MSN had 425.5 million visitors, Google had 403.2 million and AOL attracted 163.7 million.. Third-quarter net income was $253.8m (£144.9m), compared with $253.3m a year earlier. The figure was little changed because last year's numbers reflected a gain on Yahoo!'s sale of a stake it held in Google. Excluding fees paid to distribution partners, revenues were $932m, beating analysts' expectations of $918m. The company said it had benefited from adding more features to its site to try to draw in customers in the battle with other internet giants such as Google and Microsoft.Last month, Yahoo! said it had hired Kevin Sites, a veteran television correspondent, to produce a multimedia website that will report on wars around the world. Mr Sites will report to Lloyd Braun, the former chairman of ABC's entertainment group, who oversees Yahoo!'s media group in Santa Monica.The California-based company has extended its offering in other ways, adding Yahoo! Finance and Yahoo! Music, which are both profit generators.Yahoo!'s results pleasantly surprised some investors, who had expected the company to report a slow third quarter because the period is usually quiet in the advertising market.However, analysts including Goldman Sachs' Anthony Noto recently upgraded their expectations, because Yahoo! has had a strong record in selling lucrative banner ads and lured users to subscriptions services.Yahoo! ranks second to Google in internet search, but leads the company, as well as Microsoft's MSN and Time Warner's AOL, in terms of visitors each month.Yahoo! garnered 442.2 million global visitors in August, up 18 per cent from a year earlier, according to ComScore Networks, which tracks web use. Yahoo!, the world's most-visited website, reported better-than-expected third-quarter revenues last night as new features such as financial advice columns and music videos attracted more advertisers.

His main task yesterday was to convince Ms Kroes that the auction will not be a "stitch-up" in Sky's favour, as Brussels believes happened last time.So the meeting was focused on assuring the Commission that the auction process would deliver a secondary broadcaster.

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Otherwise, Brussels had threatened legal action.After the meeting, Ms Kroes said that she "welcomed the FAPL's [League's] constructive proposals which move us closer to an amicable result in this case". She agreed to consider these proposals and to announce her decision on whether to accept them by Friday.According to a source, the League told Ms Kroes that at least one "viable" package of rights will end up with a broadcaster other than Sky, and that package "will be big enough to tell the story of a season, for example to include one game each week, but not be too big to prevent smaller bidders from bidding".. That would mean that 20 per cent of the games would fall out of Sky's grasp.But NTL, also a pay-TV group, may decide that such a deal is not attractive.

NTL and ITV have argued, in a joint letter to the League's 20 clubs, that "without a 50 per cent rule, it is difficult to see how it would make commercial sense to bid".Mr Scudamore has long accepted that there should be more than one broadcaster showing the games but he was never going to agree to the "50 per cent rule" and the Commission has stated that it never asked for it. But an agreement with the Commission will break the monopoly that the satellite group Sky has enjoyed over the live game since 1993. The Brussels Competition Commissioner Neelie Kroes had summoned the League's chief executive Richard Scudamore to the Commission yesterday to seek assurances that the League's auction of rights - scheduled for next spring to cover the 2007-2010 period - will give all broadcasters a fair chance of buying a "viable and meaningful" share of the 138 live games on offer each season.Sky currently holds all the rights exclusively, having paid £1bn to secure the four packages auctioned in 2003, to cover the 2004-2007 seasons.But under the proposals that Mr Scudamore outlined to the Commission, one package, out of a likely five to be offered, would be reserved for a secondary broadcaster. That takes a different investment rationale."Mr Glynn expects gains when 3G mobile phones take off in Britain as this will enable more people to gamble wherever they are - be it a sports stadium or on a plane. "Our style is exactly the same as trading on the stock market - it's real time," he said. Sporting Index is one of few firms that allow punters to place bets after a game or competition has started. Mr Glynn said the company was the only one to offer an "in running" market on the Conservative leadership campaign, meaning punters are able to gamble on the outcome around the clock.