Category Archives: Media & Publishing

Newspaper ad optimism in the States

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Source: guardian.co.uk

There is a renewed sense of optimism among newspaper publishers in the United States and Canada who believe they are about to enjoy a better 2011.

They expect digital advertising, plus certain sectors of classified ads, will improve, according to a study by Kubas Consultants.

Its survey of more than 400 daily newspaper executives and managers across north America found expectations of digital ad sales increasing by almost 20%, with retail display growing 4.3%, and motors and employment up by 3.4%.

But national display ad revenues are projected to drop by a further 1.3% and property classified ads likely to fall by 1.7%.

Some 20% of publishers also feel confident enough to make major investments in printing systems.

But a word of warning. The Kubas report notes that in the past executives have tended to be over-optimistic in their digital ad projections.

Why Media Apps Aren’t as Good a Business as They Seem

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Source: Jeff Bercovici
Story by: http://blogs.forbes.com/jeffbercovici/

It’s long been an article of faith among media optimists that the shift to digital publishing would be a good thing for publishers in the long run, freeing them of the burden of their biggest costs: paper, printing and postage.

That’s why I was surprised to hear David Link, founder and creative director of the digital design firm The Wonderfactory, say, at a recent conference, that producing and distributing app-based magazines for tablet computers and other mobile devices is as costly as putting them out with ink and paper, if not more so. The problem, he told me afterward, is bandwidth. Magazine apps are large downloads. One of the biggest, the early version of Wired’s iPad edition, was around half a gigabyte.

If you’re selling directly through Apple’s iTunes store, that’s no problem: Apple handles the download — in exchange for a 30 percent cut of the sale price. But most publishers aren’t satisfied with that arrangement, which leaves Apple in control of the customer relationship and the resulting data and, for now, limits them to selling single copies rather than subscriptions. However, says Link, “if they’re going through the subscription route and they want to circumvent that” — for instance, through Zinio, a digital publishing services provider with an app of its own — “then they actually have to pay for all that bandwidth.”

Over time, of course, bandwidth gets cheaper, and file compression gets better. Link says most magazine apps now fall in the range of 80 to 250 megabytes per issue, and “I’m hoping they’ll get down to 30 to 50 megs.” But set against that is the pressure to inflate them with ever more rich media. Just as publishers once conditioned readers to expect that all print content ought to be free online, now they’re teaching consumers to expect magazine apps that are tricked out with videos, interactive graphics and more. Link points out that Sports Illustrated’s iPad app, which Wonderfactory developed, features 50 to 100 photos per issue not found in the magazine. And all that extra content doesn’t produce itself, either: Link estimates that putting out an enhanced mobile edition requires two to five extra staffers.

None of this is to say media apps won’t be a great business at some point. But if and when they get there, it will be because of of the high rates publishers will be able to charge for rich, interactive, targeted advertising. Take that out of the equation and app-based publishing, like print publishing, is a cost-heavy, money-losing proposition.

Why Newsquest journalists are rebelling after Gannett executive’s profits boast

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By Roy Greenslade  Source: guardian.co.uk

Brighton Argus journalists were on the picket line today after voting to stage a two-day strike in protest at a two-year freeze on wages and the removal of subbing jobs.

Their major slogan was “Keep jobs local”, a reference to the fact that the paper is to be subbed largely from Southampton in future.

I somehow doubt that the National Union of Journalists would have voted for this action in normal circumstances. Their employer, Newsquest/Gannett, has got away with plenty of cutbacks in the past by claiming that plunging profits have necessitated editorial budget reductions.

But Gannett’s chief financial officer, Gracia Martore, put a lie to those claims last month when she told US analysts that Newsquest was making profits. Healthy profits.

Lest anyone forgets, here’s a verbatim account of what she said on 15 October:

“Let me once and for all dispel the myth that Newsquest doesn’t make money. Newsquest makes a lot of money.

In fact, their margin, as I have said a couple of times, is consistent with the margin that our local US community publishing operations generate.

So their margins are in the high teens to low 20s. And they have consistently made money throughout the years, even in a year like last year when revenues were under as much pressure as they were.”

No wonder Newsquest’s journalists in Brighton, Blackburn, Darlington and Southampton have taken, or are planning to take, industrial action.

As I’ve said before, I think subbing “hubs” are understandable. But the move to create them must be carried out sympathetically. Subs shouldn’t be cast out but encouraged to become content-providers.

As for the pay freeze, that’s altogether unacceptable in the light of Martore’s admission. It is even worse than that because Newsquest/Gannett bosses have been receiving rises while their hard-pressed employees have not.

I understand there is some embarrassment at Newsquest about Martore’s statement and hints that she overstated the true situation.

But Newsquest/Gannett cannot have it both ways. Either she told the truth to analysts, meaning that Newsquest’s executives have been telling porkies to their newspaper staffs.

Or she was “economical with the truth” when addressing sceptical US analysts.

Either Newsquest is making bumper profits and should not have imposed a pay freeze. Or it is scraping by, in which case the company’s chief financial officer should come clean.

Media Decoder: Traffic Bait Doesn’t Bring Ad Clicks

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 A research company says the most profitable articles engage readers, with topics like unemployment and mortgage rates high on the list.

By JEREMY W. PETERS
Published: October 17, 2010
Sure, articles about Lindsay Lohan’s repeat trips to rehabilitation and Brett Favre’s purported sexual peccadilloes generate loads of reader traffic, but do they actually make decent money for the Web sites that publish them?   read entire story here

Pew: Online News Use Growing But Traditional Methods Hanging In There

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Print newspapers and radio are still slipping as sources but U.S. adults are spending more time with news these days when the internet and traditional platforms are combined. The amount of time spent on traditional platforms hasn’t shifted from 57 minutes a day since 2000. Add 13 minutes for internet access and U.S. adults are spending 70 minutes a day on news, according to the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press—and that doesn’t include mobile access or other devices. Pew says it is one of the highest amounts since the mid-1990.

Tom Rosenstiel, director of the Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism, calls it “the end of our digital childhood” as the way content is delivered shifts along with the kind of tools being used and expanded access. But the scant mobile-use exploration means this edition of the biennial survey of news consumption doesn’t really measure that expansion.

The biennial survey of news consumption is based on a snapshot of the self-reported behavior of 3,006 U.S. adults interviewed by Princeton Survey Research Associates International between June 8-28 on cell phones and landlines. (Brief tangent: two-thirds were by landline and more than a third of the cellphone subjects have no landlines.)

It’s a large enough sampling to be meaningful overall; as various subsets are considered, the possible variation in results grows. For instance, only 501 adults ages 18-29 were interviewed and only 193 were 25-29. Why am I bothering with the fine print? It’s a reminder that mileage may vary. That said, here are some bits that struck me as I read through the various sections. The full report has much more, including sections on media credibility and the intersection of political leanings and news consumption.

—57 percent regularly get news from at least one internet or digital source. Nearly half go online for news at three days a week.

—48 percent 18-49 get news online. 23 percent read a daily paper.

—About one third get news online daily, twice the amount four years ago. 

—10 percent regularly use customized webpages or RSS readers; 9 percent read blogs about politics or current events; 12 percent get news by e-mail; 8 percent by cellphone or smartphone; 1 percent through iPad or tablets.

—44 percent of cellphone users with internet access have downloaded an app for news access.

—27 percent go to news blogs regularly for the latest news and headlines compared with 30 percent for the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times; 29 percent for views and opinions, compared with 11 percent each for the two papers. At least one third said they regularly go to the two papers for in-depth reporting.

—- 256 of the respondents were Twitter users, not enough to get a great picture. Pew says 2 percent get news through Twitter.

—28 percent say mention Yahoo (NSDQ: YHOO) as a destination for news and information; 16 percent mentioned CNN. Broadcast network news sites were far down the list.

—25 percent of adults use DVRs/TiVos to record news programs, slightly more than the same number two years ago.

—Just over a third of those surveyed read a book the day before they were surveyed. Of that 35 percent, 4 percent read an e-book. The same number listened to an audio book. Of the e-book readers, the percentages are small but here’s some anecdotal info: 7 percent with a college degree read a book compared to 2 percent with high school or some college. In the age groups, the highest e-book readership was 6 percent for ages 30-49, followed by 5 percent ages 50-64—and only 2 percent of 18-29.