—Bertelsmann: Sony (NYSE: SNE) Music’s global digital head Thomas Hesse is leaving to join Bertelsmann in February, tasked with its digital transformation, MusicWeek writes. Hesse previously led digital at SonyBMG.

Two business publishers have reported modest financial growth in interim financial updates, after content and services subscriptions held up.

Physicians are wearing lab coats with iPad pouches, and college students are doing coursework quizzes on their mobile phones. For a royalty collection agency, these are not just examples of cool technology but also a chance for publishers to take new bites of the licensing apple.

Jonathan Tasini was a hero to many writers when he won his battle to get additional payments from publishers like The New York Times who had included his freelance work in databases like LexisNexis. Tasini’s battle went to the Supreme Court in 2001, and created a strong legal precedent guaranteeing…

It sounds like RBI’s restructuring may not yet be over. Reporting eight percent lower revenue for the first half of the year, parent Reed Elsevier (NYSE: RUK) said “leading (RBI) brands returned to growth in the first half; (but there are) continuing difficult print advertising markets in other business magazines”.

Reed Business Information, which has avoided its own sell-off by off-loading many of its own titles, is now in buying mode, acquiring Ascend Worldwide, a supplier of aerospace information to investors.

After offloading many titles over the last year, Variety and Farmers Weekly publisher Reed Business Information returned to revenue growth in the first three months of 2011, parent Reed Elsevier (NYSE: RUK) says in an interim management statement for the period.

Yet another Reed Business Information selloff—it is selling its Computer Weekly magazine’s website and events to IT publisher TechTarget (NSDQ: TTGT) Inc (release). The print edition will be closed by RBI after 45 years on paper.

Variety and Farmers Weekly publisher Reed Elsevier (NYSE: RUK) says its Reed Business Information earned 19 percent less money through 2010, as it off-loaded many magazines to reshape its portfolio.

Keith Jones, the group CEO of Reed Business Information is retiring later this month, as the B2B publisher’s contraction nears its final stages for now. UK CEO Mark Kelsey will add the group-level role to his job, reports Journalism.co.uk , which has this excerpt from Jones’ leaving email to staff…

The first half of the year for Reed Elsevier (NYSE: RUK) saw ad dollars stabilize, though executives expressed a greater degree of caution regarding the rest of its business looking ahead. The company didn’t provide much detail on its magazines’ performance. The main driver of the company’s business was the…

		EPS*	Rev. vs Qh109	Net Inc. vs Qh109
Reed Elsevier	Release		1%	1%

* vs. Analysts' Estimates: Beat Met Missed

Affluent ad-focused Martini Media Network has raised $6 million second round led by Reed Elsevier (NYSE: RUK) Ventures. Granite Ventures and Venrock participated in the round as well. While the b2b magazine division of Reed Elsevier has spent the past year selling off periodicals, the venture capital arms has been…

It’s sold or shut dozens of magazines since aborting the planned sale of RBI whole; now parent Reed Elsevier (NYSE: RUK) has also quietly off-loaded its German division to the Munich-based European Professional Publishers Group. The sale was alluded to in Reed Elsevier’s Q1 interim management statement today but was…

Reed Business Information is shutting down 23 controlled circulation titles (listed below) in the United States, the almost-final phase of an often painfully slow divestiture effort that started last July after earlier attempts fizzled. Almost, because the company still has intellectual property and other assets to disperse. A Reed Elsevier…

Reed Business Information—which has been busily unloading its magazines—has now sold Publishers Weekly, which had been in a state of deal-no deal limbo for more than a month. The publication is being sold to a new company led by George Slowik Jr., who was the publication’s publisher in the late…

Variety followed up Sunday’s Academy Awards with a different batch of envelopes, handing out pink slips to eight editorial staffers—including chief film critic Todd McCarthy and theater critic David Rooney—in its latest reorg. Reed Business Information has sold or plans to sell most of its U.S. titles that rely heavily…

An all-hands staff meeting has been called for 9:30 a.m. at Publishers Weekly, according to a source familiar with the situation. PW is one of the remaining U.S. Reed Business Information titles the company has said it plans to divest; RBI plans to keep only Variety among its U.S. ad-supported…

Update: It has been announced officially by the two companies: Canon Communications is buying four brands from Reed Business Information-US: Electronic Design News (EDN), Design News, Test & Measurement World, and Packaging Digest. This is a worldwide deal for the brands bought, not just U.S.; the acquisition of the US…

Ken Sonenclar is a Managing Director at DeSilva + Phillips, LLC, a New York investment bank specializing in media. After decades with less disruption than a German train schedule, Hollywood media is rocking from a tumultuous year of deals and reinvention.  Nothing less than the future of B2B publishing is…