ESPN is expanding the number of individual teams covered on SweetSpot, the baseball blog network it started last October. SweetSpot launched with eight teams during the 2009 playoff season and the ESPN has now added another 11 sites, which are run by fans. Eventually, SweetSpot expects to have blogs tied to all 30 MLB teams. The deliberate approach to rolling out new sites across SweetSpot is in keeping with ESPN.com's wider local strategy. The New York metro site launched just last month, joining Los Angeles, Chicago, Dallas and Pittsburgh sites. In terms of new sites, ESPN plans to …

Walt Disney Co. has received three bids for the specialty label Miramax Films, sources say. They are: supermarket magnate Ron Burkle and his Yucaipa Cos. in association with Bob and Harvey Weinstein, the founders of Miramax. Also, Alec and Tom Gores, who run separate investment firms, the Gores Group and Platinum Equity. Their sibling Sam Gores, founder of Paradigm talent agency. Finally, financier David Bergstein, who, through his firm Pangea Media Group, is the highest bidder, per sources. Disney was initially seeking an all-cash deal of $650 million to $700 million. Summit Entertainment and Amir Malin's investment firm Qualia …

News Corp. Chairman Rupert Murdoch said Tuesday he expects online content aggregators such as Google Inc. will soon stop posting content produced by others without paying for it. While Google News now includes links to full stories published by The Wall Street Journal, Murdoch would prefer just a headline and a sentence or two from the article, and subscription form for the newspaper. "We're going to stop Google and others from taking our content" and using it for free, Murdoch said at the National Press Club. Murdoch defended the idea of charging for online content, which WSJ does, …

LIN TV Corp. today announced that for the first quarter of 2010, it expects to report that net revenues will increase by 23% to $91.8 million, compared to $74.5 million for the same quarter in 2009. Core local and national advertising sales combined, which excludes political advertising sales, to increase by 17% to $84.3 million, compared to $72.3 million for the same quarter in 2009, and the automotive category, which represented 23% of its core advertising sales for the quarter, to increase by 54% to $19.3 million. Because this is a political election year, expected increases from $2.9 million …

Apple is an extraordinary marketing machine providing consumers with much-loved gadgets. Now Steve Jobs' company is said to be readying a system for delivering ads across its growing array of mobile devices, including the iPad, iPhone and iPod Touch. Fueling speculation, Apple sent out invitations for a preview of its latest operating system for the iPhone. The thinking is that Apple would build the platform into the operating system, giving developers an easy way to plug ads into their apps and other content. Expanding into ads will heighten Apple's rivalry with Google, which is also moving aggressively into the …

Friday, like Saturday, was once a haven for some of the best programming on television, featuring some of the most beloved shows of all time, like "Dallas," while Saturday gave viewers "All in the Family" and "The Mary Tyler Moore Show." But "CSI" was the last big Friday hit on any broadcast network -- and that was nine years ago. "Since the advent of people meters and the emphasis on adults 18-49, the audience advertisers covet is just not readily available on Friday or Saturday," points out Jeff Bader, executive vice president, planning, scheduling and distribution, ABC Entertainment …

The new "Glo" Web site, a highly stylized women's lifestyle destination that MSN just debuted, will shine bright on the iPad. A partnership between Hollywood's BermanBraun and Hachette Filipacchi Media U.S., Glo has a decidedly glossy magazine tone, Glo is also more heavily laced with tools such as online scrapbooks and is strongly social, with deep links into Facebook and Twitter. Magazine giant Hachette -- publisher of Elle, Woman's Day, Elle Decor -- is providing content and editorial expertise to Glo. There will be seven "packages" a day, with access to archival content too. Glo will aggregate original, Hachette …

Printed newspapers will probably survive as long as a decade before being largely replaced by digital news, said James Tyree, who led the October buyout of the Chicago Sun-Times. Sun-Times Media Holdings LLC, publisher of eight dailies in Illinois and Indiana, will have to wean itself from its printed newspapers by offering more original Internet content, such as in-depth sports and regional political coverage, Tyree said. His purchase of the company ended seven months of bankruptcy. There are no plans to erect a Sun-Times pay wall on the Web. U.S. publishers have cut jobs and sections, and sold …

Even though the economy is still iffy, there have been positive movements -- including a significant uptick in the value of publishing companies stock now versus the same time last year. For example, Time Warner, parent of mega consumer publisher Time Inc., saw its stock price hit $31.89 by 10 a.m. Tuesday, up nearly 54% from a low of $20.71 over the last 52 weeks. Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia's stock price reached $5.41, which is slightly more than double its 52-week low of $2.66. Another dramatic gain comes from Meredith Corp. Its stock price just hit $35.05, a 98% spike …

A U.S. appeals court on Tuesday tossed out an FCC ruling that forced Comcast Corp to change the way it managed its broadband network. The FCC in 2008 had cited Comcast for wrongly blocking customers' use of certain peer-to-peer applications used to distribute large files, such as TV shows and movies. The company was ordered to cease the practice. Comcast agreed to change its practices, but asked a court if the FCC has the authority to make the request. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia said the FCC failed to show it had the …