Facing a budget squeeze, Advertising Age is changing its summer publishing schedule, reducing the number of issue per year from 50 to 43 or 44. Crain Communications, the trade mag's parent, is also laying off an undisclosed number of employees at many of its more than 30 media properties, and is cutting salaries 10% across the board. During the weeks in which there is no Advertising Age print issue, the magazine's regular news, analysis, data and columns will be available online. "Our goal is to emerge from this recession as a stronger company as we begin to look …

Like most media stocks, CBS shares have slumped badly amid the recession. That's true even though the company's core TV network is growing, and it scored the season's top new show, "The Mentalist." Wall Street may finally be changing its tune. Caris & Co. analyst David Miller upgraded CBS stock, arguing that the recent share price below $4 reflects roughly the value of its Showtime pay-cable channel, without even weighing the value of the CBS broadcast network and other assets. CBS is the only broadcast network that has seen ratings grow this season. The network is averaging …

Gannett cut its chief executive's pay package by 60% last year, passing along the financial misery that has tormented the largest U.S. newspaper publisher as its stock price and profit shrank. CEO Craig Dubow's 2008 compensation was valued at $3.1 million, based on newly disclosed SEC figures. That's down from 2007 compensation of $7.9 million, which included stock options. As big as the pay cut, it still fell short of the 79% plunge in Gannett's market value that erased $8 billion in shareholder wealth last year. Dubow's 2008 pay consisted mostly of a $1.17 million base salary …

U.S. House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who represents San Francisco, is urging the Justice Department to consider giving San Francisco Bay Area papers "more leeway to merge or consolidate business operations to stay afloat." Pelosi released her two-page letter to the Justice Department after meeting in her Capitol office last week with the San Francisco Chronicle editor-at-Large Phil Bronstein and Hearst general counsel Eve Burton, where they discussed the future of the paper and federal media shield legislation. Hearst has said it may have to close the San Francisco Chronicle because of financial difficulties.

At the Radio Advertising Bureau conference this week, Radio One's urban stations KMJQ-FM and KBXX-FM in Houston were treated as textbook cases of how to adjust programming to adapt to the new PPM ratings technology. "You have to look at everything: jocks, where you place stopsets, how you do your contesting. PPM is so unforgiving," advised Radio One vie president Doug Abernathy. The sales component of Radio One's PPM strategy involves training account execs to educate the marketplace about the new ratings currency. "We have become students in PPM, so we can answer questions for clients," Abernathy said. …

The Council for Research Excellence, a cross-industry think tank of top executives from agencies and TV networks, has spent the past year executing a $3.5 million project called the "Video Consumer Mapping Study." Its research is set to explode some commonly held myths about how consumers watch TV. The survey is expected to reveal such things as which age groups do the most media multi-tasking; whether younger viewers are really shifting away from traditional TV and how much commercial time viewers are exposed to. The major findings are being kept for a presentation on Thursday, March 26. …

Media companies have begun furiously experimenting with new strategies they hope will help them retain their relevance, including personalized newspapers and a re-energized interest in robust CRM programs. More media outlets are reviewing all of the content that they own and trying to figure out how to package it in a way that will provide the most value to loyal customers. "Newspapers, magazines and other companies have to think about what content they reserve and what they don't," says David Rosen, senior vp at Loyalty Lab. Asking people to sign up for digital content, for example, creates a …

The Conde Nast Media Group, headed by Richard Beckman, is expected to be hit by job cuts as soon as this week. The unit, which formed in 2004, handles more than 80% of the company's revenue. With a staff of 135, the Media Group takes the lead on big corporate marketing programs and contracts with advertisers that buy across three or more Conde titles. It has less work on its hands this year in the absence of "Fashion Rocks," its biggest program, which is on hiatus for 2009. Beckman's role atop the Media Group was also recently questioned when …

Score one for big billboards. A federal judge found the city of Los Angeles in contempt of court this week for issuing citations against a company that erects enormous outdoor advertising signs. In a tentative decision, the judge said the city would have to rescind citations it issued against World Wide Rush LLC for its massive signs draped across two buildings and must pay the company's legal fees, which are expected to be around $100,000. World Wide Rush was cited for hanging signs without permits, although the city had refused to issue permits, citing a ban on so-called supergraphics. …

California state Rep. Anna G. Eshoo, is pushing H.R. 6209, otherwise known as the Commercial Advertisement Loudness Mitigation Act. The bill would require the Federal Communications Commission to "prescribe a standard to preclude commercials from being broadcast at louder volumes than the program they accompany."