10 MEDIA MOMENTS

1India's cricket bidding saga Last year's savage bidding war escalated even further this year, with Nimbus stepping in to snatch the rights from the original bidders ESPN Star Sports and Zee TV for a whopping US$612 million, almost twice the size of the original winning bid. Raging inflation for sports rights in Asia is rapidly making current broadcast business models obsolete.

2 GMA's Weapons of Mass Attraction An advertising package developed by the Philippines' dominant broadcaster, GMA Networks, offering advertisers end-to-end marketing services, including creative, gave agencies the jitters, with the country's 4As claiming it will make agencies irrelevant.

3 Australia eases up on media ownership Prompted by the Australian Government's relaxed regulations on cross-media ownership, assorted media barons and conglomerates have offloaded stakes in their businesses, fattening up their war chests for a busy 12 months ahead.
4Sgboy.com's brand-friendly makeover Singapore's gay website underwent an "extreme makeover" to relaunch as trevvy.com, adding advertiser-friendly content and formats as the battle for the pink dollar in Asia takes off.

5 Easyfinder fires up censorship debate Hong Kong's Easyfinder, a racy showbiz title, ran a semi-nude picture of Twins singer Gillian Chung, taken through a spyhole, on its front cover. It sparked public anger, while advertisers deserted the title in droves.
6 Super typhoon prompts outdoor crackdown Several deaths caused by flying billboards uprooted by super typhoon Milenyo, with many erected illegally, were the catalyst for the OOH regulatory body in the Philippines to get a lot tougher.

7 Apple Daily squashes rivals in Taiwan The Apple Daily juggernaut went from strength to strength in Taiwan, forcing rival entertainment newspapers Min Sheng Daily and The Great Daily to shut their doors in November and February respectively.

8 SCMP chief has a sense of humour failure A farewell mock front page led to the departure of two long-serving reporters after South China Morning Post editorial boss Mark Clifford took issue over the language used.

9Agencies cough up for ratings After 10 months of protracted wrangling, Singapore's media agencies finally agreed this month to pay for TV ratings data they had been getting for free. How much they are contributing however, still remains unclear.

10Tatler and Prestige head to court Luxury title Prestige took Tatler to court in Singapore, claiming the latter was using a biased readership survey. Synovate's Steve Garton got involved as the star witness; Prestige emerged victorious. The title then spammed reporters globally to make sure they were aware of the court decision.