The center of gravity has shifted in media M&A, with deals moving from larger traditional media deals to mid-sized digital and data deals. In Jordan, Edmiston Group's 2008 year-end report, only 12% of the dollars spent on media deals came from traditional media. The report identifies four M&A growth sectors: database and information, b-to-b online media, consumer online media and interactive marketing services-a sector that "sits between advertiser, marketer and the end user." Newsletter publishing was the only category to see growth in both number of deals (up 33.3%) and deal values (up 5.9%) in 2008. JEGI …

Disney is pushing to crack the tough boys market with a new entertainment brand called Disney XD. Aimed at boys 6-14, it consists of a new cable television channel and Web site with games, music, videos and social networking. Disney executives hope to introduce boys to a host of live-action and animated shows, original movies, new music acts and games. They also hope to leverage boys' love of sports, using the company's ESPN brand, which will help with original programming and sports-themed topics for Disney XD. The company is trying to replicate its success with girl-targeted franchises …

The CW network will move its upfront presentation to the morning of Thursday May 21, backing away from a 2008 experiment. Last year entertainment chief Dawn Ostroff tried to talk about the outlet's fall lineup in a distracting, party-like atmosphere. This year's presentation will be more traditional. The CW's move comes after Fox boldly said last year it would make its presentation on May 18, a move that could impinge on NBC, which has made the first upfront presentation for at least a decade. Once frothy confabs featuring celebrities and lavish after-parties, the network upfronts have been …

African Americans in the advertising industry are significantly underrepresented and underpaid due to "embedded racial bias that creates systematic barriers to inclusion," says a new study by civil rights law firm Mehri & Skalet. It cites employment and salary statistics and compares them to similar industries. Among the findings: About 16% of large ad agencies employ no black managers or professionals, a rate that is 60% percent higher than in the overall labor market. Mehri & Skalet's founding partner, Cyrus Mehri, has achieved landmark racial discrimination settlements from Coca-Cola and Texaco. He is partnering with the NAACP …

In sizing up the $15.5 million settlement that Leo Burnett paid to avoid being sued for overbilling the U.S Army, one issue stands out. Why would Burnett attempt to pull a fast one on the government at all? Anyone with a passing knowledge of government ad contracts knows that the military has "one of the most thorough, complicated billing-and-auditing systems imaginable." Plus, the penalties for screwing the feds are potentially enormous. The federal government is the only client who has its own army of FBI agents and prosecutors and an unlimited budget with which to fund them. …

The media industry pink-slipped people at the highest rate since 2001 last year, while Corporate America has laid off the highest number of employees since 2003. Layoffs in the media industry, which includes film and TV companies, amounted to 28,083 last year, the highest since 43,420 staffers were let go in 2001 per consultancy Challenger, Gray & Christmas. "Heavy job-cutting could continue through at least the first half of 2009," says Challenger CEO John Challenger. Overall, employers cut more than 1.22 million job in 2008, up 59% from the previous year. In 2003, more than 1.23 million workers …

Sumner Redstone, the 85-year-old chairman of Viacom and CBS, is watching his company's stock dive and its debt mount. The legendary mogul may soon be forced to sell off big chunks of his empire. But even more painful for this latter-day King Lear could be the rift dividing his family. A long-simmering feud with his 54-year-old daughter Shari has flared anew over issues of power, money and succession. Redstone is also planning to divorce his wife Paula after five years of marriage and a widely publicized, storybook May-December romance. Among his many money ills, Redstone recently sold off a …

A Spanish-language TV drama opened on Tuesday, a corporate fight that could reshape the Hispanic media landscape in the U.S. In a 3-year-old dispute, Grupo Televisa SA, the Mexican conglomerate, is seeking to sever a 25-year programming agreement with Univision Communications. Televisa supplies Univision with saucy telenovelas and other popular programming. Losing them could threaten Univision's status as the top Spanish-language broadcaster in the U.S. In a civil trial in Los Angles, Televisa's Televisa is alleging breach of contract related to royalty payments and wants to take its programming elsewhere. Univision counters that it has paid Televisa more …

For the hard-nosed business class, Arthur Sulzberger Jr., publisher of The New York Times, is media's biggest chump. But for journalists, he is the media mensch of the year. It seemed like the entire world of media finance urged Sulzberger to cut 30% of the newsroom in 2008, and it cast him as a villain when he didn't. "All over newspaper land last year, owners were stampeding over the cliff in a mass panic." But Sulzberger, unlike other newspaper bosses, didn't pillage or dismember his paper. He cut 100 jobs from the newsroom in February -- well before people …