DMGT has sold a 75% stake in its London title, the Evening Standard, to Russian investor Alexander Lebedev for £15 million

The deal helps DMGT reduce its losses at the title, thought to be up to £20 million a year

While the sale also underlines the publisher’s commitment to reducing its reliance on volatile newspaper assets, we think it highly unlikely that the crown jewels – the Daily Mail and the Mail on Sunday – will come to market, although the story could be different for regional division Northcliffe

Google has lost another copyright proceeding in a major European market, this time in Germany (it will appeal), on top of the 2007 judgement in Belgium that found against Google in favour of Copiepresse, on behalf of a group of newspapers. In the US, Google is also facing litigation over copyright, plus the suits filed against YouTube

The long awaited first Android-driven handset was launched this week, and with the Google logo emblazoned on the back it has been swiftly christened the Googlephone

Encouraged by the way that Google has come to dominate the global market for online search advertising, Clear Channel and its rival CBS Radio are now eyeing the potential to dominate the global market for online radio advertising, and fend off Google. In July 2008, Clear Channel announced its plans to dominate the ‘internet radio’ market, by launching a ‘portal’ offering a vast array of radio programming, along with a new business unit to sell online advertising inventory. Although Clear Channel’s targets initially are US advertisers and US internet users, the company will likely target the UK market when it eventually decides to roll out its business model for online radio to the rest of the world. As a result, within the next decade, the UK commercial radio sector could face an additional source of competition from overseas media companies offering radio content delivered via the internet

Microsoft’s $44.6 billion offer for Yahoo! represents the software giant’s last opportunity to compete with Google in the rapidly growing market for online advertising, which is forecast to double to $80 billion within three years

Rumours that Google was acquiring Yell emerged at the end of last week, but we doubt the search giant would be interested in purchasing a traditional media company, particularly not one predominantly in print

Google has announced that it will be bidding for 700MHz spectrum in the US, after the FCC adopted most of the ‘open access’ provisions for which it lobbied

Google has announced that, alongside other industry partners, it is to create ‘Android’, a new operating system for mobile phones which is designed to facilitate the design and use of 3rd party applications, and which is planned to be in handsets from H2 2008

DMGT’s recent upbeat trading update showed improvements on the hefty declines in advertising of 2005 and 2006. At least part of the lift is thanks to DMGT’s national titles gaining share from other mid market and quality titles, and we are discounting a general print advertising recovery

Last week Google hit the headlines on the back of forecasts for its UK revenues for 2006 which we expect to reach £920 million, up 90% on 2005, cited as proof of a structural shift away from broadcast media to the internet