Media Roundup: Google Earnings Down 68 Percent, Digg Cutting 10 Percent of Workforce, and More

Digg cutting 10 percent of workforce — The popular social news site is scaling back ambitious expansion plans and is instead cutting roughly 10 percent of its work force. As part of a focus on 2009 profitability, Digg is also hiring a direct sales team. The economic climate also forced Digg to shutter plans to expand to a new office including a few international locations. The company claims to have enough cash on hand to last “multiple years” at the current burn rate. [Source: CNET]

Tribune finds buyer for Cubs– The Tribune Company, looking to raise cash after declaring bankruptcy, has found a potential buyer for the Chicago Cubs. The billionaire Ricketts family, who were a founding member of TD Ameritrade, was selected among three finalists. The deal is said to be worth about $900 million. [Source: ESPN]

Local Stations are dragging down NBC — General Electric, NBC’s owners, blamed a recent three percent drop in revenue on the sluggishness of local NBC affiliates. Local station revenue was down 25 percent with profit taking a 55 percent dip. The company’s cable division was strong, however, because cable operators pay a flat fee, regardless of subscribers or the advertising market. [Source: All Things Digital]

Hearst closes Teen — Hearst announced that they are moving Teen, a quarterly newsstand-only magazine targeting teenage girls, to online-only publication. Teen was entirely reliant on single-copy sales, which fell 9.4 percent to about 210,000 in the first half of 2008. The magazine was acquired along with Seventeen, in 2003. [Source: MediaPost]

Facebook tops MySpace internationally – Though still tops in the U.S. market, MySpace only has half the worldwide audience of Facebook. While large social networks typically see a slowing in growth as they become larger, Facebook continues to post a 10.8 percent month over month growth rate. In a memo to TechCrunch, MySpace commented that they measure growth by revenue, not eyeballs. [Source: TechCrunch]