BRIEFS.

*ABC, Chicago paper test new report: The Audit Bureau of Circulations said on Friday that it had launched a new report for newspapers, called the Consolidated Media Report, with the publication of one for Chicago's Tribune Media Group. The report, which was authorized by the Schaumburg, Ill.-based group's board last year, for Tribune features print circulation data for the Chicago Tribune, RedEye, a predominantly free publication available Monday through Saturday, The Mash, a weekly newspaper largely written by teens and serving the teen market, Hoy, a Spanish language newspaper published Monday through Friday, and Fin de Semana, a Spanish language publication available on Sundays. The report also highlights web site usage data for the Tribune, RedEye and Hoy. "The Consolidated Media Report allows publishers to highlight the strengths of their diversified product portfolio," said Tony Hunter, president and chief executive of Tribune Media Group. "As we continue to expand our niche and on-line capabilities, this first-of-its-kind reporting is an important tool in providing advertisers comprehensive information about our products and marketplace reach. Moving forward, this report will be a large part of Tribune Media Group's solution-based, business-to-business marketing efforts." The ABC said all of the products included on a CMR must be owned and operated by an ABC member and ABC auditors must independently verify all of the data.

*Newspaper archive hits 1M pages: A federal project to open the archives of newspapers published between 1880-1922 to the public hit the 1 million-page mark last week, the project's organizers said. The Chronicling America project, sponsored by the Library of Congress and the National Endowment for the Humanities, also said at an event held at the Newseum in Washington, D.C., that its archive now includes contributions from 15 states, doubling the participation. The NEH gives grants to a single organization within a state -- usually a university or state historical society -- which then digitizes newspaper back-issue microfilm. The NEH has made more than $11.6 million in grants over the last 20 years for the project. Officials for the Library of Congress and the NEH said last week they are aiming to ultimately digitize 20 million newspaper pages. The library estimates that more than 140,000 newspapers -- both dailies and weeklies -- have been published in the United States since 1690.

*Las Vegas daily adds TV show: Greenspun Interactive, the new-media arm of the Las Vegas Sun and Las Vegas Weekly, said last week that it is launching a new, half-hour TV show on the city's cable TV system. The show will run through the summer on Tuesday and Thursday nights at 10:30 and then switch to five nights per week in the fall. The 11-person staff isn't attempting to replicate the print operations, executives said. "What if there were a local newscast that wasn't about the latest accident ... or the latest house fire?" Rob Curley, president and editor of Greenspun Interactive, was quoted by the Sun as saying. "If 'The Daily Show,' the Travel Channel, the Food Network and E! were to try to do a daily local show in Las Vegas, this is what it might look like," Curley said. Additionally, the Sun said last week that arts, entertainment and sports coverage that had formerly been published only on the paper's web site would now run in the daily as well. "The change is a logical step in blending the print and on-line editions of the newspaper," the paper quoted Sun Managing Editor Michael Kelley as saying.

*New newspaper plant in South Florida: The Naples News Media Group in Florida -- a division of The E.W. Scripps Co. of Cincinnati -- gave a private media tour of its soon-to-be completed, $95 million plant on Friday. The new 186,503-square-foot building, which sits on 18 acres north of the existing downtown plant, will house more than 300 employees who work on more than a dozen publications and web sites, including the Naples Daily News, the Bonita Daily News, the Banner, the Marco Eagle, Naples Sun-Times, Collier Citizen and Vista Semanal, a Spanish-language newspaper. The company will begin occupying the building in August, with full move-in by September. The facility includes a new press, the Evolution 371 from Swiss manufacturer WIFAG, which has six, four-high towers, six reel stands, autopasters and two-jaw folders; the new press will support a narrower page width and a shorter cutoff and is called one of the fastest newspaper presses in the nation. It will begin operation in September. In addition, the new facility will include a video studio. The Daily News reported that critics have called this "the last newspaper plant to be built in America." Chris Doyle, president of the operation, was quoted by the paper as saying, "Well, if you are in a dying business this is one hell of a coffin."

*McClatchy extends buy-back offer: A less-than-expected response from the bond markets has caused The McClatchy Co. of Sacramento to extend and revise its May 21 offer to buy back $1.15 billion in notes. The company said on Thursday that it was extending the deadline of the offer from today until next Thursday and that it would review, on a case-by-case basis, whether it will issue at least $50 million in its 15-3/4 percent notes that are due in 2014. The company said that as of Thursday it had promises of about $102-1/2 million in the buyback. While the May announcement of the buyback was hailed by the stock market, the credit rating agencies all frowned on the plan, lowering their ratings on McClatchy's debt by at least one notch each.

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