Just as football clubs get rid of their under-performing players in the summer, BSkyB (NYSE: BSY) has shut down Rivals.net, a network of fansites covering all 92 Football League clubs and part of the Football365 group of sites it bought in 2007.

His own newswire service has filed nearly 160 stories on the topic in the last week, but Reuters Media president Chris Ahearn made his own view clear on the response to Michael Jackson’s death… View CJAhearn’s tweet Remember: you can follow us on Twitter at @paidContentUK, if you are that…

—Rubicon publisher: UK ad technology company the Rubicon Project has appointed Justin Thomas to the new role of director of publisher development. The former AOL (NYSE: TWX) Europe man moves over from price comparison service Xelector, where he sealed white label partnerships with Telegraph.co.uk and MSN. former MySpace Europe VP…

ITV (LSE: ITV) is the latest media company, spooked by fall from once-almighty online advertising, to wonder whether consumers may pay for content. Strategy director Carolyn Fairbairn told Thursday’s Future Of Broadcasting conference: “Micropayments are absolutely on our agenda ... The idea people will pay is something we should look…

A flurry of stories this week bit again at Hulu‘s hoped-for upcoming UK launch, again betting on a September launch. There’s little new here - We learned nine months ago the News Corp/NBC/Disney (NYSE: DIS) US online TV venture wanted to open shop in the UK depending on the outcome…

Book publisher Penguin’s digital director Genevieve Shore is being promoted to digital strategy director for the whole of parent Pearson (NYSE: PSO). Shore joined Penguin in 2002 and had led its digital operations, including its ebook strategy, for the last two years, Publishers Weekly says. In a group as diverse…

There’s not a ton of information so far, but BlackBerry has launched a web site that is teasing U2 fans, who own a BlackBerry, that a mobile U2 Album is “almost here,” notes Crackberry.com. In a short video, there’s some vague language set to an inspiring U2 track that says…

When Independent New & Media said it wanted to offload €100 million in “non-core” media assets to help its debt burden, it seems it didn’t have The Independent titles in mind. INM has sold a 7.3 percent stake in Indian publisher Jagran Prakashan, which owns the country’s most read daily…

The crowded UK mobile market could be about to get a bit smaller, according to several reports that say a handful of networks are interested in buying Deutsche Telekom’s T-Mobile UK network, the country’s troubled, fourth largest network. Guardian.co.uk, Reuters, Times Online and others all put various names in from—from…

Telefonica-owned O2 has won the exclusive UK distribution rights for the Palm (NSDQ: PALM) Pre smartphone, according to a report from Guardian.co.uk, which says an announcement is due next week. Reports have linked the two companies to a UK tie-up for the some time and it would be quite a…

Northcliffe Media has launched Local People, an ad-funded local community publishing platform that mixes area-specific business directories and social networking elements. Still in its pilot stage, 20 sites are live now and 30 more will be online by the end of the month—all are based in the south-west of England…

We knew Russia’s online media were exploding; now comScore (NSDQ: SCOR) data shows the country’s internet users visit social networking sites more than anyone else in the world - an average of 6.6 hours and 1,307 pages per visitor per month. Release.

If the stories of other file-sharing firms that sold out are any indication, Pirate Bay’s move to sell itself and go legit might not play out so well. Here’s what happened to some of its peer-to-peer predecessors that were put up for sale: Company: Scour Buyer: CenterSpan Sale Price: $9…

Trinity Mirror (LSE: TNI) has revealed plans to shut 12 newspapers in the Midlands, axe “approximately” 94 jobs and shut two offices as part of the company’s plans to save £25 million this year. It’s been some time since we’ve seen newspaper cuts on this scale; the company made 1,200…

Conde Nast’s overseas digital arm CondeNet International has found its replacement for recently departed international new media president Stefano Maruzzi - it’s former OpenAds CEO and Skype Europe GM James Bilefield, as his LinkedIn profile shows.

The rich data built up over time through mobile mapping technology and platforms will allow an explosion of mobile apps in the coming years—but Ed Parsons, geospatial technologist at Google (NSDQ: GOOG) warns that government agencies must allow greater access to more of their data for the mobile industry to…

We knew something was up when MySpace’s UK MD Anthony Lukom pulled out of C21’s Social Media Forum last month - the following day, MySpace said it was cutting 350 of its 450 international staff. Now Lukom appers to be one of them. Europe MD Rebekah Horne will cover for…

Can any modern news publishing business justify banning its staff from accessing social networking sites? While many national and regional newspapers have now reversed earlier decisions to ban workplace access to time-sapping Facebook—Johnston Press has set the clock back to 2007 and informed staff at The Scotsman and its other…

The UK’s Competition Commission may have outlawed the BBC/ITV/C4 commercial VOD venture Project Kangaroo on antitrust grounds, but there’s still appetite for a grand online TV JV in the UK. Five CEO Dawn Airey says broadcasters here are “staring into the abyss” if they don’t form a Hulu-like alliance, according…