Word-of-mouth marketing is one notable sector that has bucked the recession and continued to grow. As a result, agencies are devoting more resources to WOM departments to meet client demand. Case in point: Omnicom's OMD is preparing to launch a new WOM practice this fall called OMD Word, say insiders. The offering has been in the works for months. The agency plans to discuss it in detail and conduct a formal launch in the fourth quarter of 2009. PQ Media estimates that WOM spending this year will reach $1.7 billion, up 10% from 2008, at a time when …

Many titles' newsstand sales got hammered in the first half of this year, based on publishers' reports in the lead-up to a big semi-annual report from the ABC. While single-copy sales represent just a sliver of most magazines' circulation income, those newsstand copies often entice readers to subscribe using the blow-in cards. Such subscribers are more likely to pay and renew than subscribers from other sources. What's more, advertisers sometimes view newsstand sales as a measure of vitality. Reader's Digest saw newsstand sales sink 20% from the first half of 2008. Newsstand sales fell 15% at Martha …

Crown Media Holdings, parent of the Hallmark Channel, is undergoing a painful process of restructuring its balance sheet while also attempting to revamp its family-oriented programming. Hallmark is one of the last remaining independent cable networks, but its ability to compete against larger rivals is hampered because of a heavy debt load and because it can't leverage a large number of channels to extract better deals from cable and satellite operators. Last week Crown cut 15 jobs, or 8% of its work force, and a possible solution to trim the company's debt is meeting resistance from some bondholders. …

It's a good idea to keep in mind that everything you read on the Internet about the future of the media is written by people who are writing on the Internet about the future of the media, points out columnist Stanley Bing. So, are magazines really dead, like the online pundits say? Magazines may be in pretty tough shape all right, "but you go to an airport and all you see is magazines," Bing writes. "Even the books look like magazines. There are at least seven separate magazines still interested in Jon and Kate. A bunch more seem …

The leadership at Walt Disney Co. is moving forward with the D23 Expo, a four-day event next month in Anaheim, Calif., that will promote all things Disney. Included are celebrity appearances and sneak previews of upcoming television shows, films and theme-park attractions. ABC Entertainment President Steve McPherson and stars Patricia Heaton, Kelsey Grammer and Ed O'Neill will have a major presence at the expo which will also have a screening room and exhibit dedicated to "Lost." The Disney Channel will bring the cast of "Wizards of Waverly Place," screen an upcoming episode and stage a musical performance. The …

Tribune Co. has announced a definitive agreement to sell all but a 5% stake in the Chicago Cubs and Wrigley Field to the billionaire Ricketts family, capping a tortuous process that began more than 2 years ago. Tribune valued the transaction at about $845 million. Joe Ricketts founded the Omaha, Neb.-based online brokerage TD Ameritrade Holding. The successful bid was led by Tom Ricketts, a Chicago investment banker and Joe Ricketts' son. He is a Cubs die-hard who grew up watching the team and once lived in an apartment across the street from Wrigley.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average may get a new name if News Corp. follows through on its plans to sell its stock-index business. The Wall Street Journal, owned by News Corp., has reported that the company is exploring a sale of the unit. MSCI Inc., a former unit of Morgan Stanley, NYSE Euronext and Bloomberg LP, the parent of Bloomberg News, are potential candidates. Goldman Sachs Group Inc. was hired to evaluate deals that may fetch $700 million and prompt a new moniker for the flagship index. The Dow Jones Industrial Average, a 30-stock benchmark for the U.S. market, …

The top two U.S. movie theater chains, Regal Entertainment and AMC Entertainment, have begun reducing or eliminating the small-type listings showing the start times for movies at individual theaters. Theaters typically pay newspapers to print that information. The problem is that newspaper readers have come to expect such listings. Seeing them curtailed or disappear could give them yet another reason to abandon their subscriptions. "For readers, some ads are actually considered news," says Mort Goldstrom, Newspaper Association of America VP. "Ads for concerts and things at clubs, for restaurants and movies give people a reason to read newspapers," …

In recent weeks , News Corp. executives have been talking to publishers about forming a consortium that would charge for news distributed online and on portable devices. Chief Digital Officer Jonathan Miller has positioned News Corp. as the leader in the effort to start collecting fees because of its success with The Wall Street Journal Online, which has more than 1 million paying subscribers. Miller is believed to have met with major news publishers including New York Times Co., Washington Post, Hearst and Tribune, publisher of the Los Angeles Times and the Chicago Tribune. "The reality is that unless …

Advertisers and networks are eager for laughs from several new fall comedies: ABC's "Hank," "Modern Family," and "Cougar Town"; CBS's "Accidentally on Purpose"; and NBC's "Community." Comedy is back for two main reasons. First, the nets are under more pressure to keep production costs in line and sitcoms cost less than drama. Second, advertisers are becoming less enchanted with the cheap reality genre. Another plus: sitcoms repeat better than dramas and can fill in programming gaps between other shows. "Everybody needs a long man out of the bullpen, and comedies are better as a stopgap than dramas," says …