Newsquest’s Herald & Times Group in Glasgow is making 235 journalists redundant and telling them to apply for a reduced number of altered job roles, in a multimedia newsroom restructure. Between 30 and 40 jobs are expected to go as part of on-going plans to merge and centralise the editorial…

Guardian Unlimited is further staking out its non-core media credentials by joining the Radio Academy and the UK Podcasters Association. The paper’s former media editor Matt Wells, appointed this year as head of audio, claims “hundreds of thousands” of weekly downloads for its range of current affairs podcasts and wants…

BBC Radio has launched some of its first podcasts around commercial recorded music, though its licensing agreements with the industry severely curtail the duration of songs. Some 19 new podcasts have been unveiled (see the directory), one based on the Sunday-night Radio 1 Chart Show, but music is limited to…

- Tioti Launch: Tape It Off The Internet (Tioti), a TV-centric web community where members post links to shows across a range of download and sharing media, has finally launched out of beta. Co-founder Paul Pod tells The Guardian the site, which began testing in 2005 and has so far…

GCap (LON:GCAP) has become a member of the UK Podcasters Association, an umbrella body advocating podcasters’ rights, in a sign Britain’s largest commercial radio operator is getting more serious about the downloadable audio medium (announcement). GCap stations already offer segments of shows for direct download, web-based catch-up or download as…

Commercial radio stations in Britain are close to signing a deal with a major music rights organization to allow portions of music played on the airwaves to be included in podcasts. Under the deal, The Guardian reports, radio stations would be able to podcast up to 30 seconds of music…

—FT may drop payment barrier: The FT is still ruminating over the subscription or free access dilemma with CE Rona Fairhead reportedly examining business plans and considering dropping the payment barrier for some parts of the site. Management are wary of a “head-long charge into free news” and want to…

Thanks for these small mercies: EU rules on regulating online audiovisual content will exclude non-TV like programs such as video blogs, EU Information Society and Media Commissioner Viviane Reding. “It will cover services under the editorial responsibility of media services providers, the principal purpose of which is the provision of…

Sounds like a law school course and maybe it is ... As podcasting continues to evolve into a mix of user-gen and corporate biz, the licensing and legal issues that started cropping up nearly at the beginning take on more importance.  Richard Chapman has a good rundown from the UK…

Updated:The Ricky Gervais Show was an instant hit when it launched as a free 12-episode podcast offered by The Guardian; with 2.9 million downloads since the early December premiere, it’s even been listed by the Guiness Book of World Records as the most downloaded podcast. Now Gervais and company are…