RTL has sold Five to Richard Desmond's Northern & Shell for £103.5m. Mr. Desmond has intimated that he will invest heavily in new programming and is already said to be in negotiations to buy Big Brother, currently homeless after being dropped by Channel 4.

Five's schedule will remain as is for a while as its contracts to broadcast shows such as CSI and Neighbours run their course. However, a shake-up in programming is now expected in 2011.

Fears of a 'double dip' recession for the UK ad industry have intensified after the Bellwether report recorded a return to budget cuts. The Q2 report from national body the Institute of Practitioners in Advertising, found that 20% of companies cut ad budgets between April and the beginning of July compared with only 15% that increased them.

DMGT is reported to have drawn up plans to sell off its local newspaper division Northcliffe, most likely to either Johnston Press or Trinity Mirror, whose own stables of local titles would both be a good geographical fit. Talks have been held surrounding the possibility that DMGT may swap Northcliffe for a stake in the enlarged publisher.

The Guardian and Trinity Mirror's websites recorded big increases in traffic in May, while The Times' new registration-only websites have been hit by substantial drops, according to new sets of industry data from ABCe and Experian Hitwise.

Following the government's decision earlier this year to allow product placement on UK television, Ofcom has announced its suggested rules for it, to be incorporated at the end of 2010.

Product placement is to be allowed in films, TV series, entertainment shows and sports programmes, but not in children's or religious programming, news broadcasts or consumer affairs and (UK-produced) current affairs shows.

The BSkyB board has rebuffed an offer by Rupert Murdoch to take full control of the BSkyB business.

BSkyB has acquired Virgin Media Television for up to £160m and entered into a number of agreements providing for the carriage of certain Sky standard and high-definition (HD) channels.

Carolyn McCall, the outgoing chief executive of Guardian Media Group, has said that losses in the year to March will be significantly higher than the £90 million loss it made a year earlier.

Thanks to the twin virtues of cost-cutting and a nascent modest ad recovery, pre-tax profits at DMGT were up by 42% to £110m for the six months ending April 4th.

Although recruitment advertising in the company's regional titles was down by 24%, overall A&N Media saw its like-for-like profits rise by 135% to £42m.

Newspaper group Trinity Mirror saw its shares fall 12% yesterday following its report that like-for-like revenues had fallen 5% in the year to May 2nd. Ad revenues were down 5% year-on-year overall, but the picture was worse at the regionals division, where it fell by 8%.