New York: Walt Disney Studios plans to cut up to 250 jobs, which comprise five percent of its worldwide workforce, a media report said.

The cuts would take effect as early as next week. The bulk of the workforce reduction will be in Burbank near Los Angeles, company insiders were quoted as saying by The Los Angeles Times.

The movie studio currently has about 5,000 people globally, said Xinhua.

The reductions are expected to hit hardest in the studio's distribution operation, the report said.

It attributed the job cuts to many factors, including falling DVD sales and flat theatre attendance.

The decline in home entertainment revenue has been particularly problematic for the studio, prompting industrywide layoffs. Sales of DVDs, Blu-ray discs and digital movies fell 18 percent in the first quarter compared to the same period a year earlier, said industry trade organisation Digital Entertainment Group.

London : Hundreds of BBC employees are all set to receive pink slips, for the news broadcasting organisation is going to slash hundreds of online jobs as part of swingeing cuts which will halve the size of its website operations.

A number of popular gardening, cookery and lifestyle websites will be axed or dramatically scaled back in economy measures the corporation will announce Monday, Daily Mail reported Saturday.

San Francisco : Yahoo is to cut some prominent website features following the announcement this week that it is firing some 600 workers, or 4 percent of its work force.

While many of the targeted features have been little used, some, like the Delicious bookmark sharing service have proved popular among Yahoo users who fired off messages of disappointment Friday.

Johannesburg : The government of Madagascar has shut down 50 radio and television stations for operating illegally, a minister said.
Out of the 300 radio stations and 25 television stations officially recognised by the communication ministry, 50 were operating illegally, Communication Minister Felix Malazarivo was quoted as saying by Xinhua.

The minister said the stations had started operations without completing the necessary procedures for a permit.

Some others continued to broadcast long after their three-month trial period was over, he said.

Los Angeles :Video rental company Blockbuster, once one of the biggest and most noticeable chain stores on US high streets, filed for bankruptcy Thursday after years of constant losses.

With its distinctive blue and yellow storefronts, the company was not just another victim of the recession that has forced thousands of other entities to close shop.

Instead, it was a giant whose time had passed, a bricks-and-mortar dinosaur unable to adapt to the new age of Netflix, internet streaming video and video vending machines in every neighbourhood supermarket.

“Blockbuster represents a big cautionary tale to American businesses,” noted MarketWatch.com columnist Jon Friedman. “Remember, it wasn’t quite so long ago that Blockbuster symbolised the future of commerce – employing technology to make consumers’ lives easier and more convenient.”

Blockbuster forgot its own lesson, he noted, and “if other businesses don’t recognize this, they’ll be in Blockbuster’s sorry state soon enough”.

With 3,300 stores across the US, Blockbuster is still the largest video rental chain in the country, even after closing more than 1,000 other stores over the last two years. It also had thousands more stores in Canada, Denmark, Italy, Mexico, Argentina and Britain.

In its filing, Blockbuster said it had about $1 billion in assets and $1.46 billion in debt. Following reorganisation, it will have just $100 million in debt and will have access to a further $125 million to pay suppliers and employees.

Blockbuster said it plans to keep its current stores open while it evaluates its strategy going forward.

Chief executive Jim Keyes said in a statement that the company still held a formidable position in the media landscape with “a well-established brand name, an exceptional library of more than 125,000 titles and our position as the only operator that provides access across multiple delivery channels – stores, kiosks, by mail and digital.”

But analysts said the company will be hard pressed to meet the myriad threats that have risen up against it over the past decade.

The biggest challenger to its business model is probably Netflix, which launched a subscription service in 1999 that allowed people to choose their films on a webpage and have them sent out via standard postal delivery.

In recent years, Netflix has updated its model to include streaming video through computers, video game consoles, internet-enabled televisions and Blu-ray players, and now has more than 15 million subscribers in the US.

Blockbuster only tried to meet the Netflix challenge in 2004, but the newcomer was already an established market leader generating significant profits.

Blockbuster failed similarly to take seriously the threat posed by video vending kiosks such as Redbox, which offer a much more limited selection of titles at much lower prices than conventional video stores.

Tech website GigaOm pointed out that Blockbuster’s early success was founded on having larger selection than any other stores and using computers and scanners to keep track of rentals.

“For many, Blockbuster provided the convenience of a one-stop shop for nearly any video title one would hope to watch,” the website noted.

“But over the years, viewers and viewing habits have changed in a way that made Blockbuster less relevant. It’s no longer enough to provide users with a way to get content from a store down the street; nowadays, they want access to that content in their living rooms.”

Washington: US broadcasting giant ABC News will downsize its editorial team and layoff up to 350 staff members, media reports said.

In a “fundamental transformation”, ABC News announced Tuesday that it was seeking to substantially reduce its staff, possibly by up to 25 percent, The New York Times reported.

For decades, the network news divisions have seen their audiences erode due to stiff competition from cable, the internet and changing consumer patterns.

ABC News currently employs around 1,400 people. Employees were told that the news division is seeking 300 to 400 buyouts and would resort to layoffs if necessary.

ABC News staff said that the reaction to the cutbacks was muted, mostly because the announcement had been expected for weeks.

“Everyone sees the reality of the industry, and everyone wants to stay competitive,” said one of the employee who spoke on condition of anonymity.

According to ABC News president David Westin, the “transformation” would result in a leaner, smaller news division.

“The time has come to re-think how we do what we are doing,” Westin wrote in a memorandum to staffers.

Westin said ABC would also “take the example set by ‘Nightline’ of editorial staff who shoot and edit their own material and follow it throughout all of our programs”. However, he said traditional crews would still handle most of the network’s news-gathering work.

“When we are finished, many job descriptions will be different, different skill sets may be required, and, yes, we will likely have substantially fewer people on staff at ABC News,” Westin said.

Publicis Groupe has announced that the agencies of Publicis Groupe have worked with Old GM and will continue to work with New GM.

“We are now in a better position to quantify our financial exposure as a result of the GM bankruptcy .Since the filing of the bankruptcy, Old GM has signed agreements with some of our agencies and assumed and assigned contracts with other of our agencies to New GM. As a result, we have received payment of the bulk of our fee receivables as of the date of the bankruptcy, and GM has committed to pay us our remaining pre-petition fee receivables over the next few months,”  a Publicis Groupe spokesperson said.

” Taking into account the principle of sequential liability and the commitments we have received from GM, we have re-evaluated our maximum exposure at EUR 9 million, which will be reflected in our second quarter numbers when they are released on July 23, 2009,” the spokesperson added.

Boston Newspaper Guild has come forward to save The Boston Globe daily which is facing a closure threat. Dan Totten, President, Boston Newspaper Guild in a statement has said that the guild will help Globe’s prospective buyers to promote good journalism and protect free speech. 

“Boston Newspaper Guild members have spoken and, after careful consideration, voted to accept the tentative agreement put forward by The New York Times. All of our members spent a great deal of time discussing and studying the tentative agreement and we respect the decision that they made. It has been a long and difficult period for everyone and we hope that we can now work with prospective buyers to help The Boston Globe carry on with its vital mission to promote good journalism and protect free speech.” 

Boston Newspaper Guild said that as a community asset, The Boston Globe is necessary to the character of the city of Boston and indeed the entire New England region. Founded in 1872, The Boston Globe has been at the forefront of news stories that expose corruption at the highest levels, protect the most vulnerable, and celebrate the region’s victories. It is an important outlet for literary criticism and arts writing, and it helps readers understand the changing worlds of health, science and technology. 

The guild said that The Boston Globe has won Pulitzer Prizes for important local and national stories, including for its coverage of the controversy surrounding President Bush’s signing statements, the clergy sexual abuse crisis, and multiple awards for Criticism. 

“We support the Globe’s staff and workers – who have been asked by the New York Times Company to make sacrifices which will threaten their well-being. We call on the Times Company and Globe management to make genuine sacrifices themselves and share fully in the burden they have placed on Globe workers. And we resolve that The Boston Globe – whose mission of journalism and the defense of free speech is critical to our democracy – must continue to publish in service of that mission as it has for 137 years,” Dan Totten, President, Boston Newspaper Guild said.

In April, the Times Co. threatened to shut down the money-losing broadsheet unless its major unions came up with $20 million in concessions. The Guild, which represents nearly 700 newsroom, advertising and other employees, was the last major Globe union to approve cuts.

The Times Co. is trying to sell the broadsheet and had pushed back its bidding deadline for potential buyers until after today’s Guild vote.The only potential buyers whose names have surfaced are Boston powerbroker Jack Connors, Celtics co-owner Stephen Pagliuca and Stephen Taylor, whose family used to own the Globe. Connors and Pagliuca are considering a joint bid for the paper, the Herald has reported.

The Washington Post has decided to stop to publishing a distinct business section six days a week, moving business news instead to the front section of the paper now finance stories are dominating world headlines.

The paper claims that this will save money on newsprint but it will not change its commitment to the coverage of business locally, economic policy nationally and the relations between government, politics and money. The paper expects more readers for its business coverage but without changing the size of the staff.

This decision has been taken because the financial crisis has put an ever brighter spotlight on the federal government regulated financial institutions.

The paper will offer a half-page package of statistics and graphics and a Sunday Business section that will include new financial tables along with more personal finance stories aimed at helping people to survive the downturn.