National publishers are hoping that regional ads in their magazines will boost their bottom lines, even though the fight for local ad spending is getting more bruising. Last year, regionally targeted ads actually took a bigger hit than magazine ad pages on the whole, which fell 11.7%, according to the PIB. Regional pages fell 18% in 2008. Some say local-media spending will keep falling even after the recession lifts. Local ad revenue will post a 1.4% compound annual decline from 2008 to 2013, according to the BIA. But industry executives say the recession gives national magazines an edge in …

CBS and NBC, looking to reduce prime-time programming costs, are turning to Canadian television producers for new shows. Two of these programs will air in May. CBS, which introduced the Canadian drama "Flashpoint" last year, is adding "The Bridge," a police series filmed in Toronto. NBC nabbed "The Listener," about a telepathic paramedic in the same city. U.S. networks have made shows in Canada for years to gain tax benefits. Now they are buying dramas set north of the border, which are written and produced for Canadian TV. CTV is sharing costs with the U.S. networks and will air …

The union representing employees at the financially troubled San Francisco Chronicle have asked the newspaper's owner, Hearst, for the chance to purchase the newspaper if it is put up for sale. The request was made in a letter the California Media Workers Guild submitted to Hearst and the possibility of employee ownership was floated in a paid ad in the San Francisco Examiner. In its letter, the union says it wants to "form a public-labor partnership to explore the possibility of acquiring the Chronicle should the paper be offered for sale. If necessary, we will keep the paper …

New York Times Co. has raised $225 million in a sale-leaseback of its share of its 52-story Manhattan headquarters building, gaining some much-needed debt relief. The company has more than $1 billion in debt maturing in the next couple of years. Real-estate investment firm W.P. Carey & Co. is buying the 21 floors in the building occupied by the newspaper, and will lease the space back for to it for up to 15 years. The paper can buy the space back in 2019 for $250 million. The deal helps the publisher effectively build a financial bridge to …

While many in the industry have been wringing their hands over the death of the sitcom, CBS has asserted its dominance over the genre. From both a cultural and commercial perspective, no other network -- including former comedy champ NBC -- comes close to matching CBS's Monday night lineup of laughs. It's an achievement for CBS to have hit shows in a genre that advertisers of all stripes covet. Plus, comedies have been the genre best able to generate back-end revenue from syndication. CBS has four of the five most-watched live-action comedies, with "How I Met Your Mother" …

WPP, the ad giant led by Martin Sorrell, last week moved ahead of Omnicom as the world's largest owner of agencies based on reported revenue. WPP posted $13.6 billion in revenue for 2008, compared to Omnicom's revenue of $13.4 billion, thanks to WPP's inclusion of two months of revenue from TNS, its new $1.9 billion acquisition. But Sorrell had to rack up the largest debt load in his sector to become the biggest player. WPP ended 2008 with a total debt of $8.2 billion, including debt from the TNS deal. WPP's debt increased last year by $3.4 billion …

As news trickles out of the networks about their fall TV plans, an unlikely theme is buzzing in the Hollywood air: recession. ABC has "Canned," in which a group of friends are fired on the same day, as well as a sitcom starring Kelsey Grammer as a fallen Wall Streeter. Fox has "Two Dollar Beer," about a blue-collar couple struggling in Detroit, and CBS is chronicling a pair of poor slackers in "Waiting to Die." There's no guarantee that any of these shows will make the fall schedule, but one thing is certain. As the recession continues, people …

Cash-strapped municipalities are suddenly in marketing mode, chumming up with companies ready to pay for the honor of having their ad, name or logo on a high-visibility civic property. Initiatives range from naming rights to massive vinyl ad wraps. Chicago is selling companies the right to name individual stations stops on its "L" transit line. New York has wrapped an entire subway train, inside and out, with ads. Brooklyn is considering selling ads on city trashcans and on construction scaffolding. Several cities sell ad space on the outsides of school buses. Smaller tourist towns are more subtle. For …

The new White House has been good to the conservative media. Christopher Ruddy's flagship magazine, Newsmax, whose 90,000 circulation flatlined during the Bush years, has climbed to 130,000. It has taken a decade, but Newsmax is now a news powerhouse and a must-read on the conservative media circuit. It's readership eclipses political peers Weekly Standard (81,000) and New Republic (100,000). Unique visitors to Newsmax.com, has doubled in the past year, to 3.8 million a month, which is more the Drudge Report. The Florida-based, privately-held company did $24 million in sales last year, up from $19 million in 2007, …

Of the 25 biggest weekday newspapers in 1990 -- the year before circulation declines really began -- 21 papers have lost ground. That's no surprise. What is surprising is that four have actually expanded paid circulation. Two are national papers with distinct marketing hooks, USA Today and The Wall Street Journal. One is a money-losing ego play, the New York Post. The fourth is none of the above: The Arizona Republic, with readership up 9%. The Republic's secret? It is focusing on Sundays where the most ad revenue resides. "We've made every Sunday special -- giving the customer …