Television channel MTV

Television channel MTV has bought a popular website on which US students rate their professors, writes Jon Marcus.

www.MyProfessors.com will join MTVu, a two-year-old closed-circuit university network, which beams programming into dining halls, fitness centres, student lounges and dormitories on 750 US campuses.

The rating website is one of several relatively new services that let students evaluate their teachers and read other students' faculty evaluations. It claims to include reviews of 900,000 university faculty - though many have been rated by one student only.

While it's hard to imagine how Eddie Murphy's Nutty Professor might have fared, some of the harsher comments on the website include: "I swear he breathes sleeping gas"; "boring - but I learnt that there are 137 tiles on the ceiling"; and "not only is the book a better teacher, it has a better personality".

MTVu also recently acquired Y2M, which produces online versions of about 500 US university newspapers. It said the college newspapers could link to www.RateMyProfessors.com , and that the website might expand into the rating by students of restaurants, music and other activities and entertainments