this month, Ad Age reports, citing anonymous sources. However, the channel "has already had a few false starts," and the story notes it has been more than two years since Rupert Murdoch first aired the idea. Since June, when another report suggested it was close to a deal with Time Warner, "executives at Fox News have consistently refused to acknowledge that the channel would even draw a breath of airtime until distribution was in …