By Jennifer Saba

(Reuters) – Online streaming music service Pandora Media Inc reported better-than-expected revenue and raised its full-year guidance as more people tuned in.

The stock climbed 13 percent in extended trading after closing at $10.33 on Wednesday.

“We are making excellent progress on all fronts – consumer adoption continues at an extraordinary pace,” Pandora Chief Executive Joe Kennedy said in an interview with Reuters.

Pandora raised its full-year revenue outlook to a range of $420 million to $427 million from a previous forecast of $410 million to $420 million.

Pandora said it expects to narrow its net loss to a range of 7 to 11 cents per share, from a previous forecast of 11 to 16 cents.

“It was a good quarter and a very good start to the year,” said BMO Capital Markets analyst Edward Williams.

May 23 (Reuters) – AOL Inc is reorganizing its advertising division again, hoping to ignite growth with one of its major initiatives, big splashy ad formats.

The company said on Wednesday that Ned Brody, formerly chief revenue officer, will become CEO of the company’s advertising network, Advertising.com Group.

Jim Norton, senior vice president of AOL advertising, will become part of the executive committee reporting directly to AOL CEO Tim Armstrong. He will retain his title.

“The goal of these announcements is to fuel our ability to serve more advertisers and publishers with more targeted products and services,” Armstrong wrote in a memo to employees that was obtained by Reuters.

This is the second time AOL has reshuffled ad executives since its head of sales Jeff Levick left last summer.

Armstrong said there will be more organizational changes to the structure around specific brands.

AOL said advertising is the cornerstone of its turnaround strategy as it reduces its dependence on lucrative dial-up subscription dollars.

By Jennifer Saba and Ben Berkowitz

(Reuters) – Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway Inc is making another bet on the newspaper industry, with a deal to buy the majority of Media General Inc’s papers for $142 million in cash.

Berkshire will also loan $400 million to the company and provide a $45 million credit line. Media General will issue warrants for approximately 4.6 million Class A shares, representing 19.9 percent of its existing shares outstanding.

The 63 daily and weekly newspapers scattered throughout the U.S. Southeast, including the Richmond Times-Dispatch, will be operated under a new subsidiary of Berkshire Hathaway, BH Media Group. The sale does not include newspapers in Media General’s Tampa division, which will be sold separately.

Berkshire owns the Buffalo News, the Omaha World-Herald Co and a stake in the Washington Post Co.

“Berkshire Hathaway is clearly (taking) a vote of confidence in small-town local newspapers. They didn’t buy the big city newspaper Tampa Tribune, which is struggling,” said Benchmark Capital analyst Edward Atorino.

“They’re basically giving Media General a lease on life here. This is chump change but Berkshire Hathaway doesn’t fool around. I don’t think Berkshire Hathaway does anything where they’re going to lose money.”

May 14 (Reuters) – Yahoo Inc (YHOO.O: Quote, Profile, Research) investors welcomed the appointment of a media veteran as interim chief executive of the Internet company even as analysts worried that the company’s strategy would face months of uncertainty.

Yahoo’s shares rose 2.5 percent on Monday after Chief Executive Scott Thompson stepped down — after just four months on the job — following a controversy over his academic record and Yahoo named Ross Levinsohn interim CEO.

Yahoo’s board, which was sharply criticized for how it handled Thompson’s hiring, was now giving three director seats to the activist hedge fund headed by Daniel Loeb, settling a looming proxy fight. Yahoo Chairman Roy Bostock was also stepping aside. [ID:nL1E8GD1J4]

Thompson’s departure caps another of many tumultuous episodes involving Yahoo management over several years and comes as the company struggles to regain relevancy and revive growth amid fierce competition from rivals Google Inc (GOOG.O: Quote, Profile, Research) and Facebook.

Analyst Ken Sena of Evercore Partners said investors “are likely to take comfort in fresh leadership, particularly at the board level, as eight of the 11 board seats were named in the past year.”

Others applauded Levinsohn’s appointment because of his history in media and advertising sales, but worried that it could be some time before the company strategy is clarified.

“As a practical matter, what this means for the company is that the past four months have been little more than a false start, and it must once again start at the beginning in terms of establishing a strategic direction,” Macquarie analyst Ben Schachter said in a research note.

By Jennifer Saba

(Reuters) – AOL Inc reported better-than-expected quarterly revenue and profit on Wednesday, although lower premium ad sales in the United States and subscriptions dragged total revenue down.

The company said first-quarter revenue fell 4 percent to $529.4 million, beating analysts’ average forecast of $526.5 million.

Total advertising revenue grew 5 percent on strong growth in third-party network ads and international growth.

But display advertising – big splashy units on Web pages that command high prices – hit a hurdle in the United States, where it fell 1 percent.

“I wasn’t surprised that much,” said Benchmark analyst Clayton Moran about AOL’s display ad revenue. “We saw similar weakness from Facebook and Yahoo.”

“It could be an industry thing or that Google is gaining so much (ad revenue) share that other parties are losing,” Moran said.

May 8 (Reuters) – Demand Media Inc reported better-than-expected first-quarter revenue and raised its 2012 outlook, suggesting it is finally moving past changes that Google made to its search engine that hobbled the company last year.

Revenue, excluding traffic acquisition costs, rose 9 percent to $82.9 million, the online content company said on Tuesday. That was above analysts’ average estimate of $79.6 million, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.

The company raised its forecast for the year. Revenue, excluding traffic acquisition costs, is expected to be in the range of $347 million to $353 million versus a previous forecast of $337 million to $344 million.

Demand shares, which closed on Tuesday at $7.93, were up 20 percent in extended trading.

Demand Media relies on freelance writers to provide articles and videos designed to appear at the top of Internet searches that in turn generate advertising revenue. It operates a clutch of websites, including eHow, LiveStrong and Cracked.

Demand is being closely watched as a new way to inexpensively produce content, especially in light of the challenges facing traditional media. Newspapers, for instance, are struggling with plummeting advertising revenue, which puts a strain on the cost structure that supports journalism.

Even so, Demand media needed to shift its business model when Google Inc made changes to the way its search engine produced results in order to weed out content it considered “low quality.”

May 8 (Reuters) – Discovery Communications reported a lower-than-expected quarterly profit on Tuesday, hurt by losses at the Oprah Winfrey Network (OWN), sending its shares down 6.5 percent.

OWN, the joint venture with the “queen of talk” that is struggling with lackluster ratings, was part of the reason Discovery reported a nearly 30 percent decline in first-quarter earnings.

“We have a long way to go,” Discovery President and Chief Executive David Zaslav said on a conference call with analysts about OWN. “We remain confident in the growth potential of this network.”

OWN has slashed costs by cutting 30 employees and canceling its heavily hyped Rosie O’Donnell talk show. It recently came out with a new slate of reality shows to help the network find its legs.

Discovery expects the network’s cash flow to break even during the second half of 2013, Zaslav said on the call.

Discovery reported first-quarter earnings per share of 57 cents, 3 cents below analysts’ average forecast, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.

Revenue rose 16 percent to $1.1 billion. Analysts expected $1.06 billion.

(Corrects 2nd paragraph to show profit fell; company did not post a loss)

By Jennifer Saba

(Reuters) – Discovery Communications reported a lower-than-expected quarterly profit on Tuesday, hurt by losses at the Oprah Winfrey Network (OWN), sending its shares down 5.5 percent in morning trading.

OWN, the joint venture with the “queen of talk” that is struggling with lackluster ratings, was part of the reason Discovery reported a nearly 30 percent decline in first-quarter earnings.

“We have a long way to go,” Discovery President and Chief Executive David Zaslav said on a conference call with analysts about OWN. “We remain confident in the growth potential of this network.”

OWN has slashed costs by cutting 30 employees and canceling its heavily hyped Rosie O’Donnell talk show. It recently came out with a new slate of reality shows to help the network find its legs.

Discovery expects the network to achieve cash flow break- even during the second half of 2013, Zaslav said on the call.

May 8 (Reuters) – Discovery Communications reported a lower-than-expected quarterly profit on Tuesday, hurt by losses at the Oprah Winfrey Network (OWN), sending its shares down 5.5 percent in morning trading.

OWN, the joint venture with the “queen of talk” that is struggling with lackluster ratings, was part of the reason Discovery reported an $84 million loss for the first quarter.

“We have a long way to go,” Discovery President and Chief Executive David Zaslav said on a conference call with analysts about OWN. “We remain confident in the growth potential of this network.”

OWN has slashed costs by cutting 30 employees and canceling its heavily hyped Rosie O’Donnell talk show. It recently came out with a new slate of reality shows to help the network find its legs.

Discovery expects the network to achieve cash flow break- even during the second half of 2013, Zaslav said on the call.

First-quarter earnings per share of 57 cents missed analysts’ average forecast of 60 cents, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.

The challenges at OWN overshadowed Discovery’s overall revenue growth boosted by strong ad sales and distribution deals with the likes of Amazon and Netflix for its content from other cable networks such as Discovery Channel, TLC and Animal Planet.

By Jennifer Saba and Lisa Richwine

(Reuters) – Walt Disney Co’s ABC News and Univision are teaming up to launch an English-language news and lifestyle network targeting Hispanics, the fastest-growing group in the United States, the companies said on Monday.

The unnamed channel will begin broadcasting in 2013, and ABC and Univision will share news gathering and production costs, the companies said. Each company will own about 50 percent, a person with knowledge of the venture said. Other financial terms were not disclosed.

Cable news is a competitive and crowded landscape. CNN, MSNBC and Fox News are in battle for viewers’ attention and time. At the same time, broadcast network news is facing a shrinking and aging audience.

ABC and Univision – which started exploring a relationship more than a year ago – are banking on the growing number of Hispanics in the United States to flock to the new network. Hispanics currently represent 16 percent of the U.S. population, and the number is expected to grow to 30 percent by 2050.

Univision has the largest audience of Spanish language television viewers in the United States, according to Nielsen ratings. Univision is owned by Saban Capital Group, Madison Dearborn Partners, Providence Equity Partners, Texas Pacific Group and Thomas H. Lee Partners.

Univision reported a $14.1 million loss in the quarter ending March 31, compared with $74.1 million a year earlier. The company has $8.9 billion in debt, much of it taken on when it went private following its 2007 acquisition.