Cision announced today that it has sold its U.S. print monitoring business to fellow media monitoring, data, and analytics company BurrellesLuce. Cision says its print monitoring business has steadily declined in recent years, so the company will instead continue its focus on digital capabilities.

Cision North America CEO Peter Granat told us this morning that print monitoring contributed about eight percent to the total group revenue. “For the last number of years, we have seen double-digit declines in low teens for PR print monitoring business,” he said.

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Cision‘s North American CEO Peter Granat says the settlement that the media data and analytics company has reached with Dow Jones & Company is part of a “bigger issue” that impacts other service providers and PR pros.

In a phone call with PRNewser today, Granat says it has started working with licensing bodies here in the U.S. to avoid issues like the one that spurred the Dow Jones case.

Yesterday, Dow Jones announced that it had reached a settlement with Cision for an undisclosed though “significant” sum of money. Dow Jones claimed that Cision had engaged in the “unauthorized reproduction, distribution, and other misuse of news content” from The Wall Street Journal, Barron’s, and SmartMoney magazines.

“Rights management and licensing will have to be put in place in a more formal structure,” Granat told us.

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Cision‘s North American CEO, Joe Bernardo, has chosen early retirement and will be stepping down from his post, effective March 1. He’s been with the company for 13 years. Over the past year, he’s been shifting duties to Peter Granat, president and COO of Cision North America. Granat assumed that role in January 2011 after spending two years as CEO of Cision Europe. [via, h/t]

Perry Yeatman, head of global corporate and government affairs for Kraft for the past seven years, will step down from her post at the end of the year, following a spin-off of the company’s snack business. Nancy Daigler, the SVP of business unit corporate affairs will lead corporate and government affairs for the grocery division and Ernest Duplessis, VP of corporate communications, will serve as VP of corp comms for the snack division. [via Holmes Report]

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Cision has partnered with PitchEngine, bringing together PitchEngine’s social publishing services with Cision’s PR and marketing software. Cision is also investing in PitchEngine, taking a minority stake in the company. Both Cision and PitchEngine have recently introduced new services. Moreover, Cision’s U.S. lead Peter Granat recently told us that the company has completed a lengthy digital strategy transition. The release and announcement video are available here.

CrowdGather, a network of forums and subject-specific message boards, has acquired Yuku.com, a company that manages these forums and boards. According to CrowdGather, the acquisition will increase the company’s monthly traffic 50 percent to 235 million.

Klout announced this week that 100 million people have Klout scores. Twitter has also hit the 100 million mark, and offers a breakdown of its users. But unlike so many others in the tech arena these days, the company insists it doesn’t want to go public.

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Joan Kilanowski, previously the VP of major accounts for VMS’ news division, has joined Cision‘s account team to help transition former VMS clients. VMS announced that it had filed Chapter 7 bankruptcy last Friday.

Kilanowski joined VMS in Texas in 2000. She contributed to the VMS Voice blog, was a member of the company’s social media team, and led the Hispanic media monitoring service.

Cision North America’s president and COO Peter Granat told us that the company had begun work immediately to transition VMS clients after the sudden closure announcement.

A notice is now on the VMS homepage stating that the media monitoring and analytics company has filed for Chapter 7 liquidation today with the United States Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York.

“The decision has been made after exhaustively evaluating many different options and with sadness for our loyal staff and customers,” the statement reads.

All employees have been terminated, effective today. We placed a call to the company and got no answer. Cision has already put a system in place to transition VMS customers.

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The International Association for Measurement and Evaluation of Communication (AMEC) is hosting its third European Summit on Measurement in Lisbon this week (it started yesterday and ends tomorrow) and AVEs are once again a hot topic.

AVEs, or Ad Value Equivalency, has been a controversial metric for eons. The Barcelona Principles, unveiled last summer, state specifically that “AVEs are not the Value of Public Relations.” However, PR measurement standards have yet to be decided. In an effort to move the process along, AMEC and the PRSA announced a collaborative effort late last year.

In a conversation with PRWeek, David Rockland, AMEC director and global head of research at Ketchum, said, “One: better techniques, and two: client education, and that’s really what this conference is all about.”

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