December 2008 Archives

TV beat other media as the medium consumed by most Britons on a daily basis, according to a UK Newspaper Society study released in 2006, SFN's World Digital Media Trends 2007 reported.

More than nine out of 10 British people consume TV every day, while more than 80 percent read local newspapers. Radio reached nearly three out of four, while news Web sites and national papers are consumed by more than 60 percent of Britons on a daily basis.

The New York Times Co. has told regulators it might be selling shares and/or other securities in order to raise some seriously needed cash, Reuters reported Tuesday.

The Times has a $400 million payment on one of its two revolving lines of credit due in May, and is already set to borrow up to $225 million against its Manhattan headquarters building.

Bolivia will see the launch of its first state-sponsored newspaper, President Evo Morales announced, according to an article by gipp.ru on Monday.

Morales said that for the first time the country's government will have its own publication that will help it to report "the truth" each day.

Following in the footsteps of newspapers like U.S.-based Orange County Register and France's Le Monde, Gannett-owned USA Today will now be available on Amazon's Kindle e-reader, mocoNews.net reported last week.

A monthly subscription to USA Today will cost US$11.99 and the first issue for sale launched Monday. The paper's Kindle December 26 issue was available for download for free. Single Kindle editions cost almost 75 cents for newspapers like The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal.

Online video enterprise Blinx has released optimised advertising technology called the Un-roll Unit that may help boost profits from videos on the Internet, MediaGuardian reported Monday. The video format entails overlay ads and logos that reappear throughout an online video during "contextually relevant moments," according to a Reuters report Monday.

Instead of having a longer pre-roll, which viewers may dislike, the technology unravels digital curtains with an advertiser's logo and immediately starts the video. Ads or click-through links are added in certain areas and towards the end of the clip, and a click-through to a sponsor's site may be inserted. The system is being employed by Shell Oil through its agency, MediaCom.

Sina Corp., which operates of the biggest Web portal in China, plans to expand beyond the Web. It will purchase Focus Media Holding Ltd.'s digital out-of-home advertising networks. The deal is worth about US$1.3 billion in stock, Bloomberg reported.

The deal will generate ad revenue from at least 120,000 flat-panel TV screens in office buildings and public spaces in more than 90 cities.

Spanish newspaper El Pais employs the highest paid newspapers journalists in the world, according to Juan Antonio Giner, founder of Innovation Media Consulting Group.

Excluding directors, the average salary at the newspaper is €79,472 per year, with journalists making an average of €94,592 a year. Meanwhile, advertising and administrative staffers make an average of €70,159 and production staff makes about €69,775, Giner reported Saturday on his Innovations in Newspapers blog.

Five media companies have expressed interest in buying some or all of the daily and weekly Connecticut newspapers put on the auction block by Journal Register Publishing Co., the Associated Press reported Monday.

"Just as with any negotiation that we have with any business, we don't put the specifics of who we're discussing with out on the table until such time that it is appropriate," Joan McDonald, Connecticut's economic development commissioner, told the AP after a private meeting.

More Americans are getting their news online than from print newspapers for the first time, yet neither media has surpassed television as the top source for national and international news, a Pew Research Center study released last week announced.

According to the study, 40 percent of respondents said they get most of their national and international news from online, compared to 35 percent who cited newspapers as their top source. Seventy percent said TV is their main source.

The top three mobile phone operators in Thailand, AIS Dtac and True Move, are together introducing a system that will allow their customers to block unwanted SMS messages, including spam, the Bangkok Post reported last week.

The "smart pool mobile number" system is planned to be unveiled by the beginning of 2009.

Music companies are planning to create their own video site, which would compete directly with YouTube, owned by Google, the Sunday Times reported.

Warner has demanded that YouTube takes down videos that feature songs the record label owns the rights to. This even includes Happy Birthday to You and Winter Wonderland, which Warner owns the rights to.

Norway-based media company Schibsted has bought a 34 percent share in Lithuanian free daily 15min from Lithuanian paid morning paper Lietuvos Rytas, Newspaper Innovation reported Friday. The move makes Schibsted the majority shareholder.

Schibsted closed its paid tabloid in the country, L.T., earlier in 2008. It bought its initial share in 15min in 2006.

Local news is the topic that draws most people to newspapers, while most TV viewers are usually attracted by international topics, and online users by headlines, according to a Pew study in 2006, SFN's World Digital Media Trends 2007 reported.

About 35 percent of the survey respondents said local news is the most interesting subject to them in newspapers, while 28 percent and 21 percent picked headline and sports news, respectively. Thirteen percent said international news is the most interesting.

U.S. newspaper publisher GateHouse Media has sued The New York Times (NYT) for violating copyright terms by permitting its Boston Globe office to include headlines and beginning sentences from sites owned by the publisher, CNet reported Tuesday.

The links featured on NYT's Boston.com Newton Web site navigate users to the original GateHouse content that also displays advertising. However, GateHouse states in the lawsuit that the Massachusetts-based publisher was losing advertising revenue because users go straight to the articles, and do not see the its homepage ads.

The U.S. presidential elections at the beginning of November sent more people in the United Kingdom online seeking quality news Web sites, causing the Times Online, Indepndent.co.uk and Guardian.co.uk to all record boosts in traffic, MediaGuardian reported Tuesday.

Guardian saw traffic reach 26 million uniques for the first time, while the Times Online and Independent.co.uk each saw traffic increase by more than 5 percent month-on-month.

Many newspaper companies are selling their buildings amid tough financial times, but as poor credit markets cause commercial real estate deals to become fewer, who will buy these landmark buildings?

At least six newspaper companies have announced intentions to sell their buildings this year, as commercial real estate values have taken nosedives, the Associated Press reported.

Social networking sites, such as Facebook, MySpace and Bebo, are important catalysts to drive traffic on the mobile Internet, as average mobile users check their profiles more than eight times a day, according to new research, Brand Republic reported.

According to Orange, 640,000 of its users access social networking on mobile devices, contributing 166 million page impressions every month.

Yahoo has acquired a 30 percent stake in Info Network Management Company (INMAC), an Indian company in the telephone directory search market, PC World reported.

According to Keith Nilsson, senior vice president and head of emerging markets at Yahoo, this deal will allow users in India to access information about local businesses and services through Yahoo Web sites as well as by phone through the Call Ezee service offered by INMAC.

Free dailies around the globe saw their overall circulation grow just 2 percent, the lowest lift in the 13 years commuter papers have been around, Newspaper Innovation reported Monday.

In Europe, circulation was down 3 percent, to 26.4 million. In Asia, however, circulation was up 16 percent, and the Americas saw a 7 percent increase.

The newspaper business model is in trouble, and news veteran Joel Brinkley offered up an idea in his San Francisco Chronicle column on how to save it.

"Imagine a company that sells you a product each day - while at the same time that company produces an enhanced version of the same product and gives it away, hours earlier, for free. How long would you continue buying that product?"

Fifty-eight percent of U.S. dailies have offered some type of user-generated content in the past year, according to research firm the Bivings Group's latest report, paidContent reported Friday.

More newspapers offered a chance for users to comment on stories too, increasing to 75 percent in 2007, more than double the 33 percent in 2006.

A newspaper in Monmouth County, New Jersey, United States is thriving, not because it has found the best solutions online and across platforms, but instead because it "aggressively ignores" the Internet, The New York Times reported Sunday.

The TriCityNews is profitable in the double digits and has been growing by about 10 percent each year since its launch, in 1999. It has also recently published its biggest issue ever.

Search engine giant Google hinted that it may be launching another mobile phone after recently launching the G1 phone through U.S. phone provider T-Mobile, reported CNet Sunday.

The T-Mobile G2 is rumoured to contain a 5-megapixel camera with an automatic focus, a VGA camera for video calls, a Wi-Fi connection and a touch screen. The phones run on Google's Android OS technology.

The Seattle Times is asking 500 staff, including managers and non-union workers, to take a week off without pay, the Sacramento Business Journal reported.

According to company spokeswoman Jill Mackie, workers can take the time off for a week long or one day at a time between now and February. She stated that she was not clear how much money the move would save.

YouTube viewers are 1.5 times more attentive and engaged in advertising compared to TV audiences, research conducted by General Motors Europe, Motorola, MindShare and the Online Testing Exchange (OTX) has discovered, New Media Age reported.

Using eye tracking and biometric data, the study showed the brand impact of advertising on YouTube, where recall and attribution for an ad watched was up to 14 percent higher than that on TV.

Local TV news is rated as the most important new source, followed by the Internet, according to the Carnegie Corporation's "Abandoning the News" study, SFN's World Digital Media Trends 2007 reported.

The Teesside Evening Gazette has signed a five-figure sponsorship deal for its multimedia sports coverage, Journalism.co.uk reported Tuesday.

The first companies to sign up for the package, which will provide advertising opportunities throughout the title's print, video and blog content, are all local companies and organisations, such as Middlesbrough College.

The Teesside Evening Gazette has signed a five-figure sponsorship deal for its multimedia sports coverage, Journalism.co.uk reported Tuesday.

The first companies to sign up for the package, which will provide advertising opportunities throughout the title's print, video and blog content, are all local companies and organisations, such as Middlesbrough College.

Trinity Mirror will terminate its regional motoring copy service Driving Force and outsource the operation in 2009 to reduce costs and increase multimedia content, Media Guardian reported Tuesday.

The operation has been in-house for the past six years, and will be replaced by an independent company called Driving Force Media. This will make the current Trinity Mirror staff redundant.

Due to the deteriorating economic status globally and in the United Kingdom, eMarketer has trimmed its estimates for 2008 British online advertising spending from £3.36 billion (US$6.41 billion) to £3.34 billion ($6.15 billion).

The prediction for 2009 is £3.58 billion ($5.30 billion), eMarketer reported.

The Internet and cable have risen in popularity since 2006 as news sources, according to a recent Gallup poll, UPI reported. The study found that local television news remains on the top as Americans' most preferred news source - more than half (51 percent) of respondents said they watch it on a daily basis.

About four out of 10 said they both watch cable news and read newspapers for current events, according to UPI.

Media research firm The Kelsey Group has created a list of more than 24 trends and industry developments it believes will emerge and grow in 2009 in the categories of interactive local media, global Yellow Pages, vertical directories and classifieds, the group announced Wednesday.

The group predicts that 2010, however, will be a "tipping point," Neal Polachek, The Kelsey Group's CEO stated. "The complexities facing the local advertising industry as a result of the challenging global economic situation are likely to accelerate the transition of some local advertising dollars to the Internet, while at the same time making the role of the local media sales representative more important than ever."

Korea's Internet industry is dominated by NHN, which controls almost 80 percent of the search market there, through www.naver.com. But as online map services are still emerging, many smaller players are looking to gain a foothold in the market through innovative mapping services, The Korea Times reported.

Other players are competing using maps to gain an edge; however, NHN CEO Choi Hwi-young recently said the company will unveil its new map services in January or February.

The American Society of Newspaper Editors may remove the word "paper" from its name to become the American Society of News Editors, and also begin allowing non-print news outlets and those teaching in the journalism field to become members, the Associated Press reported Tuesday.

The Reston, Virginia-based ASNE will vote on the two changes, which require approval from members, in April in Chicago. The organisation's move away from catering to purely a printed product is indicative of a shift across the United States.

The Independent and French News channel France 24 have closed a deal for English-language content, in which the UK newspaper will use video provided by France 24, Media Guardian reported Tuesday.

"The deal with France 24 is one of a number that we hope to be setting up as we build up our video content in the new year," said Jimmy Leach, the Independent's editorial director for digital.

La Nua (New Day), Northern Ireland's only Irish-language daily newspaper, will close down at the end of the year when its contract for funding with Foras na Gaeilge expires, the Belfast Telegraph reported Tuesday.

The West-Belfast based newspaper will close shop after more than 20 years of production because official funding was withdrawn, according to its managing director. The closure will result in eight job losses.

McClatchy Co., the third largest newspaper publisher in the United States, on Monday announced its total revenue slid 19.4 percent in November on weakening advertising sales, the Associated Press reported.

Ad revenue plummeted 22.4 percent compared to the same period last year. Print ad declines were only partially compensated by a 7.5 percent increase in online ad revenue.

Sun Media Corporation, the largest newspaper publisher in Canada, announced plans to cut about 600 full-time positions as part of a restructuring of its operations in Western Canada, Ontario and Quebec, the company announced in a press release Tuesday.

The positions eliminated accounts for about 10 percent of the company's workforce, excluding mail room operations. Most of the staff reductions will occur by the end of the year, the company said.

Online video viewership is transferring rapidly "from checking out clips on YouTube to consuming premium content," according to a report from ABI Research, CedMagazine reported Monday.

The study, "Broadband Video and Internet TV," estimated that online video viewers will reach 941 million by 201, up from 563 million at the end of this year.

The Honolulu Star-Bulletin merged its business and local news section on Monday, and also began printing one page of stock and mutual fund listings instead of two, all to create a separate section for its classified advertising, Pacific Business News reported. Previously, classifieds had been housed in the business section.

Cutting the stock listings in half "(reflects) the move by investors to the Internet for market quotes," said the Hawaiian paper's editor, Frank Bridgewater. The paper will also add two pages of "analysis, lists and highlights" to its business section on Sunday, due to heightened interest in economic news amid the stormy financial markets around the globe.

Staffers at the Rocky Mountain News launched www.iwantmyrocky.com Sunday night as vehicle to get their viewpoints out on why their newspaper is worth saving, The Colorado Independent reported Monday.

E.W. Scripps Co. put the 150-year-old Colorado newspaper on the auction block last Monday, warning that if no buyer emerges, it will shut down the newspaper.

Beginning in March, The Detroit News will be delivered to homes only on Thursdays and Fridays, while the Detroit Free Press will be delivered to homes on Thursdays, Fridays and Sundays, the Associated Press reported Tuesday.

Subscriptions for both papers will cost US$12 per month in Detroit, and $14 per month in the rest of Michigan.

The Journal Register Co. closed three community papers in Philadelphia on Thursday, the Philadelphia Daily News Reported. The company had attempted to sell the Olney Times, News Gleaner and Northeast Breeze, all weekly papers, but was unsuccessful, Stuart London, the News Gleaner's sports editor, told the Daily News.

Publisher J. Wesley Rowe Jr. told employees that the difficult economy and inability to sell the titles were reasons for closure, London said.

The Washington Post's newstand price went up to 75 cents on Monday, up from its 50 cent price that had been in effect since New Year's Eve 2007. Prior to that, the Post's price was at 35 cents. In just a year, the paper's price has more than doubled, FollowtheMedia reported Tuesday.

Metropolitan newspapers have been increasing newsstand prices, which has grown circulation revenue, even if the number of people buying copies decreases.

Newsquest plans to shut down its Citizen series of free weeklies in Blackpool, Preston and Lancaster, United Kingdom. Up to 11 editorial jobs may be affected, according to The Guardian.

The plan was announced last week, as the Gannett-owned publisher plans to drastically cut its regional newspaper business in the north-west of England, including closing 11 papers.

The South China Morning Post, the leading English-language title in Hong Kong, cut 30 jobs Friday, in order to restructure and weather the global economic recession, The Associated Press reported.

It is not yet clear how many editorial jobs were impacted. According to a source who would only give her surname, Chan, told the AP that the company did not rule out the possibility of additional layoffs.

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution announced it will cut 56 full-time and 100 part-time jobs in the circulation unit, according to a WWD Media report Friday.

The paper will also reduce distribution by 5 percent in its metro Atlanta area. "Like many other media companies, the AJC faces unprecedented economic challenges. We are committed to making our operations as efficient as possible, and these changes support that goal," said Robert W. Eickhoff, senior vice president of operations.

Najaam Sethi, Editor-in-Chief of Friday Times and Daily Times in Pakistan,has been awarded the 2009 Golden Pen of Freedom, the annual press freedom prize of the World Association of Newspapers.

Sethi, whose newspapers advocate liberal and secular ideas in a country too-often torn by religious extremism, was honoured for his outstanding defense and promotion of press freedom under difficult circumstances and constant personal danger.

The Detroit Free Press and The Detroit News are looking to halt home delivery on most days, while also printing a slimmer newsstand version on those days, The New York Times reported Friday, citing "people briefed on the plans."

The papers, which operate under a joint operating agreement on their businesses sides called the Detroit Media Partnership (editorial departments are completely separate), will be the first large metro dailies in the United States to make such large cuts to delivery and newsstand print versions. Deliveries would only be done on the most profitable days of the week, likely Sunday, and either Thursday, Friday or both, according to The Times.

Creative Media Services (CMS) Director Karlis Gudonis reported that advertising spend in Latvia has sunk by 20 percent in the last two months of 2008, The Baltic Course magazine reported Monday.

Print media declined by 32.5 percent in October 2008, compared to the same period last year.

Users of mobile devices, like the iPhone and Blackberry, will now be able to access production figures via their mobiles though MWM CopyTrack software, Editor & Publisher reported Thursday.

MWM CopyTrack software is from the Pittsburg-based MWM System Inc., a subsidiary of Sweden's MWM Group. With CT Mobile, users can access press, product, total ordered copies, total copies, waste percent, good copies, and estimated off time.

Although free daily numbers in Africa are low compared with other continents, three of the four African countries with free dailies are recent launches, Newspaper Innovation reported Friday.

Free papers have recently launched in South Africa, Morocco and Egypt, while in Botswana, the government publishes the Daily News, the free newspaper market leader in that country.

Web sites cluttered with ads are not good for the publisher, the consumer or the advertiser, according to a study by Burst Media, Media Post reported.

The study surveyed more than 4,000 Web users and found that ad clutter "not only annoys audiences, but diminishes ad effectiveness."

In 2005 and 2006, the Asia Pacific region had the most mobile subscribers in the world, with more than 900 million in February 2006, according to "Mobile Industry Outlook 2007," released by Informa Telecom & Media, SFN's World Digital Media Trends 2007 reported.

Africa and the Middle East lagged behind all other regions, with fewer than 200 million and about 50 million subscribers, respectively. However, though there are relatively small numbers of subscribers in Africa and Middle East, growth in mobile subscribers is impressive, with 56 percent and 62 percent growth rates in 2006, respectively.

The Detroit Media Partnership, which heads up business operations for the Detroit News and the Detroit Free Press, is looking to make changes to secure both newspapers' future in tough economic times, the group's CEO David Hunke announced to employees Thursday. Changes will be announced early next week, the Free Press reported.

The adjustments will aim "to ensure two strong newspaper voices in the (Detroit) community," said Hunke, also publisher of the Free Press.

The Detroit Media Partnership, which heads up business operations for the Detroit News and the Detroit Free Press, is looking to make changes to secure both newspapers' future in tough economic times, the group's CEO David Hunke announced to employees Thursday. Changes will be announced early next week, the Free Press reported.

The adjustments will aim "to ensure two strong newspaper voices in the (Detroit) community," said Hunke, also publisher of the Free Press.

Washington Post Co. CEO Don Graham will join the board of Facebook, CNet reported Thursday.

Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg said that Graham's skill for constructing and managing a company in the long run will be of use to the social network.

A third of the United Kingdom's regional newspapers, two national titles and half of the positions in regional media outlets may be wiped out within five years, according to Claire Enders, Founder and Chief Executive of media research group Enders Analysis, Press Gazette reported Friday.

Enders is urging the UK government to loosen its competition regulations for cross-media ownership so that newspaper groups may acquire each other and allow all sectors of the news industry to diversify assets, which would help them better weather the economic storm.

Job cuts across the U.S. newspaper industry will impact the depth and quality of the country's radio and television news reporting, Deseret News editor and writer Lynn Arave pointed out in a column Friday.

While radio and TV stations usually have their own journalists covering news events, they usually do not have the extensive reporting staff that newspapers do, which is part of the reason they gather "significant" quantities of material from papers, as well as wire services like the Associated Press, Arave wrote.

The India Today Group has closed its Bengali edition of the magazine India Today, but may reopen it when the market becomes healthier, afaqs! reported Friday. The last issue of the magazine was published Dec. 1.

"The Bengali edition has been ceased for the time being till the market conditions improve. It was not a viable option for us to continue the edition any more. But we will consider relaunching it when the time is right," said Ashish Bagga, chief executive officer of India Today Group.

Scotland-based newspaper group Johnston Press is planning to centralise production work for its Northern Ireland titles the Derry Journal and the News Letter. Production would then be done at its Northern Ireland headquarters in Craigavon, BBC News reported Thursday.

The centralisation will lead to eight job cuts in Derry (also called Londonderry).

U.S. ad spending declined 2 percent in the third quarter, due to the economic recession and falling consumer confidence, which forces companies to cut back more marketing budgets in newspapers, magazines and radio, Bloomberg reported Thursday.

Cutbacks impacted national spot radio spending the most, which plummeted 18 percent, according to Jon Swallen, senior vice president of research at TNS Media Intelligence. Spanish-language newspapers and local newspapers also dropped 17 percent and 16 percent, respectively.

Online video viewed totalled 13.5 billion in October, up 45 percent over the same period one year previously, according to the comScore Video Metrix service.

Google still topped other online properties, with 100.5 million unique video viewers (up from 83.7 million in April), and each watching 53.5 videos on average, Marketing VOXreported.

Internet search, as a long-time key driving force for online ads, could possibly face its "first negative sequential growth" in the first quarter of 2009, according to a Citigroup analyst, Market Watch reported.

That, in turn, "will be a likely drag on Google Inc.'s revenue," Citigroup analyst Mark Mahaney stated in a note to clients Monday.

Newspapers across the United States are facing difficult financial times, as the ad market declines, circulation decreases and the overall financial climate exacerbates trends already in play. And as the economy worsens, newspapers continue to face more difficulties, most recently illustrated Monday, with the Chicago-based Tribune Co.'s announcement it is filing for bankruptcy.

"But I have to tell you, the really dark predictions about dominoes falling and the Tribune action somehow being the beginning of the end for newspapers are way off base," Douglas Gomery, media economist at the University of Maryland, College Park, told the Baltimore Sun, a Tribune newspaper, this week.

The Huffington Post has partnered with online news outlet Global Post for more international news, Journalism.co.uk reported Wednesday.

GlobalPost.com won't officially launch until January 12 next year, but its reports have already been published on the U.S.-based Huffington Post's beta world section. The two have a syndication deal.

Toledo, Ohio-based daily newspaper The Blade will axe 25 workers as a result of slumping ad revenue and the poor economic climate, The Blade reported Thursday.

The majority of the layoffs at the Block Communications Inc.-owned newspaper will be within the newsroom, five of whom work part time. The newspaper is also expected to make a large payout to employees through its pension plan due to losses in the stock market, said Luann Sharp, assistant managing editor.

NEW YORK - Content is crucial, but aggregation is also important for online video, according to a panel discussion, "Future of Online Video," at the 36th Annual UBS Global Media and Communications Conference Wednesday.

"It absolutely starts with good content," with some 2 percent of content generated 48 percent of ad revenues, said Jason Kilar, Hulu CEO. However, online aggregation allows "American Idol" or other popular shows to reach many more on the top of 25 million TV viewers, "by turning non-followers and casual followers on to the show," he added.

NEW YORK - Media General's total operating costs for 2008 are expected to close at 7 percent in 2008 year-over-year, Media General's President and CEO Marshall Morton announced at the 36th Annual UBS Global Media and Communications Conference Wednesday.

"Our goal is to reduce costs an additional 2 percent in 2009, compared to 2008," Morton said.

NEW YORK - On the other side of the current economic "convulsion period," there will be opportunities and a good business model to support local media, E.W. Scripps Co. President and CEO Rich Boehne said Wednesday at the 36th Annual Global Media and Communications Conference.

Over the past 15 years, Scripps has shifted its portfolio into smaller and mid-sized markets for its print holdings, he said. Currently, all Scripps newspapers are profitable except for the Rocky Mountain News, which the company put up for sale last week.

NEW YORK - In the face of a rocky economy and dwindling ad revenues and circulation, newspapers have two things going for them: Consumers will always seek relevant content, and advertisers need to connect to those consumers, Gannett Co., Inc., Chairman, President and CEO Craig Dubow told the 36th Annual Global Media and Communications Conference Wednesday.

Newspapers are reaching wider audiences on more platforms, reader satisfaction with local coverage is on the upswing, and Gannett will work to find more ad solutions to support the growing demand for digital newspaper services, he said. Dubow also announced the company's new initiative, ContentOne, aimed to "completely change the way we share content across the company, especially at the local level."

NEW YORK - U.S. jobs site CareerBuilder is now in 13 countries outside the United States, and as it experiences the most difficult labour market in 40 years, is angling for international growth, in places where the only place to go is up, CareerBuilder CEO Matt Ferguson told the 36th Annual Global Media and Communications Conference Wednesday.

The only area of growth in the labour market in the United States this year has been the health services sector, which has grown by 70,000 jobs. Other sectors, such as manufacturing and retail, have crashed by the hundreds of thousands, he said. In Europe, "overall, our business is small there. So, we can still grow there even in the downturn, because there's only the upside."

Videonow, the first-ever Internet-based video advertisement system to be used in Russia has been launched, Lenta.ru reported Tuesday. The technology will allow advertisers to distribute video clips and banners on Russian-language Web sites.

Video ads are expected to permit more precision in reaching target audiences.

In partnership with NewspaperDirect, iRex Technologies will offer more than 800 newspapers from 81 countries on its Digital Reader 1000 series, an electronic book reader like the Amazon Kindle, Newspaper Innovation reported Wednesday.

Netherlands-based iRex will also offer a free subscription for one month to access the 800 newspapers as a holiday promotion.

The BBC and Nokia have partnered to make the BBC's Arabic and English international news channels part of Nokia's Internet Radio application on the mobile maker's devices, FollowtheMedia reported Tuesday.

Three channels will be part of Nokia's preloaded Radio application on its mobiles. The channels, BBC World Service in English, BBC World Service's 24-hour rolling news in English and BBC Arabic, will be offered for live streaming 24 hours a day.

NEW YORK - It is a challenging time for newspaper industry, as consumers transition to online, digital ad gains cannot compensate print losses, all exacerbated by current economic downturns, The New York Times Company announced at the 36th Annual UBS Global Media and Communications Conference Tuesday.

The Times will focus on the following strategies: introducing new products and services in print and online, strengthening digital research and development capability, vigilantly managing costs, and rebalancing the company's portfolio through acquisitions and divestitures, said Janet Robinson, president & chief executive officer.

NEW YORK - Advertising revenues are down 17.4 percent at McClatchy through the first 10 months of 2008, mostly due to the downturn on employment, real estate and auto markets, Gary Pruitt, the company's chairman and CEO, announced at the 36th UBS Annual Global Media and Communications Conference Tuesday.

In order to respond to the challenges, "McClatchy is focused on five key initiatives: improving revenue performance, especially from Internet advertising; growing total audience based on the unduplicated reach of our print and online products; providing and expanding our range of high quality public service journalism, in all channels, print and digital; permanently reducing our cost structure; and continuing to pay down debt and improving our financial position."

"I think that if we can move into original content in the long run that will be more exciting. It is closer to what we do in the newspaper - we don't publish other people's stories. We are original content providers. If we can move into that area with music, it is very exciting," Wright said.

Dutch company Telegraaf Media Groep reported that it will sell significant parts of its magazine titles, mainly those that "contribute insufficiently" to its financial productivity, press-business.de reported.

Publications that have been put up for sale include Residance, FHM and CosmoGirl!. However, titles that are affiliated with daily newspaper De Telegraff will not be put on the market.

Magna forecaster Robert J. Coen predicted Monday that the economic turmoil across the U.S. media industry may be strongly felt by local outlets, in particular newspapers, Media Life Magazine reported Tuesday.

Coen said that this year, advertising expenditure may surge by 0.1 percent for national media and by 9.1 percent for local news sources. However, in 2009, national outlets may see a 3.0 percent drop in ad spend whereas local sources may experience a 7.6 percent fall.

U.S. newspaper publishing firm A.H. Belo Corp. announced Monday that it will be increasing the base salary of two of its top executives, even though it has installed a wage freeze across the entire company and suspended profit-based fees to retirement plans, The Canadian Press reported.

The move is seen as a "return to a more standard compensation structure," the group said. Overall salary for Chief Executive Robert W. Decherd and Chief Financial Officer Alison K. Engel may not increase after bonuses, stock options and other awards, but the guaranteed pay will be augmented.

Financially troubled U.S. newspaper group McClatchy Co. is mulling the sale of its prominent publication The Miami Herald, the Jacksonville Business Journal reported Tuesday.

The California-based firm, which publishes the Kansas City Star and 28 other titles, purchased the Herald as part of its US$4.5 acquisition of Knight Ridder Newspapers Inc. nearly two years ago.

After more than 200 years as a broadsheet, the North Yorkshire UK's Gazette & Herald has switched to tabloid format, HoldtheFrontPage.co.uk reported Tuesday.

Launched in 1790 as the York Herald and County Advertiser, The Gazette & Herald is owned by Newsquest, the UK arm of U.S. newspaper publishing company Gannett Co., Inc. The paper's final broadsheet edition was printed on November 19.

NEW YORK - Moody's and S&P affirmed The Washington Post's long-term debt ratings to A1 and A+. These ratings "reflect the diversified nature of our businesses, with education and cable now our largest profit centres," said Chairman of the Board & CEO Donald E. Graham, at the 36th UBS Annual Global Media and Communications Conference Monday.

During the nine-months ending September 28, 2008, the Washington Post Company's education business, Kaplan, made up US$1,722 million, or 53 percent of overall operating revenues. Newspaper publishing and cable television contributed $600 million and $535 million, respectively, while television broadcasting generated $239 million.

Online video platform Brightcove has launched its Alliance platform, a new network made up of more than 90 partners offering more video services, such as advertising networks and server technologies, social media and community building, and analytics and audience measurement, MediaWeek reported Monday.

Current customers will be able to access the new integrated technologies and services through Brightcove's Web site.

New York Times Co. may borrow up to US$225 million against its Manhattan headquarters building, as a $400 million payment on one of its two revolving lines of credit, is due in May, Bloomberg reported Monday.

Times Co. spokeswoman Catherine Mathis confirmed in an e-mail to Bloomberg Monday that the publisher has hired real estate firm Cushman & Wakefield Inc. to assist with refinancing through a mortgage or sale-leaseback agreement.

U.S. television news network CNN pitched its CNN Wire news service to U.S. newspapers last week at its CNN Newspaper Summit, as newspapers across the country look to cut costs amid a bleak economic time, Agence France Press reported.

CNN Wire would go head-to-head with The Associated Press for clients, and would also compete with Reuters, AFP and Bloomberg.

Tribune Co. filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy on Monday, The Wall Street Journal reported.

Tribune owes a US$512 million payment on its debt in June, and its cash flow is unlikely to cover the nearly $1 billion in interest payments due by the end of this year, according to the article.

Paid and free newspapers should be counted equally under Austria's readership survey, said Peter Drobil, president of the Austrian Marketing Organisation and head of advertising at Bank Austria, Newspaper Innovation reported.

Not allowing free newspapers to be counted in Media Analyse surveys is a hindrance to finding the actual reach of all newspapers, he told Die Presse.

Johnston Press may merge the production and photo departments at its three newspapers in Edinburgh, The Scotsman, Scotland on Sunday and the Evening News. The move would likely lead to job cuts, HoldtheFrontPage reported Monday.

John McLellan, Evening News editor, said he is compiling a report dealing with how a merger would work, and what it would mean for workers.

Time is an important factor in media reach, according to Middletown Media Study II, conducted by Online Publishers Association, SFN's World Digital Media Trends 2007 reported.

TV is generally the medium with the highest reach throughout the day. In the morning, about 41 percent of respondents use the media, higher than the Internet (34 percent), radio (32 percent), newspapers (17 percent) and magazines (7 percent).

DVRs will reach almost half of all U.S. TV households in six years, according to a report from Magna, Media Post reported.

DVR homes will boost to 52.3 million, or 44 percent of all TV households in 2014, from 30.1 million homes, or 27 percent this year. In 2008, the figures grew 22 percent year-over-year.

After having lost about US$11 million on The Rocky Mountain News in the first nine months of the year, E.W. Scripps Co. put the newspaper up for sale Thursday, the Associated Press reported.

If acceptable offers are not put on the table by the middle of January, the company stated it may have to close down The Rocky Mountain News, the oldest newspaper in Colorado.

After having lost about US$11 million on The Rocky Mountain News in the first nine months of the year, E.W. Scripps Co. put the newspaper up for sale Thursday, the Associated Press reported.

If acceptable offers are not put on the table by the middle of January, the company stated it may have to close down The Rocky Mountain News, the oldest newspaper in Colorado.

The Nielsen Co., known for its ratings service, is asking its customers to participate in a new "client satisfaction" study in order to rate itself, MediaDailyNews reported Friday.

Dave Thomas, Nielsen's president of media client services, sent a a notice to clients Thursday asking them to participate, calling the study "vital to ensuring Nielsen continuously meets your needs and expectations." The online survey will be done through the company's online research division, with e-mail invitations being sent to clients beginning Friday.

In light of U.S. newspaper group Gannett Co.'s historical job cuts this week, the U.S. National Association of Black Journalists (NABJ) is encouraging the newspaper industry to maintain diversity, the group announced Friday.

"Publishers still need to serve the diverse communities which support their newspapers and magazines by purchasing these media products and shopping with their advertisers," NABJ President Barbara Ciara said. "Plain and simple: diversity in the newsroom is good for business."

The United Kingdom's media industry is expected to experience a 6 percent decline in advertising spending next year, "the worst of any developed country," Media Guardian reported Thursday. Initially, the figure was predicted to be a 3 percent growth.

Analysis firm Group M, WPP Group's media sales sector, revealed that national newspaper advertising will drop by 12 percent in 2009. Meanwhile, regional titles and business-to-business magazines will see a 13 and 14 percent drop, respectively.

Schibsted has launched a new advertising Web site that makes all the Norwegian publisher's brands available to national and international advertisers, Newspaper Innovation reported Friday.

So far, schibstedadvertising.com works for advertisers in Norway, Sweden, Lithuania, Russia, France, Spain and Estonia.

The content of Africaans-language daily newspaper Beeld is now available on DStv as an interactive news channel, BizCommunity reported Wednesday.

The move to making the South African newspaper's content available on TV is another step to offer "news when and where our readers require it - and in a format they prefer," said Ina Knott, the newspaper's multimedia manager.

Germany's largest newspaper is aiming to expand through the power of citizen journalism, The Associated Press reported Tuesday.

In a partnership with Bild newspaper, German grocery chain Lidl, will sell a basic digital camera in hopes citizen journalists will contribute images.

Europeans in general are more responsive to mobile online advertising, compared to Americans, according to a survey conducted by Online Publishers Association (OPA), OPA Europe, and TNS in December 2006, SFN's World Digital Media Trends 2007 reported.

Overall, 23 percent have checked out a Web site after seeing mobile Web ads. More than one-fourth of European respondents did so, compared to only 10 percent of Americans.

Former head of AOL Jonathan Miller is looking to raise billions of dollars to buy all or part of Yahoo!, a person familiar with the matter told The Wall Street Journal.

Jonathan Miller's plans are a "long shot," but they do illustrate the fact that there is still interest in the search giant, the article stated. Miller ran AOL from 2002 to 2006.

Scotland's first minister is asking Newsquest, the UK arm of the U.S. Gannett Co., Inc., to reconsider its plan to make all employees in its Glasgow newspapers to reapply for fewer jobs, Media Guardian reported Thursday. Alex Salmond is also urging the company to negotiate with the National Union of Journalists.

Newsquest is looking to cut between 30 and 40 jobs, or 17 percent of the 235 journalists working at the Evening Times, Herald and Sunday Herald, after adopting a new editorial structure that merges the three editorial departments, The Independent reported Thursday. The only employees not given notice are six senior staff members, including the newly named editor-in-chief Donald Martin. The newspapers are part of the Herald & Times Group, Newsquest's Glasgow subsidiary.

Aiming to create further operational efficiency, Cox Enterprises will combine its newspaper, television and radio holdings into one group, Cox Media Group, Inc., The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported Thursday.

The three units will be separate under the group title, but will be housed under the same corporate roof. The move is hoped to create "efficiencies that allow us to strengthen Cox for the future," Jimmy Hayes, president and chief operating officer of the Atlanta, United States-based Cox Enterprises, said in a statement.

Gannett Co. Inc., the largest newspaper publisher in the United States, will end up eliminating 2,000 jobs across the company's 85 daily newspapers, the company's vice president of corporate communications told Editor & Publisher Thursday.

The company-wide layoffs, which reach about 10 percent of jobs in Gannett's Community Publishing Division, are "the end result" of "economic declines," Tara Connell told E&P. The cuts do not include USA Today and the Detroit Free Press, which are managed outside the community division.

The content of Africaans-language daily newspaper Beeld is now available on DStv as an interactive news channel, BizCommunity reported Wednesday.

The move to making the South African newspaper's content available on TV is another step to offer "news when and where our readers require it - and in a format they prefer," said Ina Knott, the newspaper's multimedia manager.

Free daily The Washington Examiner will close its printing plant, outsourcing that work to two independent plants by the end of January, the Baltimore Business Journal reported Tuesday. The move also means 101 people will lose their jobs.

Examiner Publisher Michael Phelps said the outsourcing is being done to reduce costs and increase the number of full-colour pages being printed.

The owner and publisher of the Boston Herald, Patrick J. Purcell, has been named executive chairman of Ottaway Newspapers Inc. by his mentor and former boss, Rupert Murdoch, the Boston Business Journal reported Tuesday.

Ottaway Newspapers is a subsidiary of Dow Jones Inc., bought by News Corp. in December of last year. Meanwhile, Purcell will continue to own and manage the Herald.

Fairfax Media Ltd., the second-largest newspaper publisher in Australia, saw its stock price boost the most in its 16-year history in Sydney trading, after Credit Suisse Group AG affirmed its "outperform" rating, Bloomberg reported Wednesday.

Fairfax shares increased 8.7 percent to AU$1.50 at closing time Wednesday, the biggest advance since May 1992. The stock this year has dropped 68 percent, versus a 44 percent decline in the benchmark S&P/ASX 200 index.

In a partnership with video transcoding service RipCode, MySpace will begin offering MySpace videos to mobile users, TechCrunch reported Tuesday.

This service will be available on m.myspace.com, MySpace's mobile site, which currently attracts 10 million monthly users and generates nearly three billion monthly page views.

From January through November, Americans used search engines on their mobile devices mostly for social networking, according to two separate announcements from Yahoo! and AOL, moco News reported Monday.

According to AOL, the top five mobile searches included MySpace, AIM, iPhone, MocoSpace and Facebook, similar to Yahoo's top 10 list, which had MySpace, Facebook and Craigslist in the top three.

As part of an agreement with Congress to receive financial assistance from the government, U.S. auto makers have promised to "dramatically" cut down on their number of dealers and brands, Dow Jones reported Wednesday.

The cuts mean marketing spending by General Motors Corp., Ford Motor Co. and Chrysler Corp., which together make up a bulk of the second-largest advertising category in the nation, will drop substantially, according to Dow Jones.

Gannett Co., the largest newspaper publisher in the United States and owner of national title USA Today, began implementing its 10 percent employee cuts across the company on Tuesday, likely the largest mass layoff in the history of the newspaper industry. The cut was announced in October as a way to keep the company afloat as revenues have declined, the Associated Press reported.

In August, the McLean, Virginia-based company cut 3 percent of its work force, in addition to a 5 percent staff reduction in USA Today's newsroom (announced Nov. 24).

U.S. publisher Cox Newspapers will close its Washington, D.C., bureau in April, as well as five foreign bureaux, the Associated Press reported Tuesday.

The D.C. office has provided 17 daily Cox newspapers, including The Atlanta Journal-Constitution and The Austin American-Statesman, with national and international news. Cox also owns 26 weekly newspapers.

As Internet user numbers surge each year, information is more in demand in the Russian-language online world. This has led to popular Web sites increasingly employing niche resources that focus on specific audiences, which results in the formation of "unique" online communities, CNews reported Thursday.

A conference has been created in Russia to address these issues for Web-based media outlets, and will take place in its second year on December 9.

The UK's National Union of Journalist's (NUJ) announced protests and strikes against job cuts announced at local newspapers, Journalism.co.uk reported Monday. The union's general secretary said "profiteering" by local newspaper publishers is ruining the industry.

After an emergency meeting on Saturday with Trinity Mirror, Johnston Press and Newsquest representatives, the union announced it will support industrial action within the coming weeks, as well as a day of action against job losses, according to a statement from the NUJ.

The only U.S. newspaper union "with any power to make or break a strike" has been "enfeebled" by trends hurting the newspaper industry, Fitz & Jen reported Tuesday.

The Teamsters Local 259, the delivery union for the Boston Globe, have endorsed a new two-year labour agreement by a vote of 115 to 25 in which the union agrees to a 5 percent wage cut and the removal of 10 holidays.

Guardian Professional, the Guardian Media Group's education, media and public division, will sell advertisements across paidcontent.org and paidcontent.co.uk, MediaWeek reported Tuesday.

The U.S.-based paidContent and its two sites, as well its parent company, U.S. publishing group ContentNext Media, were bought by GMG for an undisclosed sum nearly five months ago.

The UK's National Union of Journalist's (NUJ) announced protests and strikes against job cuts announced at local newspapers, Journalism.co.uk reported Monday. The union's general secretary said "profiteering" by local newspaper publishers is ruining the industry.

After an emergency meeting on Saturday with Trinity Mirror, Johnston Press and Newsquest representatives, the union announced it will support industrial action within the coming weeks, as well as a day of action against job losses, according to a statement from the NUJ.

UK company Iliffe News and Media announced it has hired sales house Amra, owned by UK publisher Trinity Mirror, for its advertising ventures across the publications it has recently bought, Brand Republic reported Tuesday.

Iliffe Chief Executive David Fordham said he is satisfied with the job that Amra was already doing with the titles and has no objection to the sales firm to continue selling ads for the papers.

Nokia launched Nokia Messaging and Mail on Ovi Tuesday, the company announced in a press release. The messaging service allows users to access e-mail, including Yahoo! Mail, Gmail, AOL Mail and thousands of others on most Nokia devices. Mail on Ovi enables PC users to create and access Ovi e-mail accounts, as well as have cross access to other Ovi services through one account.

"In response to overwhelming consumer feedback that messaging is a critical, must-have feature, Nokia has responded with solutions to bring messaging to the broadest range of devices and to ensure the service works with the most popular messaging services in the market," said Nokia Services & Software Senior Vice President Tom Furlong.

According to data from TNS Media Intelligence, the average ad size in Russia's print publications dropped by 9 percent in October compared to the same period last year, b2bos.ru reported Tuesday.

Furthermore, growth in advertising revenues that Russian titles have seen over the past five years has slowed down, the article stated. For the first nine months of 2008, ad budgets increased by 14 percent to about RUB40.3 million (US$1.4 million).

Orange County (California) Register Communications Inc. has unveiled a self-service application from Wave2 Media Solutions in hopes that small business owners will create and submit their own online advertisements, Newspapers&Technology reported.

Users can create ads for Orange County, California The Register, or any of the company's other 23 community newspapers, such as The Gazette in Colorado Springs, and The Monitor in McAllen, Texas.

Metro Canada has laid off four employees due to a drop in national advertising, Greg Lutes, the publisher of Metro's Halifax edition, told The Chronicle Herald. Lutes said the layoffs are part of an overall Metro reorganisation in Canada.

"Local (advertising) is not the issue," Lutes said. "It's national (advertising)."

Online ad sales at U.S. newspapers dropped 3 percent to US$749.8 million in the third quarter compared to the same time last year, according to the Newspaper Association of America, the Asbury Park Press reported reported Friday. Meanwhile, print ad sales fell 19 percent - the largest quarterly drop since the NAA began tracking industry data in 1971.

Combined, online and print advertising fell to $8.94 billion, an 18 percent drop in total third quarter newspaper ad revenue, from $10.9 billion in 2007.

Baidu, Google's biggest search engine rival in China, will overhaul its services, Media Post reported.

The site has been accused of "allowing unlicensed suppliers to fake documents and buy their way up the search results," according to Ars Technica.

Although online advertising is more flexible than print, and Internet ad budgets are unlikely to plunge as much as budgets across other media, the Internet should not be viewed as completely shielded from difficult times, said Demian Kudryavcev, the head of prominent Russian publishing house Kommersant, Sostav.ru reported Monday.

Internet sources may adapt more willingly to the advertising company and may take greater lengths to change in order to gather more revenue, he added. The answer to the problem may be content that is adapted to both advertisers' and outlets' audiences.