New insert heralds revamped S-R
Starting Jan. 7, The Spokesman-Review will begin distributing “American Profile” in its Saturday editions.
The news magazine includes features on outdoor recreation, home hints, family issues, gardening, food and finances, according to its publisher, Publishing Group of America.
Steven A. Smith, editor of The Spokesman-Review, says the magazine “not only takes notice of hometown life, but also celebrates it.”
The magazine will be inserted into the Saturday paper, much the way Parade magazine is inserted into Sunday’s Spokesman-Review.
The addition of “American Profile” is the first of a series of changes to The Spokesman-Review. In February, the newspaper will debut a major redesign that will create “an easier-to-handle, easier-to-read newspaper,” Smith said. Also in February, the paper will begin distributing “Relish,” a full-color cooking magazine, on Wednesdays.
Stern rakes in some Sirius stock holdings
New York - Sirius Satellite Radio Inc. will give Howard Stern 34 million shares of stock — worth about $220 million at today’s prices — because the company has met agreed-upon targets for gaining new subscribers under its 2004 deal with the shock jock.
In a regulatory filing Thursday, Sirius said its subscriber count as of Dec. 31, 2005, exceeded the target it had agreed upon with Stern in October 2004, when it made a five-year deal with him.
At the time, Sirius said its deal with Stern would be worth about $100 million per year beginning in 2006. The 34.4 million shares were worth about $110 million then, but the stock has roughly doubled since.
Stern begins his new show on Sirius on Jan. 9, having left his longtime employer Infinity Broadcasting, which has been renamed CBS Radio, a unit of CBS Corp.
Last month, the former president of an accounting firm that Stern used pleaded guilty to insider trading in Sirius shares before the news of Stern’s move to Sirius was made public. Gary D. Herwitz, 50, formerly of Mahoney Cohen & Co., faces up to 16 months in prison at his sentencing in March.
Wisconsin, Wal-Mart settle scale snafu
Madison, Wis. - Wal-Mart Stores Inc. will pay $25,000 to settle allegations it overcharged customers at some Wisconsin stores, state consumer protection officials said Thursday.
Supercenter stores in West Bend, Fond du Lac, Antigo, Shawano and Appleton overcharged customers for bulk items, including sweet potatoes, grapes and grind-it-yourself coffee.
The stores charge for those products by weight, but scales at the check-out registers didn’t automatically subtract the weight of the bags from the total as required by state law, said Jim Rabbitt, director of the consumer protection division of the state Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection.
“This particular problem … is something very few consumers ever have the ability to notice or test,” Rabbitt said.
Public relations officials at the world’s largest retailer’s Bentonville, Ark., corporate headquarters didn’t immediately return a message from The Associated Press on Thursday.
State weight inspectors first discovered the problem in 2003, Rabbitt said. State consumer protection officials warned Wal-Mart to correct it, but inspectors discovered it again last fall, Rabbitt said.