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Media Brief

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Torin Douglas Torin Douglas | 09:26 UK time, Friday, 4 March 2011

I'm the Â鶹¹ÙÍøÊ×Ò³Èë¿Ú's media correspondent and this is my brief selection of what's going on.

Marketing group WPP this morning announced that profits in 2010 rose by almost a third to £851m, thanks in part to a rebound in US advertising in the final quarter, reports the Â鶹¹ÙÍøÊ×Ò³Èë¿Ú. WPP's chairman Sir Martin Sorrell spoke to .

Jeremy Hunt, the Culture Secretary, came under fire from MPs for his decision to clear the way for Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation to take over BSkyB, .
the culture secretary was accused of a "whitewash" last night as he approved Rupert Murdoch's controversial attempt to seize full control of broadcaster BSkyB.

Mr Hunt is to be congratulated for having preserved the independence of Sky News. "However, there is no disguising that Mr Murdoch's commercial power will greatly increase if BSkyB's other shareholders agree terms, as they are very likely to do. He will then own all of a very profitable company. Its most recent annual profits were £878m."

Mr Hunt must look again at the UK's media ownership rules as a matter of urgency. "A proper definition of media plurality is needed. It is illogical to regulate it only when there is a change of control. Factors such as organic growth and technological change do lead to big shifts in media consumption - and hence plurality."

Lord Prescott, the former deputy prime minister, used parliamentary privilege in the debate over the BSkyB takeover to claim in the House of Lords: "The investigation into phone hacking (at the News of the World) has been extended now to the Sunday Times." The claims were echoed in the Commons by Tom Watson, Labour MP for West Bromwich East. News International vigorously denied that any of its titles apart from the NoW were under investigation.

that Trinity Mirror shares plummeted 22% as the publisher of the Daily Mirror newspaper said economic pressures have made 2011 challenging. Investors took flight despite a rise in full-year pre-tax profits to £123m, up from £42m in 2009, boosted by cost savings following the acquisition of regional titles from Guardian Media Group.

The "girl in the spotted dress" in one of the world's most-published photos has come forward. Pat Stewart, now 77, was 17 when the photo was taken on Blackpool beachfront in 1951 by Bert Hardy of Picture Post. She revealed her identity on The One Show after another woman had claimed the credit, .

Highlighted in the Â鶹¹ÙÍøÊ×Ò³Èë¿Ú newspaper review is the resignation of the director of the London School of Economics over links to Gaddafi's regime is the Times' lead. The Guardian's Simon Jenkins is sympathetic to Sir Howard Davies's plight. "Pity the poor university," he says. "Told for 25 years to get into bed with big money", the LSE found that "big money sometimes stinks," he says.

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