Joe Ciarallo, the new full-time editor of Mediabistro’s PR blog PRNewser, joined hosts Jason Boog of GalleyCat and AgencySpy‘s Matt Van Hoven on today’s mediabistro.com Morning Media Menu podcast.

Joe talked about his plans to expand PRNewser’s coverage and Mediabistro’s PR-related content, as well as some problems within the PR industry.

“From last fall on through the spring there was a big cutback,” he said. “Marketing is often the first thing to go, so that was obviously a challenge for a lot of internal marketing teams and agencies. Budgets weren’t the same. A lot of firms get paid a monthly retainer…the Council of PR Firms, which monitored over 100 agencies in their surveys, said the retainer average was down I think 30 percent. So a lot of people are expecting that to bounce back and we are seeing a lot of positive signs lately.”

Besides the recession, PR agencies are being challenged by the growth of social media and learning how to reign it in and use it to their advantage, Joe said. “We’re building the car as we’re driving down the highway at 60 miles an hour,” he said.

Also discussed: how PR agencies handle internal publicity, covering the PR industry past and present and the huge success of Dan Brown‘s new book, “The Lost Symbol.”

You can listen to all the past podcasts at BlogTalkRadio.com/mediabistro and call in at 646-929-0321.

GalleyCat: Dan Brown‘s long-awaited novel, The Lost Symbol hit bookstores today.

BusinessWeek: New York magazine owner Bruce Wasserstein has dropped out of the running to buy BusinessWeek.

Min Online: Forbes.com launched an app for the Palm Pre.

Paid Content: News Corp. CEO Rupert Murdoch told attendees at the Goldman Sachs Communacopia XVIII Conference that The Wall Street Journal will soon start to charge for mobile access on the Blackberry and iPhone.

Julie Menin’s Give and Take: A four-part interview with “Live with Regis and Kelly”‘s longtime producer Michael Gelman, once the youngest producer of any national talk show. In the first part (above) Gelman says he thinks Regis Philbin will never retire. “Being the host of our show is the closest thing to retirement you can have,” he said.

It was an all-blog morning as GalleyCat editor Jason Boog and AgencySpy‘s Matt Van Hoven welcomed FishbowlNY editor Amanda Ernst to the mediabistro.com Morning Media Menu podcast.

Amanda spoke about the Audit Bureau of Circulation’s semi-annual report due out on Monday and what it might mean for the magazine industry. She also discussed one magazine that is expected to post positive numbers in the upcoming report, Saveur and her recent interview with the epicurean magazine’s publisher Merri Lee Kingsly. Saveur is leaving its competitors in the dust by approaching ad sales in a new and different way, motivated by Kingsly’s unconventional approach, Amanda explained.

Also discussed: Sen. Edward Kennedy‘s upcoming memoir and how it will fare against Dan Brown‘s much-hyped new release and A&E‘s acquisition yesterday of Lifetime.

You can listen to all the past podcasts at BlogTalkRadio.com/mediabistro and call in at 646-929-0321.