Packer’s man Alexander on Seven board. Seven West Media has appointed former Packer right-hand executive John Alexander to the board — which should ease fevered speculation at Fairfax Media that Alexander was returning to chair the company when incumbent Roger Corbett steps down. Seven West’s statement this morning, with effusive praise for the divisive Alexander, strengthens links with the James Packer empire. In fact, he now has a wider sphere of influence than his late father, Kerry had. Kerry Packer had Cons Press and then PBL and ACP, plus Crown, but never had boardroom mates with rival TV or newspaper or magazine groups. Son James now has those links.

Alexander is currently executive deputy chairman of Crown, James Packer’s casino and gambling empire. The appointment also raises the prospect that Seven’s news and current affairs programs won’t be chasing the gambling stories that percolate from the Packer empire from time to time, unless they are bog standard news stories. Packer has his 10% play in Echo Entertainment (owner of the Star Casino in Sydney) and his bigger deal, the planned $1 billion hotel and high-roller casino at Bangaroo in Sydney’s western CBD. That is his major play at the moment, and he now effectively has a foot in all of Sydney’s media camps, with the exception of The Sydney Morning Herald, which is owned by Fairfax.

Alexander flopped at Nine when he was trying to cut costs and revamp the business, forcing out a string of senior executives who decamped to Seven and helped Kerry Stokes recover value from his floundering investment in Seven.

Leading the way in those departures were David Leckie, the former Nine and then Seven CEO, Peter Meakin, the about-to-retire head of news and current affairs (who memorably described Alexander as a “24 carat c-nt”), and John Stevens, the programming guru who was the first of the old-style Nine executives to leave when Alexander and Packer started throwing their weight around. — Glenn Dyer

US newspaper circulation figures out. The New York Times has emerged the big national winner from the latest six-month sales figures for America’s major daily and Sunday papers. But that wasn’t good news for its bitter local rival, the Rupert Murdoch-controlled New York Post (run by Australian Col Allan), which is doing badly and is among the worst performing of the country’s top 25 daily papers.

Figures for the six month to March this year from the US Alliance for Audit (the old Circulation Audit Bureau) showed that thanks to a sharp improvement in its digital subscriptions, The New York Times‘ Monday to Saturday edition moved past USA Today (published by Gannett) to become the second-biggest selling paper in the country, after The Wall Street Journal, controlled by News Corp.

The Times had a combined circulation of more than 1.86 million copies (analogue and digital). That included the addition of some 325,000 digital readers, lifting the total to over 1 million and a rise of 18% over the year. That offset a loss of nearly 50,000 print sales over the year from March 2012.

And, compared  with March 2011, The Times‘ total circulation has jumped from 917,000 (all print) to the latest figure of 1.586 million. Print sales have slumped to 731,000 — a fall of 186,000 copies. But the company introduced the metered paywall system from March 2011, and digital subscriptions have soared to the latest figure of 1.134 million (of which more than 700,000 were full-paying customers and not on the introductory system). That’s up 32% in the past year alone.

The company last week revealed a series of price cuts and plans for new types of digital offerings to try to keep momentum growing. That was after new digital subscriptions fell to 40,000 in the March quarter from 76,000 in the three months to December. The New York Times Co said the new offers, including a new lower-tier offer priced at under $US15 a month (around half the current bottom rate), would aim to boost sales and profits  from 2014 onwards. — Glenn Dyer (read the full story here)

Front page of the day. Opposition Leader Tony Abbott will back Prime Minister Julia Gillard’s plan to expand the Medicare levy to support disability services, but the Herald Sun put its outrage on the front page with its editorial:

“The Herald Sun unequivocally backs the National Disability Insurance Scheme. But yesterday’s funding announcement by Prime Minister Julia Gillard is yet another example of a broken promise that can only be seen as a tax on middle Australia to plug a Budget black hole dug by an incompetent Government.”