“I’d studied your cartoons, radio, music, TV, movies, magazines,” Michael Stipe once sang, vicariously, as though channelling Dan Rather. R.E.M. mirrored the fortunes of the media business - a band that found its own audience through toil on the road, rode the MTV wave, benefitted from what major labels could…

Bitbop, the mobile video service once owned by News Corp. (NSDQ: NWS) and then sold in a whirr of a divestment strategy, looks like it is finding its feet again under new owner Jesta Digital. It’s now live with a mobile and PC-based mobile internet service in Germany, its first…

Rhapsody hopes to move in to the black in the final two quarters of this year, after turning around subscriber decline following its spinout from RealNetworks (NSDQ: RNWK) and Viacom (NYSE: VIA) largely thanks to uptake of its mobile service, the company’s chief product office Brendan Benzing tells paidContent.

Another chapter in the continuing consolidation mobile service agencies, and the growth of one agency in particular, the Mobile Interactive Group. Today, the UK outfit announced that it would be buying Golden Bytes to extend its operations into the Netherlands and Belgium. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

While Apple (NSDQ: AAPL) and Google (NSDQ: GOOG) are battling it out to woo publishers with their in-app payment services, I asked major content publishers at Mobile World Congress for their take on native in-app payments, and what it might mean to their own business models. The bottom line: of…

If you thought that pay-per-view online catch-up TV had been replaced by the free, ad-supported model, think again - MTV has launched a dedicated UK VOD portal, MTV OD, costing £1 ($1.61) a day or £2 ($3.24) a week.

MTV in the States has been heavily promoting its new teen drama Skins for months across a range of social media, including Tumblr, Facebook and its own community site. The show, which already had an existing fanbase in the U.S. since the original UK version ran on BBC America, debuts…

By Jemima Kiss: MTV has revealed its first digital-only drama Being Victor, which has been quietly building up interest through an in-character blog and Twitter account since early July. Following the popularity of issue-tackling reality shows like 16 and Pregnant, MTV wanted to combine a scripted drama with conversational tools,…

—MTV Networks (NYSE: VIA) International: The music broadcaster is expanding the role of its UK, Ireland and Australia and New Zealand SVP Philip Bourchier O’Ferrall  to also be its digital media SVP. That follows the exit of digital EVP Gideon Bierer to be new media VP at International Game Technology.…

Music games sales’ tempo may be slowing - but that’s only because instrument ownership is nearing saturation - and anyway, songs bought within titles like Rock Band and Guitar Hero are flying off virtual shelves, MTV’s games SVP Paul DeGooyer told me at the Midem music conference. “Certainly, music games…

Tuesday night, CNN raised more than $7 million for Haitian relief during an quickly planned telethon on Larry King Live. That was small compared to the massive effort led by George Clooney and MTV Networks (NYSE: VIA) will reach across the world. Star-studded telethon Help for Haiti Now will air…

Just a few months after rival *Activision* brought in *Yahoo* vet Dan Rosensweig to head up its Guitar Hero division, comes news that MTV Games has added two new senior execs to its roster to prep for the launch of The Beatles: Rock Band. THQ’s former EVP of publishing Scott…

Online ticket marketplace Seatwave has landed a good online entertainment client, as it continues slugging it out with rivals like Viagogo. MTV will use the site as its ticketing partner for MTV.co.uk, which relaunched for the umpteenth time on March 1. Perversely, for such a long-running site, MTV says this…

Israeli internet TV tech provider Tvinci (get it? Like Da Vinci, ha ha) has completed its first round of $1.6 million led by private investors Zohar Gilon and Ron Tamir’s Keidan Group. The Tel Aviv-based company is also looking for a second round in order to expand sales into other…

We’re still waiting for The Beatles to finally start selling the back-catalog online, but the band looks set to take one more step in that direction Thursday. Their *Apple* Corps label and MTV will announce “an exclusive agreement to develop a global music project” at 10 a.m. eastern time (2pm…

MTV Networks (NYSE: VIA) International is promoting digital media SVP Gideon Bierer to EVP level, though for the same topic and continuing to report to MTVNI president Robert Bakish - a reward for what the outfit says was international web traffic growth, revenue increases and advertising innovation. New York-based Bierer…

MTV Networks (NYSE: VIA) is closing down its Flux TV channel in UK, about 16 months after it launched there…it will be replaced by a one-hour timeshift of MTV One (the main MTV channel there) on February 1, reports Digital Spy. Flux—which in U.S. is being used an an online…

Revision3: PC Magazine’s Jim Louderback is jumping ship and sides, moving to Revision3 as CEO, according to NewTeeVee. Louderback was editor in chief for PC mag and editorial director for the Consumer/Small Business group at Ziff Davis Media. Louderback’s resume includes the launch programming for TechTV and managing ZD’s IPTV…

It isn’t quite Live 8—the vast new Wembley doesn’t even appear to be sold out—but the six-hour Concert for Diana is underway and viewable by just about anyone with cable, satellite or internet access. Still showing that it learned from Live 8, when it only controlled TV rights and didn’t…