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NEWS CORP. will sell 8 owned-and-operated FOX stations to private equity firm Oak Hill Capital Partners for $1.1 billion. The deal includes stations in a mix of large and mid-sized markets including Cleveland, Denver and Milwaukee. After the sale, News Corp. will be left with 27 O&O's. Oak Hill recently bought nine other mid-sized stations from the New York Times Company.

APPLE iPhone users are consuming data at a much higher rate than other mobile users, according to research from UK carrier O2. 60% of O2's iPhone users download more than 25 megabytes of data per month. Only 2% of non-iPhone users surpass that same threshold. iPhone users even consume data at higher rates than users with phones running on 3G.

NEW RESEARCH shows that viewers of online television are 47% more engaged than viewers of traditional offline TV. The study, conducted by SIMMONS, focused on multiple areas of engagement including ad receptivity and social interaction. The research found an 18% increase in engagement for online ads versus offline ads.

KMART has been testing customized TV ads on TV Land and Nick at Nite using technology from VISIBLE WORLD. VW's "IntelliSpot" allows Kmart to instantly change ads right before they air, allowing for increased targeting and relevance. The retailer has been experimenting during the holiday season by inserting slightly different promotional offers at the end of spots.

MICROSOFT has combined its TV projects into one "Connected TV" business group. The new arrangement will bring together the company's IPTV, Media Center and HD DVD initiatives in an attempt to increase interoperability.

QUEEN ELIZABETH II made history by delivering her annual holiday greeting via YouTube for the first time, exactly 50 years after first using television to do so. The original 1957 TV broadcast is available on the newly-created Royal Channel on YouTube. This year's greeting was posted to the video-sharing site at the same moment it was broadcast on British television.

* Get the story at Media30.com *

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News & Politics

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