JUMPING THE SHARKS
Early reports from Kinsale, Co Cork indicate that the Sharks advertising industry's awards event this weekend had received more than 1,000 entries, a new record in the event's 40-year history.

'FINGAL INDEPENDENT' GOES COMPACT
North Dublin weekly the Fingal Independent is being relaunched this Wednesday in a tabloid format.

Editor Darren Hughes and managing director Brendan McCabe, formerly deputy managing director at the Indo, will have their new product supported by a six-week campaign designed by Bon"re.

The new-look weekly will seek to capture a burgeoning younger population in the area with a north and south edition.

GOOD OLD, OLD YOU TUBE
One of the most intriguing things about the YouTube phenomenon is who is actually checking it out. The video-sharing website is growing by leaps and bounds, but the largest audience segment, as it turns out, is not the usual suspects of earlyadopting teens and twentysomethings. According to research earlier this summer by Nielsen, the biggest chunk of YouTube's audience is males aged 35-49. What this says about the content we're not sure, though we're pretty sure that IT managers at big companies are checking their server logs this autumn and "guring out where all that bandwidth has gone.

But, assuming those IT managers don't block YouTube like Irish schools have attempted to block Bebo and MySpace, we reckon that YouTube's audience might be less "ckle than the younger crowd.

Media executives nervously reading the corporate obiturary of Viacom CEO Tom Freston, who more likely got the chop for failing to grab MySpace from the clutches of Rupert Murdoch than for falling out with "rst-class strange-o Tom Cruise, will almost certainly start sizing up YouTube in the not-too-distant future.

DAFT BROADCASTING BILL
Can we just say that the proposal contained in the draft Broadcasting Bill to tax PCs with the dread 158 licence fee because they may be displaying TV programming is just about the dumbest thing we've heard in some time. All we can say is, they can take my laptop when they prise it from my cold, dead "ngers.

RUMOUR MILL - STENA SETS SAIL?
The Stena Line business could be the "rst casualty of the merger last year between two of Northern Ireland's bigger ad agencies, GCAS and AV Browne. It is understood that Stena, facing ever-stiffer competition from low-cost airlines, has put its creative and media work for the North, the Republic and the UK out for a competitive pitch being managed by Agency Insights.

The Stena business is thought to be worth between 6m and 7m.

'DAILY IRELAND',
RIP Publius wishes to tread carefully here for any number of reasons. We are of course saddened at the demise of any entity doing something that is recognisably journalism. But when Daily Ireland MD Mairtin O Muilleor blamed the "refusal" of government to advertise in its pages, frankly it's a sense of entitlement taken that bit over the border into the Twilight Zone. We wish its alumni well nonetheless.

TIPS, BRIBES & ABUSE all welcome at rdelevan@tribune. ie