Walt Disney Co. has received green signal from China’s central government to pursue a plan to build a theme park in Shanghai.

The approval will provide the California-based entertainment company with a chance to proceed with a project expected to be one of the largest foreign investment so far in China. 

The Chinese government approved the theme park plan just a few days before US President Barack Obama’s first official visit to China.  

British cinema operator Cineworld said it witnessed a rise of 6.5 per cent in its revenues in the 43-week period ended October 23 owing to 3D hit films like Ice ‘Age3’, ‘Up’ and ‘Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince’.

Recession-hit people also spent more time in cinemas, pushing Cineworld’s revenues up.

Company’s revenues from box office jumped 11 per cent.

Circulation of daily newspapers dropped at an average of 10.6 per cent from April to September from a year earlier.

As per data released by the Audit Bureau of Circulations, newspaper circulations have been declining for many years, but now it is dropping at an accelerated rate.

The drop in the April to September period surpassed a decline of 7.1 per cent in the October to March period.

The Boston Globe's daily circulation dropped 18.4 per cent from last year to 264,105.

The BBC Trust dashed BBC's plans to allow rival broadcasters to show programs online via its iPlayer media player.

The BBC wanted to share it technology with other broadcasters like ITV, Channel 4 and Channel Five with a view to ward-off critics who say BBc has become very large and eradicating its rivals.

But, according to the BBC Trust the idea was very complex. The Trust added it would mix shows that carry advertising with advertising-free shows.

Pearson, the publisher of the Penguin books and Financial Times, has upgraded its full-year forecasts owing to the strength of its education business that helped it offset weakness at its FT Publishing unit.

Pearson said its sales during the 9-month period ended September jumped by 20 per cent, however translated into a 2 per cent increase at constant exchange rates.

As far as operating profit is concerned, it soared 19 per cent and 3 per cent at constant rates during the same period.

ITV's hunt for a chief executive is expected to continue for some more time as Sir Michael Bishop, who founded the airline BMI, ruled himself out of the running for either the chairmanship or the chief executive role.

The front-runner for the chairmanship of ITV, Sir Crispin Davies, the former CEO of Reed Elsevier, pulled his name back last week.

Speaking about Sir Crispin and Sir Michael, ITV said in a statement, "both recently confirmed to the nominations committee of the board they are not candidates".

The London Evening Standard, which is owned by the Russian businessman Alexander Lebedev, has announced that it would become a free newspaper from October 12.

The London Evening Standard, which is presently sold for 50p, is 75.1 per cent owned by Mr. Lebedev and 24.9 per cent by Associated Newspapers.

The London Evening Standard, whose circulation will be increased from 250,000 to 600,000 copies per day, is one of the first big newspapers to drop cover price and rely on advertisements. 

The first acquisition was made Friday by Yahoo!7; under which it bought online travel information company Totaltravel.com for $20 million. Yahoo!7 is the joint venture between Yahoo! and Channel Seven.

As per the chief executive Rohan Lund, in order to promote Channel Seven shows including The Great Outdoors, Yahoo!7 will merge the site with its own travel website and use Totaltravel.com's large audience and subscriber base. 

The recession-hit broadcaster ITV is looking for a suitable candidate to be appointed as the chairman of the group, and said is to be in discussion with Sir Crispin Davis, the former boss of Reed Elsevier, and airline entrepreneur Sir Michael Bishop to fill the post within three weeks.

Denis O'Brien, the second-largest shareholder in Independent News & Media, has tabled another plan of investing €100 million of his own money in return for gaining control of the company.

The Independent News & Media is getting ready for restructuring of its debt after showing its inability to pay off a €200 million in May.

Under the restructuring plan, bondholders will get a 45 per cent stake of the company, while 26 per cent stake owned by Mr. O'Brien, will get diluted by about 50 per cent.

British commercial broadcaster ITV has filed a £38 million legal claim against its Scottish network partner STV, accusing STV of breaching network agreements by dumping programmes such as The Bill and Midsomer Murders.

But, STV said in a statement that as a licence holder it has rights to control its schedule. The Scottish company further said they would, “vigorously defend their rights to control the schedule and opt out of programming.”

Ofcom, the communications regulator, has cautioned that regional news broadcasters of ITV network may have to bear loses of as much as 64 million pounds per year by 2012.

Ofcom said ITV, STV and UTV may collectively have suffer loses of 38-64 million pounds due to cut throat competition and plunging ad revenues.

Media regulator's above mentioned estimate was in response to a govt. consultation on the issue.

Britain's competition body, the Competition Commission, declined ITV’s request to scrap strict rules that governs advertising. However, the competition watchdog said that those rules could be adjusted for the changing market.

Rules governing advertising puts limitations on how much the company can charge from advertisers.

The concerned news dragged shares in ITV down by about 5.3 per cent to 49.8p in thee early trading.

The contract rights renewal was introduced in 2003 to prevent the company abusing its dominant position.

The BBC has plans to shares iPlayer technology with other broadcasters which will allow third-party broadcasters such as ITV and Channel 4 to run their own version of the iPlayer.

Speaking on the topic at International Broadcasting Convention, BBC’s director of Future Media & Technology, Eric Huggers, said, “We've had a lot of requests from domestic and international broadcasters to open out iPlayer technology and we're responding to that.”

Former BSkyB boss, Tony Ball and ITV are yet at loggerheads over the terms and conditions of employment since last week when Tony Ball was offered the job of chief executive of ITV.

Speaking on the topic, a person close to Tony Ball said, "The nominations committee is considering a contract proposal from Tony, and he is waiting to sort it out." Intimate sources informed that negotiations over Mr. Ball's remunerations have reached a stalemate.