Street no longer buying ‘cost-cutting’

July 20th, 2010

Editor & Publisher’s Mark Fitzgerald takes a look at Gannett Co.’s second-quarter earnings and says in his Fitz & Co. blog that simply cutting costs, which for the most part means laying off staff, no longer flies for newspaper publishers.

“The Street will no longer be satisfied with earnings pumped up only by continual cost-cutting. Gannett (GCI) handily beat Street estimates of earnings – but its overall earnings, in a quarter when its broadcast properties were humming nicely, was down 1.6%. … GCI got hammered for those results Friday, falling more than 10 percent.”

Gannet’s print and circulation revenues were down for the quarter also.

Other publishers’ stocks are also down as their 2Q reports come in the next several days, Fitzgerald says.

Tags: , , , , ,
Posted in Newspapers | No Comments »

Gannett joins Yahoo! newspaper ad group

July 19th, 2010

Gannett announced Friday that it would begin selling  targeted display ads to run on Yahoo! and sites for its 81 newspapers and seven of its broadcast stations nationwide.

The deal adds Gannett, the nation’s largest newspaper publisher, to an advertising consortium that includes more than 800 members, according to Online Media Daily. McClatchy newspapers, the third-largest publisher, was one of the first members of the consortium, formed in November 2006.

Like other publishers in the deal, Gannett may also provide local content for Yahoo! properties in the U.S., including the Yahoo! homepage.

“To date, the consortium has sold more than 40,000 ad campaigns onto Yahoo! totaling more than $100 million in sales to date, according to Lem Lloyd, vice president of channel sales at Yahoo!,” says Online Media Daily.

Yahoo’s publishing platform enables “local newspapers to target consumers according to geographic, demographic and behavioral factors in ads that appear on Yahoo! properties from mail to sports to news.”

Yahoo!, which at the time was being run by former Knight Ridder executives, said at the launch of the program that it was teaming with newspapers because they already had local advertising staffs.

Local advertising accounts for about half of the $245 billion in total U.S. ad spending, Online Media Daily says.

Gannett announced in May that it would begin to sell online marketing services, another program adopted earlier by McClatchy. GannettLocal offers search engine marketing, e-mail, digital display, website and geo-targeted print/flyers.

Tags: ,
Posted in Advertising, Newspapers, Online | No Comments »

USAT jumps shark with full-paper wrap

July 14th, 2010

At least USA Today had a more-or-less straight-forward explanation for its 1A ad that wrapped the whole paper on Monday:

“Lee Jones, evp, advertising, USAT, said that in the past, concerns about editorial integrity, production and circulation deterred USAT from selling ads that wrapped the paper, but that market demand and quality of the ad allayed those worries,” MediaWeek reported.

As to “editorial integrity” versus “market demand,”  the  wrap promoting Jeep’s 2011 Grand Cherokee will bring in $1 million in a deal that includes presence on the newspaper’s iPad app and Web site.

The ad marked the first time the Gannett flagship had wrapped its news section with an ad. The wrap completely obscured the paper as shown through the window of outdoor racks, MediaWeek said.

USAT wrapped its Life section with a Verizon ad July 1 and recently introduced other front-page ads that do not obscure editorial.

Posted in Advertising, Newspapers | No Comments »

Condé Nast lowers ethics bar for online staff

July 12th, 2010

Condé Nast has found a hole in the wall separating editorial from advertising, and will have its online staff produce a six-page advertorial supplement to run in several of its magazines.

The ad supplement will promote Samsung and run for eight months across Wired, Bon Appétit, Vanity Fair, Condé Nast Traveler, Architectural Digest and GQ.

Having the online staff produce the supplement was seen as a way  “to avoid ruffling the feathers of print editors, who are seen as more sensitive than their Web counterparts to being asked to serve up content on a directive from the advertiser,” MediaWeek says.

“Condé Nast insisted that editors and writers had free reign to select and reject content for the Samsung insert,” Paid Content says in its report.

Condé Nast did the same thing a few years ago for a section promoting Microsoft.

“Advertisers like advertorials when they contain original edit, because they can direct the theme if not the actual content, ensuring it’s relevant to their message,” MediaWeek says. “Meanwhile, the publication technically is abiding by American Society of Magazine Editors rules because it has the final say over the edit content.”

As best we can tell, MediaWeek means Condé Nast is abiding by the rule, technically, that says: “In order for a publication’s chief editor to be able to monitor compliance with these guidelines, every effort must be made to show all advertising pages, sections and their placement to the editor far enough in advance to allow for necessary changes.” But not necessarily: “A magazine’s editorial staff members should not be involved in producing advertising in that magazine.”

Tags: , ,
Posted in Advertising, Magazines, Online | No Comments »

McClatchy signs for exclusive Groupon deals

July 9th, 2010

McClatchy newspaper websites will begin presenting exclusive daily deals on local goods, services and cultural events through the Groupon shopping website, Editor & Publisher reported recently.

The Sacramento and Kansas City sites will get them first, and the program will roll out to the rest of the chain over the next few months.

“The agreement provides a key component in McClatchy’s local marketplace initiative designed to bring together consumers looking for bargains and merchants seeking increased sales,” E&P says.

“For Groupon, the agreement is part of a larger initiative to offer a new, incremental revenue stream to major publishers.”

Groupon negotiates discounted deals with local businesses, and then sends free e-mail alerts to subscribers. Deals are activated if a minimum number of people agree to buy, which encourages subscribers to share the promotion with others via social media tools.

Tags:
Posted in Advertising, McClatchy, Online | No Comments »

McClatchy D.C. Bureau drops polling

July 8th, 2010

Budget cuts at McClatchy Newspapers  mean the Washington D.C. bureau will drop its contract with Ipsos, which has conducted polls for the news outlet for years, Media Matters for America reported today.

Ipsos had conducted about one poll a month for McClatchy, usually about politics, Robert Rankin, McClatchy’s government and politics editor, told MMA’s Joe Strupp.

“The budget requires that that relationship comes to an end,” Rankin said. “… This hurts. We are staffing (political coverage) at about the same level. But we can’t cover the absence of polls. There is no way to replace them.”

“McClatchy’s move is not unique,” Strupp writes. “Numerous news outlets in print and on air have been cutting back on the use of polls, most citing budgetary needs.”

Tags: , ,
Posted in McClatchy, Newspapers | No Comments »

Gannett experimenting with paywalls

July 7th, 2010

Gannett has initiated a “small-scale test” of paywalls at three of its smaller newspapers’ websites “to help [the publisher] develop [a] long-term strategy for paid content,” according to a report from Poynter’s Bill Mitchell.

The sites for the Tallahassee Democrat, The Greenville (S.C.) News and The (St. George, Utah) Spectrum are charging $9.95 a month for online-only access. The fee for web access bundled with a print subscription varies by market.

Gannett’s Kate Marymont, vice president of news for Gannett’s Community Publishing Division, told Mitchell the company targeted sites with niche content – such as Clemson football coverage in Greenville and Florida State football in Tallahassee.

“We want to test the idea that our journalism is more of a service than a product, and that we should give readers a selection of delivery methods,” Marymount said.

Robin Pence, Gannett’s vice president of corporate communications, said the company will use what it learns from the test sites “to help us develop our long-term strategy for paid content.”

Tags: , , , , ,
Posted in Newspapers, Online | No Comments »

Evening news shows losing viewers

June 29th, 2010

The big three broadcast networks’ evening news shows lost more than 1 million viewers between them over the course of the past year, TV Newser said today.

NBC Nightly News with Brian Williams lost 440,000 viewers (-140k in A25-54 demo) compared to Q2 2009, ABC’s World News with Diane Sawyer (Charlie Gibson was anchor in 2009) lost 260,000 viewers (-80k in the A25-54 demo), and the CBS Evening News with Katie Couric lost the most, based on a percentage, losing 340,000 viewers (30k in the A25-54 demo) compared to Q2 2009.

World News and Evening News also saw their lowest averages ever for the first three months of 2010.

Tags: , , , , , , ,
Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »

High-def video ads a can’t-miss approach

June 28th, 2010

The next-generation of advertising online “will let advertisers serve up high-definition, streaming video in real time,” says Mediaweek, and it will be more intrusive than ever.

Hearst Magazines is launching them with a video for Gillette’s Venus Bikini Kit that includes a lifestyle expert providing bathing suit-selection and grooming tips along with mentions of the product and click-to-buy opportunities.

The ads are meant to look more like editorial content than advertising, Mediaweek says.

This fall, Hearst will launch large-format fixed-panel and pushdown ads integrated with editorial content. The entire package will be sharable via Facebook, giving advertisers more potential exposure for their message.

Hearst says the high-def ads get a high response in surveys and, as Mediaweek puts it, “It doesn’t hurt that they bring in 20-30 percent more than standard Web ads.”

Tags: ,
Posted in Advertising, Magazines, Online | No Comments »

Gay press saw more spending, better prices in ‘09

June 23rd, 2010

The nation’s gay press fared well in 2009, scoring a 13.6 increase in ad spending, which Media Daily News calls “a remarkable performance, especially considering the adverse conditions in the economy at large.”

The numbers indicating a record year for publications serving lesbians, gays, bisexual and transgendered people come from the 2009 Gay Press Report by Rivendell Media.

In comparison, the Publishers Information Bureau says overall consumer magazine ad spending fell 17.5 percent in 2009 compared to 2008, and total ad pages were down 25.6 percent.

The number of ads in LGBT publications actually fell by 6.8 percent, the MDN report says, “reflecting a trend toward larger, more expensive ad placements. It may also reflect an increase in prices for LGBT advertising, as niche media leverage their special connection with LGBT consumers to demand more premium rates.”

But there was also a drop in overall circulation for LGBT media, down 27.6 percent from roughly 3.3 million in 2008 to 2,387,750 in 2009.

Tags: , , ,
Posted in Advertising, Magazines | No Comments »

« Older Entries
Newer Entries »