February 2009 Archives

Colorado's first and oldest newspaper, the Rocky Mountain News, is the latest U.S. paper to announce its closure, publishing its last edition Friday, 55 days before its 150th birthday.

First published on April 23, 1859, the paper survived a flood in 1864 that destroyed its building, but could not survive the impact of the Internet and the global recession, The Associated Press reported.

"Thursday was probaly the most difficult day in my working life," John Temple, the paper's editor, publisher and president, wrote in the final edition. "As you can imagine, the news of our demise hurt."

The closure of the Rocky is the largest and most illustrious casualty of the recession that has had a marked impact on the newspaper industry. Owner of the News, E.W. Scripps Co., was unable to find a buyer for the newspaper after it lost US$16 million last year. The closure comes amid four owners of 33 U.S. dailies seeking Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in the past three months and a number of other papers going on the market, the AP lists.

The award-winning newspaper has survived a tumultuous history, but lost an ongoing struggle for print revenue and advertising income. In 2001 amongst growing losses, the Rocky and its rival, The Denver Post, owned by MediaNews Group Inc., accepted a joint operating agreement, sharing costs while retaining separate newsrooms.

The chairman of Hong Kong-based telecoms firm PCCW, Richard Li, is partnering with  Chinese magazine Caijing to launch an English-language online financial information service, the Financial Times reported Friday.

PCCW is Hong Kong's largest fixed-line operator. The service will focus on China, Hong Kong and Taiwan.

Canadian newspaper and book publisher Torstar Corp. has announced a management reshuffle, halving of its dividend and more redundancies, in an attempt to accommodate slumping advertising revenue. Current Chief Executive Robert Prichard is to depart and will receive an CA$8 million severance package, the Financial Post reported Friday.

Torstar publishes the Toronto Star, Canada's largest daily, as well as other daily and community newspapers in southern Ontario.

In the face of the global recession, and despite growing Internet use in the country, Indonesian newspapers have a strong future, professor David T. Hill told the Jakarta Globe in an article Friday. Meanwhile, western newspapers continue to restructure, cut jobs and close as the Internet provides consumers with easily accessible, free news.

In an interview with the Jakarta Globe, Hill sighted limited numbers of Internet connections and the poor quality of these connections in developing countries as the reason for the continued strength of print newspapers amid the Western media's turn to online forums.

Worldwide paid-for and free dailies grew in numbers from 2001 to 2005, with a 13.15 percent and 136.25 percent of five-year growth, according to World Press Trends 2006, SFN's New Print Products reported.

 

In Africa, the paid-for daily newspapers increased from 266 titles in 2001 to 308 in 2005, with the five-year growth of 16 percent. The number of free dailies, however, remained the same from2001 to 2005, with only one title in the continent.

According to a BIA Advisory Services forecast, local advertising income for media will decline 1.4 percent annually from US$155.3 billion in 2008 to $144.4 billion in 2013, Advertising Age reported Thursday. A specialist in research on small-business advertising and local media spending, BIA predicts continued growth in the digital sector while all local media will see further advertising revenue decline even after the recession ends.

"By the end of the forecast period, the overall size of the local advertising market will be considerably smaller than it was at the end of 2008," said Tom Buono, president-CEO at BIA Advisory Services, in a statement accompanying the report.

In the face of an economic recession, 59% of marketers said "measurable, ROI-driven strategies" will be where they put their limited advertising dollars, but if they can't prove something works, it's more likely to be cut, according to an iMedia report, eMarketer reported Friday.

"With the current economic recession, digital marketing professionals are holding out hope that some of the budget dollars originally slated for traditional marketing will move into the cheaper, more measurable digital medium," iMedia analysts stated in their report.

Computer Shopper will close its print version and move completely online as ComputerShopper.com after its last April print issue, paidContent reported Thursday.

The number of job cuts has not been revealed by the owner SX2 Media Labs LLC.

San Francisco may become the largest U.S. city to lose its main daily newspaper, the Chronicle, after publisher Hearst Corp. said it would sell or close the newspaper unless it finds enough takers for staff buyouts, Bloomberg reported Wednesday.

Hearst spokesman Paul Luthringer, announced on Tuesday the 145-year-old Chronicle, which lost US$50 million last year, is looking for a "significant" number of its 1,500 staff at the San Francisco Chronicle to take buyouts. The publisher has already put the Seattle Post-Intelligencer up for sale.

The Financial Times on Thursday unveiled a new online newsletter, China Confidential, Press Gazette reported. Run by two Financial Time journalists, the newsletter will be published every two weeks and will be based on a subscription model.

The first issue will be released on March 5, and will aim to "provide in-depth analysis" of China's political and economic issues.

The Daily Mail plans to release its online content on Amazon Kindle for users in the United States, as well as future UK users, when the e-reader becomes available there, NewMediaAge reported Thursday.

Mail Online Managing Director James Bromley told NewMediaAge the tabloid, owned by Associated Newspapers, will launch on the Kindle in the United States "in the near future."

Although its education business performed strongly, the Washington Post Company's earnings were down 77 percent in the fourth quarter of 2008, compared to the same period the year before, the Financial Times reported Thursday.

The company's results were hindered by impairment charges of US$75.7 million due to writedowns in its business and community newspapers. Profits of businesses relying less on print advertising, helped revenues rise by 3 percent, to $1.16 billion.

Contentious Philippine "Right of Reply" bill has been labelled as a potential "undue intrusion" on media rights by Commission on Human Rights of the Philippines chairperson Leila de Lima, Inquirer.net reported Thursday.

The senate has passed its version, while the house bill is pending. Both bills would require media channels to publish a party's reply when that party is offended by reports or commentaries. The reply have to have the same prominence and media space as the offending story. Failure to comply would see large fines and in one version a jail sentence.

Iceland, Denmark and Spain were the most competitive free paper markets worldwide, according to World Press Trends 2006, SFN's New Print Products reported.

 

Iceland, with two free national papers and the circulation of 183,000, was the most competitive free paper market in 2006. They had a 75 percent market share there.

In light of the current economic recession, a number of France's production outlets like Endemol and Adven Studio are taking a new approach to sitcom production by creating programmes that will be financially backed by advertisers and will be aired only on the Web, Le Figaro reported Friday.

Drink company Sunny Delight will be holding a casting to find actors for a reality show filmed in a surfing camp in Brazil. The show will be co-produced by production firms Endemol and Adven Studio and will be aired on the Internet. Adven Studio already produced a mini-series for HollyWood Chewing Gum and had the French comedian Armelle to write a few sketches for laundry detergent Skip.

The Wall Street Journal announced Tuesday its rival, The New York Times, "wrongly reported" the driver for the Journal's circulation growth. The Times reported the growth was due to large discounts, which have increased since News Corp. took over The Journal and Dow Jones In December 2007.

"Like most subscription newspapers, the Journal uses discounted offers to attract new subscribers. However, in 2008 the Journal moved away from deep discounting and raised the introductory offer and newsstand pricing by nearly 40 percent. Even with higher prices across the board, Individually Paid Circulation continues to grow in an industry that is largely shrinking," The Journal and Dow Jones said in a press release.

UK publisher Guardian News & Media will relaunch a "faster, simplified" mobile Web site in March for all major handheld Web browsers, including the iPhone and Blackberry, Media Guardian announced Wednesday. The new mobile site aims to align its mobile services with the rest of the publisher's digital resources.

With the rise of smartphones such as the iPhone and Blackberry, GNM hopes the new site will better serve consumers, while also providing advertisers with more opportunity. The site will be funded by advertising and sponsorship including a partnership with mobile advertising specialists 4th Screen advertising and Google Ad Words in order to "meet the needs of advertisers keen to capitalise on this growing market," said GNM Commercial Director Adam Freeman.

The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India on Wednesday made moves to limit the control broadcasting companies have over distribution operations, The Wall Street Journal reported. TRAI proposed that entities which hold more then a 20 percent share of a broadcasting company should not own more than 20 percent of a media distribution company.

The recommendations are being made in an attempt to separate "big broadcasters from the distribution business, and creating a level playing field," a Mumbai-based media analyst told the Wall Street Journal.

Dubai-based publishing company ITP has cut 10 percent of its workforce, closed a number of publications and plans to continue downsizing, a former editor told Business Intelligence Middle East.

"The company has let go around 50 people and closed half a dozen magazines such as Car Middle East, Arabian Property Arabic and Insight," the former staff member said in the anonymous statement. ITP is the largest publishing house in the Middle East.

UK-based Virgin Media, a television and telephony company, listed fourth quarter losses at £241.4 million, up from £163.2 million last year, Dow Jones Newswires reported Wednesday. However, the company contemplates a hopeful financial future, as the number of customers who are leaving Virgin is at a record low, bad debt is down and no-pay disconnections are down.

The UK's second largest pay-TV provider blamed the larger loss on impairment charges and foreign currency losses. During the ongoing financial crisis the strength of the sterling has suffered against the dollar and the euro.

Amazon's Kindle 2 is "the trophy wife - sleek, Botox tight and a lot less comfortable than its predecessor," paidContent's Staci Kramer stated Wednesday in her review of Kindle's latest redesign.

The new K2 has a qwerty keyboard and small control called a "5-way button," and unlike K1, it has a home and menu button.

The benefits of e-mail marketing campaigns have a positive impact on consumers' purchasing behaviours and loyalty, according to research from marketing agency Epsilon, MediaPost reported Monday.

Fifty-six percent of those surveyed who received permission-based e-mail from retail outlets said they were more likely to buy from the retailers, while 52 percent said they had a "more favourable" opinion of the retailer due to the communications.

U.S. President Barack Obama is set to appoint Jon Leibowitz as chairman of the Federal Trade Commission as announced by an administration official, Bloomberg reported. The appointment could be announced as early as today and does not require Senate confirmation, as Leibowitz is an existing member of the commission.

Democrat Leibowitz is seen as a more aggressive enforcer of FTC regulations, the government agency aimed at consumer protection and promotion of competition. This approach is evident in his history of dissent from commission orders, advocating harsher civil penalties and remedies in order to ensure competition, according to the Bloomberg report. 

After 20 years at News Corporation, President Peter Chernin made the decision over the weekend to leave the company when his contract expires in June, The New York Times reported. No successor was announced, but the company stated that both film studio 20th Century Fox and the Fox broadcast network, which Chernin has overseen for the past 12 years, will now report directly to News Corp. Chairman Rupert Murdoch.

Chernin's departure complicates a company already hit hard by the global recession. The impact was accentuated by News Corp.'s extensive involvement in the newspaper industry, which has been struck particularly hard by the crisis. His exit further emphasises boardroom fragility as Murdoch's devotion to newspapers, a portion of the company Chernin was not involved with, continues to test investors' patience, suggests The New York Times. 

Metro International, which was not left unaffected by the global financial slump, mentioned that it would be evaluating the interest from an unnamed bidder "expeditiously." A shareholder meeting may be held in Luxembourg on Wednesday in order to discuss a possible takeover as well as a SEK550 (€49) million rights issue.

More and more UK newspapers are gaining the spotlight in their communities by helping readers and employers save money while also trying to lend a hand to local economies, holdthefrontpage.co.uk reported Monday.

These measures range from free job ads, to providing a forum for the unemployed to display their skills, to giving readers tips on how to save money.

Forecaster Veronis Suhler Stevenson has revised its initial prediction for traditional media advertising spending, now predicting a decrease, as the global recession continues, Advertising Age reported Monday. The company now lists a predicted 0.4 percent decrease in ad spending after anticipating a 4.9 percent  growth for 2009 in its August 2008 forecast.

This figure is the industry's lowest and second only decline since the firm began data collection 30 years ago.

Orange France has been ordered by the Paris Commercial Court to allow competitors into its Orange Sport Channel, Les Echos reported, according to Telecompaper. If the move is not implemented in less than a month, Orange will face a fine of  €50,000 per day.

Orange bundled its products so that none can be bought singly. The sport channel is currently offered only to ADSL Internet subscribers, which is unfairly competitive, according to SFR, one of the ISPs that brought the case. France Telecom said it will study the ruling before making a final decision, Telecompaper.com reported.

The Daily Mail & General Trust's regional publishing division, Northcliffe Media, will centralise copy editing work for its newspapers in the east Midlands and northern England, and also transfer printing of its Leicester Mercury title, Media Guardian reported. The move will put jeopardise 116 jobs.

The site to which printing operations will be transferred has not been revealed yet. Harmsworth Press, a Northcliffe subsidiary, prints the Leicester Mercury and has begun consultation in regard to its plans.

Marketers are slashing budgets even more than they had predicted six months ago, with 93 percent of marketers responding to a survey by the Association of National Advertisers saying they are making budget cuts, compared to 87 percent in July and August 2008, eMarketer reported Monday.

In August 2008, 21 percent of marketers said they would cut budgets by more than 20 percent. Now, that number has risen to 37 percent.

Amazon.com has established itself as Britain's most popular digital media outlet, according to a Strategy Analytics report posted by MarketWatch. Amazon finished ahead of other leading digital media stores Apple iTunes, Microsoft MSN and eBay when Britons were asked where they would prefer to buy music, video and games online.

Although behind Apple iTunes in terms of real market share and despite a late entry into the market, Martin Olausson, director of Strategy Analytics' digital media research division, said he believes the survey indicates "that Amazon's dominance and brand strength in traditional online retailing put it in a strong position to lead the UK's fast growing premium digital media sector in the years ahead," especially in a sector that is still young and dynamic, the report stated.

The survey questioned 515 UK broadband users on their interest in and likelihood to pay to download media.

The Teesside-based Evening Gazette, a UK regional daily newspaper, has teamed up with the local school consortium, Stockton Schools, to create a diploma in digital media, holdthefrontpage.co.uk reported Friday.

Set to launch in September, the diploma is considered to be the first of its kind in the United Kingdom, and is "intended to engage young people with digital media" by integrating practical training and hands-on experience into the traditional curriculum.

Philadelphia Newspapers Inc., parent company of The Philadelphia Inquirer and The Philadelphia Daily News, filed for bankruptcy protection on Sunday in order to restructure US$390 million debt, the Inquirer reported Monday.

The move marks a dramatic attempt to further counter declines in advertising revenue and circulation. The Philadelphia Inquirer had a reported weekday circulation decline of 11 percent and Sunday decline of 14 percent in 2008.

Citing diving advertising revenues, the Yardley-based Journal Register Co., operating mostly in Philadelphia, Cleveland and Michigan, filed for bankruptcy on Friday, Bloomberg News reported Saturday.

The company's debt totals up to US$1 billion, with assets of between $100 million and $500 million. The company's revenues have decreased by more than 20 percent since 2006, CEO James Hall stated in court documents.

Fairfax Media Ltd., Australia's oldest and second largest newspaper company, reported a first half net loss of A$365.3 million, the company's first ever recorded deficit, Bloomberg reported Monday.

The loss comes as a result of a decline in advertising revenue and the $447.5 million reduction of  the carrying values of masthead newspapers the Sydney Morning Herald, the Australian Financial Review and the Melbourne Age, as well as a further $62 million to cover restructuring and redundancy.

About 145 newspapers go on sale at newsstands across the Kashmir region each day, thanks to rising literacy rates, The National reported Friday.

In addition to daily newspapers, the region of Jammu and Kashmir has 188 weeklies and 94 monthly publications, and another 150 applications have ben filed to launch new newspapers. Top newspapers, such as the Kashmir Times, the Daily Exccelsior, the Greater Kashmir and Rising Kashmir, have reported their circulations are increasing by 2 percent to 5 percent every month.

UK media group Trinity Mirror on Monday announced the expected loss of 70 editorial positions at Scottish newspapers the Daily Record and Sunday Mail as a result of plans to integrate editorial operations. Both papers have begun consulting with staff likely to be affected.

The editorial integration comes as part of a "multi million pound investment in cutting edge technology." This includes the introduction of online content management system "ContentWatch," a reorganisation of the editorial process and full programme of multimedia training for all staff.

In an effort to demonstrate the importance of online news sources and news gatherers, journalist TJ Sullivan has created a petition that proposes a week-long shutdown of the Web sites maintained by American newspapers as well as the Associated Press, Journalism.co.uk reported.

The shut down, scheduled for July 2009,  is intended to "raise awareness of the crisis facing American newspapers."

Twitter's recent "Twestival," organised by volunteers and launched Feb. 12, has raised US$250,000 and counting for charity:water, a non-profit organisation aimed to bring clean drinking water to developing nations. Fundraising has been extended and amounts are still be calculated, and the money will go to 55 water projects in Ethiopia, Uganda and India, according to Twitter.

The Twestival is the brain child of London-based "Twitterers," who decided to meet offline and in person in the name of charity.

Altium Securities Analyst Roddy Davidson has cut his profit outlook for business publisher Centaur in more than half, Press Gazette reported Monday.

Davidson lowered the profit forecast from £11.3 million to £4.7 million for 2009 after the publisher announced on Friday that its recruitment advertising revenues have dropped 66 percent.

The United Kingdom edition of adult entertainment magazine Playboy has relaunched its Web site, shifting towards an advertising-backed model that will allow users to access most of its content for free, Brand Republic reported Tuesday.

The makeover features a dozen new entertainment channels featuring movies, music, games, TV and sport content as well as a social networking tool. The site recently launched an ad-funded lifestyle channel and will be launching a mobile site this month that would also be financed by adverts.

Singapore is now "the most wired nation on earth," with broadband penetration in homes reaching 99.9 percent in December, The Straits Times reported.

Singapore is now ahead of South Korea, Hong Kong and Taiwan, some of the world's most highly wired countries. But although Singapore's broadband penetration rate is close to 100 percent, it does not mean that almost every household has broadband access, as some homes have more than one broadband line.

The New York Times will suspend its quarterly 6 cents per share dividend payments for the first time in its 40 years as a public company in a move to ease some of its debt, Bloomberg reported Thursday.

It follows other U.S. newspaper companies McClatchy Co. and Media General Inc. who have also done the same. The suspension will reportedly save the Times Co. US$34.5 million each year. 

One out of every three mobile users who remembered seeing a mobile ad said "they responded to it in some way," while 50 percent of iPhone users said the same, according to fourth quarter 2008 research by mobile social network Limbo and market research agency GfK NOP, eMarketer reported.

According to the research, "iPhone users are than twice as likely as non-iPhone users to browse the mobile Web and more than three times as likely to use location-based services."

As U.S. states deal with huge budget shortfalls, Wisconsin announced Thursday it will implement a 4 percent tax on all digital downloads beginning October 1, The Register reported.

This includes "digitally delivered entertainment services," such as music, movies and ebooks. The state of Wisconsin faces a US$600 million deficit.

Circulation of free dailies dropped from 1995 to 2005 in both Europe and North America, according to World Press Trends 2006, SFN's New Print Products reported.

In France, Greece, Italy, Portugal and Spain, the circulation totalled 20.3 million in 1995, but slid 6 percent to 19.3 million in 2005.

All daily national newspapers in Ireland reported decreases in circulation for the second half of 2008, according to the latest Audit Bureau of Circulations report, Press Gazette reported.

Although the Independent News and Media-owned Irish Independent remains the best selling daily newspaper, its circulation fell year-over-year by 4 percent. The Irish Times, owned by the Irish Times Trust, saw circulation drop 3 percent, according to ABC figures.

Although the advertising side of the U.S. newspaper business is hurting, readership is skyrocketing, Editor & Publisher reported Wednesday. In January, 25 of the top 30 newspaper Web sites saw a rise in unique visitors, Nielsen Online's latest report shows.

The New York Daily News reported the highest increase - a 150 percent increase over the same time last year, to 7.7 million monthly uniques.

Metro International is running low or may be out of working funds as evidenced by its call for a special shareholders meeting on February 24, followthemedia.com reported Wednesday.

At the meeting, Metro will ask shareholders to "to authorise a (US)$65 million rights issue."

Coupon Web sites are looking at bright futures as consumers tighten their belts and increasingly turn to coupons for savings, according to comScore's "State of the US Online Retail Economy: Q3 2008" report, eMarketer.com reported Wednesday.  

Coupon sites counted 35.6 million visitors in November 2008, a 32 percent increase from 27.1 million visitors in October 2008. They were the fastest growing online category, suggesting that they are easier to search and also offer more cost savings, the report stated.

Dutch paid-for dailies decreased in terms of circulation and number of titles from 1996 to 2005, according to World Press Trends 2006 and Cebuco HOI, SFN's New Print Products reported.

The overall circulation in the country accounted for 4.57 million in 1996. However, it had been in a decline every year. In 2005, the total circulation was only 3.91 million.

After user backlash erupted following Facebook's revision of its terms of service, the social networking site on Wednesday morning announced it would "return to its previous terms" until all issues could be resolved.

A notice posted on users' Facebook home pages stated:

Software giant Microsoft, phone manufacturer Nokia and network operators O2 and Orange all announced at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona that they will launch stores to rival Apple's "App Store," which contains nearly 500 million applications ranging from games to travel guides, Telegraph.co.uk reported Tuesday. 

"It's no longer about how the phone works by itself but how it works with the Internet," said Microsoft Chief Executive Steve Ballmer. "It is your instant access to all the people and information that you care about."

Magazine and newspaper readers in Russia experienced something "unexpected" this month, as their favourite titles were unavailable across numerous newsstands, gipp.ru wrote Tuesday. In addition to plummeting distribution, publications have become "thinner."

The financial crisis may be to blame as media outlets are forced to cut back the volumes in which they publish issues due to a 30 percent to 50 percent drop in advertising revenues. Distribution fell by 3-60 percent across various publishing houses as they struggle to accommodate printing costs.

Analysis from experts suggests that the trend may continue for a long period and may bring about a reorganization of consumer supply and "reader's priorities," gipp.ru reported.

Netherland's Telegraaf Media Groep (TMG) announced it is selling Dutch editions of magazines Elegance, Residence, CosmoGirl! and Hitkrant to Amsterdam-based Pelican Magazines Hearst, which publishes CARROS, Nautique, En France, The Big Black Book, Tableau and Golf Estate, Publicitas reported Monday.

Negotiations for TMG's other titles JAN, FHM and Motoplus are underway. However, Privé, Vrouw and Autovisie will remain as part of the group.

The number of people in the United States using social networking sites at least on a monthly basis will grow 44 percent from 79 million in 2008 to 115 million in 2013, a new study by eMarketer predicts.

 

The growth will mostly come from boomers, Generation X and tweens, Media Post reported.

Popular microblogging network Twitter is rumoured to be receiving financial backing worth US$35 million from Benchmark Capital and Institutional Venture Partners, bigmouthmedia.com reported Tuesday. Benchmark partner Peter Fenton may join the Twitter board after the investment deal.

"We are now positioned extremely well to support the accelerating growth of our service, further enable the robust ecosystem sprouting up around Twitter, and yes, to begin building revenue-generating products," co-founder Biz Stone said.

Liberty Media Corp. announced it will invest US$530 million in Sirius XM Radio Inc., saving the satellite radio provider from bankruptcy, the Associated Press reported Tuesday.

Shares of the New York-based Sirius nearly doubled in value in pre-market trading, jumping from 9 cents to about 20 cents, following the announcement.

Digital marketing company Sinotech Group and global media sales company Publicitas have agreed to merge Publicitas' Chinese Digital consulting business, called Publicitas (Beijing) Media Consulting Company Ltd., into the SinoTech Group, Publicitas announced Monday.

Switzerland-based Publicitas stated that the merger will allow the two companies to offer clients a wider range of IT tools to monetise Web and print content.

U.S. educational publisher Houghton Mifflin has disputed ratings agency Standard & Poor's downgrade of its ratings last week, telling the Financial Times that it "must take issues with the opinions contained in the S&P review," the FT reported Monday.

S&P cut ratings for HMH Education Media & Publishing, from B- to CCC and posted a "negative" outlook. The ratings firm stated near-term prospects for spending on text-books are cause for concern.

Satellite broadcaster BSkyB is working with UK-based satellite broadcaster Omnifone on the technology needed to launch an unlimited digital music service to compete with Apple's iTunes, the groups announced at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona Monday, the Guardian reported.

Following its expected launch in the spring, the service will offer Internet access to millions of songs to all broadband users for a small monthly fee. Users will be able to listen to music either through their computers or televisions.

Daily Mail and General Trust Chairman Lord Rothermere said it is "unlikely" that his company will sell any more titles, after tabloid newspaper the London Evening Standard was bought by Russian oligarch Alexander Lebedev, Press Gazette reported Monday.

Rothermere also mentioned that The Independent and The Independent on Sunday will not be put on the market. The titles are expected to shift to Associated Newspapers' headquarters in the near future.

Guardian Media Group (GMG) on Friday announced a salary freeze for the 2009-2010 fiscal year, which will impact staff across its wholly-owned businesses, including the Guardian and Observer newspapers, guardian.co.uk and MediaGuardian.co.uk, the Manchester Evening News local newspapers and GMG Radio, which operates the Smooth Radio and Real Radio networks, Media Guardian reported.

 

The company blamed the freeze on "the impact on revenues of the economic downturn." It anticipated "worsening conditions in the coming year."

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg on Monday tried to reassure the social networking site's users that they "own and control their information," despite an update in the site's terms of service this month that leads most to believe that's not quite so, The New York Times reported.

Earlier this month, Facebook's terms were updated, and the group took out a provision stating that users may delete their content from the site at any time, and when they do so, the license expires. In place of that provision, new language was added stating that the site "would retain users' content and licenses after an account was terminated," The Times article states.

The four men who run The Pirate Bay, one of the top file-sharing Web sites in the world, said they were not part of illegal downloading, AFP reported Monday. Fredrik Neij, Gottfrid Svartholm, Peter Sunde and Carl Lundstroem are on trial in Sweden for "promoting other people's infringements of copyright laws," charges against them state.

The Pirate Bay uses peer-to-peer links to share music, computer game and film files, while getting around paying copyright fees. None of the shared files are on the site's server. Movie, video games and music industry representatives are seeking 115 million kronor (€10.6 million) in damages.

Johnston Press is aiming to boost its online offerings by signing a deal with the UK's Highway's Agency to provide real-time traffic and travel data to its regional newspaper Web sites, journalism.co.uk reported.

The deal will allow the UK regional publisher's 323 Web sites to find a centralised content source that can be segmented and used at a local level, Mark Woodward, group editorial content manager, told Journalism.co.uk.

Mobile technology company Ericsson has unveiled a new social networking portfolio for its network operators aimed at allowing user-generated content to be shared across networks, Telecompaper reported Monday.

The Pixl8r initiative is an open-standard solution and allows real time interaction between photo sharing sites, enable mobile customers to share social media across operator portals and receive notification of friends' activities via text message. The other initiative, the Social Media Portal, aids operators in delivering a social networking service compatible to the Pixl8r.

Whether speaking English or Spanish at home, 44 percent of U.S. Hispanics read local Spanish-language newspapers, and more than 50 percent of  U.S. Hispanics watched an English-language programme on TV, according to a new Ipsos U.S. Hispanic Omnibus study, MediaPost reported Monday.

Surprisingly, 54 percent of younger viewers (ages 18 to 34) said they prefer English-language programmes over Spanish, while 61 percent of those ages 55 years and over prefer English-language TV. Meanwhile, 52 percent of those between ages 35 and 54 prefer English-language programmes and 80 percent of college educated Hispanics prefer English language TV.

In the face of criticism from commercial media groups, the BBC has shuttered ad-funded Web site BBCGreen.com; however, the decision to close the site was "completely commercial," a BBC Worldwide spokeswoman told Press Gazette, the site reported Monday. BBC Green was operated by BBC Worldwide, the commercial arm of the BBC, and gave users advice on environmental issues.

"(Guardian Media Group) has argued that BBC Worldwide should not be allowed to launch sites such as BBC Green - which have no connection to existing programming - because they have the potential to distort the market and compete unfairly with commercial players," a GMG spokesman told Press Gazette.

European dailies, including both paid and free, grew from 2001 to 2005 in terms of number of titles, according to World Press Trends 2006, SFN's New Print Products reported.

 

However, in terms of circulation, paid dailies dropped from 2001 to 2005, while free title circulation nearly doubled.

Video-sharing site YouTube announced Thursday that it will authorise downloads of "author-approved" content while charging users a small fee, Wired reported Thursday.

To make use of the service, users will have to team up with YouTube and sign an extra contract in order to minimise copyright violations. Video authors will have the chance to pick Creative Commons rights intended for video clips.

A mixture of changes in ad rates and adspend has been forecast for European countries and for emerging economies like India ad China, which will likely cause TV advertising rates to fall 7 percent in the United Kingdom this year, according to the World Advertising Research Center's Global Media Inflation Benchmarks Survey, out Friday.

Meanwhile, TV ad rates in China and Russia are expected to increase by 12 percent and 16 percent, respectively, while India's will increase by 6 percent. In the United States, TV ad rates are forecast to rise by about 2 percent in 2009, even as overall adspend levels drop by 3 percent, according to the survey.

In a bid to weather plummeting ad revenues and falling print readership, UK newspapers are adopting a variety of tactics. These changes come in a variety of forms, including improving online editions and Web site designs.

In the United Kingdom, the Ipswich daily Evening Star, owned by Archant Suffolk, has made over its Web site, EveningStar24. The Evening Star's sister title, the East Anglian Daily Times is also expected to follow suit in the coming months, holdthefrontpage.co.uk reported Friday.

As more readers turn to the Internet and mobile telephones for news, Japanese media groups, including newspaper Asahi Shimbun and wire service Jiji Press, will launch an online advertising network, AFP reported Thursday.

Other participants include AFPBB, an interactive Web site; Creative Link, a technology company; Thomson Reuters, CNN and three top financial magazine Web sites.

Tata Communications will invest US$430 million in data and cable systems in the Asia Pacific region, Telecompaper reported Thursday.

The Indian communications services provider will develop a new Internet data centre in Singapore, and also announced the completion of its $250 million TGN-Intra Asia cable system, which connects Singapore, Hong Kong, Japan, Vietnam and the Philippines.

Phone manufacturer Samsung is "planning internally" to launch the Google Android phone in the second half of 2009, but not in time for the Mobile World Congress as rumours suggested, PC World reported Thursday.

Other manufacturers Sony Ericsson, Motorola, Asus, Toshiba and LG also intend to launch Google's Android system sometime in 2009. G2, T-Mobile's second Android-powered model, produced by Taiwanese portable device manufacturer HTC (High Tech Computer Corporation), is scheduled to enter the market by May.

Norwegian paper manufacturer Norske Skog announced it will be lessen its production of paper for newspapers and magazines by 200,000 and by 75,000 tonnes, respectively, gipp.ru reported Friday.

The move is temporary and will serve to optimise the company's efficiency, a spokesperson said. The necessity of decreased production will be evaluated through the year as Norske Skog strives to meet the changing demand for paper, gipp.ru wrote.

U.S. newspaper group Journal Register Co. is closing dozens of small newspapers, as no buyers have come forward, paidContent reported Thursday.

The company was de-listed from the New York Stock Exchange last year after it defaulted on debt. Journal Register has not disclosed its newspaper closure information  to the public. Journal Register owns 27 dailies and 327 non-dailies.

Most current affairs magazines in the United Kingdom reported increased sales for the second half of 2008, even as the global economy continued to spiral, Press Gazette reported Thursday.

The Economist grew 3.1 percent year-on-year, to a weekly 186,995 copies; however, 20 percent of those copies were given away for free, as part of a the magazine's "monitored free distribution" scheme. The Spectator also reported a record circulation of 77,146, although it, too, distributed 20 percent of its copies for free.

In a bid to enable a transition to a nationwide digital television service, Taiwan's National Communications Commission promised to amend the obsolete cable Television Act, the Taipei Times reported Wednesday.

The commission is looking at possible factors like the price of the set-top box that might have prevented households from switching to DTV services. Against the target of 20 percent that were expected to have made the change, only 3.99 percent are using DTV.  Amendments to the Cable Television Act will be presented to the Legislative Yuan and will be based on a report to be released next month.

More than 100 million unique viewers watched 5.9 billion videos on Google sites in December 2008, with YouTube accounting for almost 100 percent of the views, according to comScore Video Metrix, eMarketer reported Thursday.

However, marketers are questioning how much high levels of traffic will translate into revenue increases.

Although sales have performed below analyst expectations, Activision Blizzard, the largest video game publisher, has reported record revenues and profits, the Financial Times reported Wednesday.

Although Activision is seeing much better results than its rivals, its share prices slid by 9 percent yesterday, due to its first quarter sales forecasts falling to US$550 million, lower than analysts' expectations of $628 million. Shares dropped to $8.60.

Global newspaper market totaled US$184 billion in 2006, with 65 percent on average from advertising and 35 percent from circulation, according to World Press Trends 2006, SFN's New Print Products reported.

 

In the United States, the market reached $60 billion in 2006, with about one-sixed from circulation. Western Europe contributed over $55 billion, with about two-fifths from circulation, while Asia Pacific brought in nearly $50 billion, half of which from circulation and another half from advertising.

As much as 70 percent of revenue at Australian newspapers come from national and retail advertisers, which is good news for newspapers not wanting to rely on the slowing classified advertising sector, The Australian reported Wednesday.

Newspaper readership in Australia has remained high, with The Sydney Morning Herald and The Daily Telegraph penetrating 68 percent of the Sydney market, Brendan Hopkins, chairman of industry group The Newspaper Works and chief executive of APN News & Media, told The Australian.

As advertising markets weakened, Paris-based advertising firm Publicis Groupe SA, owner of Saatchi and Saatchi, posted a 1.1 percent decrease in organic revenue growth for the quarter ending Dec. 31, 2008, compared to the 4.2 percent growth posted a year ago, according to a Dow Jones Newswires report, posted by CNN Money. The growth beat an average forecast of 0.4 percent from seven analysts polled by Dow Jones Newswires.

The decline was mainly due to losses at recently closed Web TV channel Honeyshed and other non-recurring impairments.

UK-based News International announced it will cut about 65 jobs across its four national titles, the Sunday Times, the Times, Sun and News of the World, Media Guardian reported Wednesday. The publisher also plans to reduce the amount it pays some news agencies.

"We have identified areas where we can improve efficiency and speed up the production of our titles and Web sites. This will allow us to strengthen editorial by reinvesting savings into our title," James Murdoch, News Corporation's chairman and chief executive of  Europe and Asia, told staff.

General interest news sources reporting on politics from Washington, D.C., are declining, while specialty publications, especially those serving Washington insiders and lobbyists, as well as foreign outlets, are on the rise, a new study from the Pew Research Center's Project for Excellence in Journalism revealed Wednesday.

Publishers and media groups that started restructuring their businesses before the economic downturn will be able to better weather the economic storm, and be better equipped to adapt to new challenges in the future, according to a new study by advisory firm Ernst & Young, journalism.co.uk reported Wednesday.

"Advertisers will be quicker to increase adspend during the recovery this time around," the report stated. "With advertising rates expected to fall throughout 2009, with the recovery, many advertisers will see some traditional platforms as good value for money."

Media group Daily Mail and General Trust, based in the United Kingdom, announced it will be put a 20 percent stake in broadcasting firm ITN up for sale, MediaWeek UK reported Monday.

ITN, which governs IT1's News At Ten and Channel 4 News, is thought to be looking for new financial backing in order "to boost its commercial revenue in order to grow internationally." ITN's largest stakeholder, ITV, may be either put up its 40 percent stake on the market or reduce it, according to MediaWeek UK.

The New York Times on Tuesday published a "battle plan" for newspapers to survive the migration of advertisers and readers to online, a problem made even worse by the current financial downturn.

Daily newspapers are looking for ways to survive in the short term, and envisioning what business will be like the the future. Experts in varying parts of the industry wrote opinion pieces for The Times laying out their best ideas.

Seventeen Internet companies, including Microsoft Europe, Myspace, Facebook, Google/YouTube and Yahoo! Europe, have reached an agreement with the European Commission on measures aimed at protecting teens using online social networks, TelecomPaper reported Tuesday.

The measures are being put in place in hopes they will protect children from cyberbullying, sexual abuse and incurring risks by releasing private information.

According to Forrester Research, online advertising expenditure in Europe is expected to mount by 10 percent in 2009 in spite of the global financial crisis, Net Imperative reported Monday.

"To prosper during the downturn, interactive marketers should look for value in highly targeted display ads and seek opportunity in the improved performance of contextual ad networks like Google's AdSense," said Nate Elliot, the report's author.

Professional news organisations putting out trusted content will always be valuable, and will no doubt exist 20 years in the future, John Ryley, head of the United Kingdom's Sky News, said Monday, Press Gazette reported.

In addition, audiences will always be willing to pay for quality journalism, Ryley said at the inaugural Bob Friend Memorial Lecture.

Beginning in May, U.S. news magazine Newsweek will undergo a major makeover, including a new design, changes in its content, targeting a wealthier audience and higher subscription fees, The New York Times reported Sunday.

Newsweek Chief Executive Tom Ascheim said this core segment constitutes 1.2 million subscribers who will pay around US$50 per year, compared to what all subscribers currently pay, which is less than $25 per year.

Plastic Logic has signed a deal with USA Today and the Financial Times, the two first newspapers to partner for newspaper content for its eReader and eCommerce Content Store, the eReader company announced Monday.

The firm also announced it will partner with content aggregators including LibreDigital, Ingram Digital and Zinio for sales and distribution of newspapers, magazines and books.

Cablevision Systems Corp. will write down the value of the Long Island-based Newsday neewspaper it bought last year from Tribune Co. by US$375 million to $450 million, according to a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, The Associated Press reported Monday.

Cablevision paid $650 million for Newsday Media Group in July. The writedown "reflect(s) the continuing deterioration of values in the newspaper industry and the greater-than-anticipated economic downturn," the company said.

As the economic climate worsens, standards at newspapers are falling too, according to a new report, A More Accountable Press, the Financial Times reported Monday. According to the UK study, more than seven out of 10 people said they believe government intervention is necessary to protect citizens' privacy and to make newspapers correct errors.

The study, conducted by media experts working with the Media Standards' Trust, also blames an inadequate Press Complaints Commission that has been unable to uphold standards, for the erosion in public trust.

MySpace has launched an advertising strategy that positions overlays at the bottom of music video clips, permitting users to either purchase the songs they listen to or proceed to the artist's Web site, Tech Crunch reported Friday.

The project stems from the social network's partnership with Auditude, a content detection and management firm which offers advertising relevant to rights-protected material that it detects.

McClatchy announced its losses of US$21.7 million, or 26 cents per share, in the final quarter of 2008. More deep cost-cutting plans are expected this year, The Associated Press reported.

 

The depressing results reflect the declining value of its papers, including The Miami Herald and El Nuevo Herald. According to the company, it plans to cut more costs by $100 million to $110 million.

Paid-for and free dailies combined worldwide marked growth both in circulation and number of dailies from 2001 to 2005, according to World Press Trends 2006, SFN's New Print Products reported.

 

Within the five years, the overall circulation worldwide went up nearly 10 percent, while the number of dailies increased by about 15 percent.

Nationally audited newspapers in Scotland saw no improvement year-over-year in January, with the country's top-performing paper seeing a 9.34 percent fall from January 2008, Press Gazette reported Friday.

The Scotsman's January 2008 circulation was at 55,766, and this year fell to 50,558. Even worse, in January 2007, the title's circulation was at 60,627 - a circulation loss of nearly 10,000 in just two years.

The year 2009 will be one of reckoning for the newspaper industry, as it will have to come up with a new plan of action, Walter Isaacson, president and CEO of the Aspen Institute, said in a speech on Wednesday. In the past, newspapers relied on newsstand sales, subscriptions and advertisers, he said, and as the new business model relies only on the latter, it "makes for a wobbly stool even when the one leg is strong. When it weakens, the stool is likely to fall."

Newspapers that are solely dependent on ad dollars, instead of on readers, will also begin to cater to the advertisers, instead of serving the readers, Isaacson pointed out in his speech. This will lead to newspapers creating a lot of sections about "gardening and home improvement," while cutting other sections, such as book reviews.

Ratings agency Standard & Poor downgraded its long-term credit rating of Fairfax Media from stable to negative to "reflect the ongoing deterioration in advertising markets in Australia and New Zealand," The Australian reported Friday.

The poor ad market is partly to blame for "increased uncertainty about Fairfax's future earnings and increased the rating sensitivity of Fairfax's leverage position, which is at the high end of expectations for the BBB- rating," S&P stated, according to The Australian, a Fairfax newspaper.

News Corporation investors are waiting to see if the company will write down assets and make job cuts, as the economic recession has pushed profit declines past expected marks, Reuters reported Wednesday.

"I think they've been the most aggressive in trying to develop businesses with long-term returns on capital ... where others initially didn't believe or thought the start-up costs were too high," Pali Capital analyst Rich Greenfield wrote in a note last week, according to Reuters.

Axel Springer AG, the biggest newspaper company in Europe, announced that it is selling stakes in some German regional newspapers to Madsack GmbH & Co. KG. The estimated value is about 310 million euros (US$399 million), Bloomberg reported Wednesday.

 

 

According to Springer's statement, it plans to sell a 24.5 percent stake in Kieler Nachrichten, a 49 percent share in Luebecker Nachrichten, 44.9 percent in Leipziger Volkszeitung and a 23 percent north German holding in Hanseatische Verlags-Beteiligungs AG.

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution (AJC) Tuesday announced to launch an integrated ad platform, which provides advertisers with options across its portfolio of digital, print and direct media vehicles.

 

 

With the new service, called AJC Media Solutions, "we're now a one-point-of contact solution across digital, print and direct marketing platforms that can help businesses navigate their messaging to the audiences and consumers they seek," said W. Michael Clay, AJC Senior Vice President and Chief Revenue Officer.

Google is inviting users to "See where your friends are in real time!" by expanding its Maps for Mobile and iGoogle to allow location-sharing, a new functionalty called Google Latitude. Users can decide if they want to share their location information with a select group of friends, and can then be tracked as their pictures are displayed with location information on a map.

Although users can select privacy controls, "the idea of adding one's minute-by-minute whereabouts to Google's vast storehouse of knowledge still has a certain creep factor," TechNewsWorld's Erika Morphy wrote Tuesday.

Three newspapers in western Ohio are cutting Tuesday editions due to the economic downturn, The Associated Press reported.

 

The new schedule for The Troy Daily News, Piqua Daily Call and The Sidney Daily News will be effective next week. The Troy will publish six days a week, with the Miami Valley Sunday News on Sundays. The Piqua and Sidney will print only five days as they don't have Sunday edition.

As the U.S. government bails out banking institutions and the automotive industry, Tim Rutten states in his Los Angeles Times column that the government should help newspapers too. Not in the form of a bailout, but through an antitrust exemption.

As demand for quality journalism increases, the ability of newspapers to fund that journalism is spiralling, yet newspapers are unable to charge for their content online as long as some are still running free sites.

Less than two years after ending its online subscription service, The New York Times Co. may begin charging readers for access to NYTimes.com, Bloomberg reported Tuesday.

"A lively, deadly serious discussion continues within the Times about ways to get consumers to pay for what we make," said Executive Editor Bill Keller, according to Bloomberg. "Really good information, often extracted from reluctant sources, truth-tested, organised and explained -- that stuff wants to be paid for."

The New York Times Co. relaunched its online syndication service site, according to Media Post. Users can now purchase articles, features, multimedia and images from the Times or other affiliated media properties.

 

The new site will provide more than 250 articles from all sections of the paper as well as content from other NYTimes' properties, including the International Herald Tribune, The Boston Globe, WQXR-FM, NYTimes.com, Boston.com and About.com.

Investors looking to buy the Seattle Post-Intelligencer would need at least US$1.5 million for losses per month, and would also need to buy up all the newspaper's assets, including its interest in its joint-operating agreement with The Seattle Times. But what the actual cost, the San Francisco Business Times reported Monday, is hard to say.

A buyer would need to have enough money to not only buy the Post-Intelligencer and its assets, but also to cover all its debt, Liz Brown, administrative officer of the Pacific Northwest Newspaper Guild, said she was told by Robert Broadwater, managing director of media investment banking firm Broadwater & Associates.

Moody's Investors Service downgraded the credit ratings of Gannett Co. Monday, the Associated Press reported.

 

The ratings agency, concerning the publisher's falling ad revenue, said that 2009 "will be incrementally challenging for the company's newspaper and broadcast operations."

Some U.S. newspaper executives have launched a public relations campaign to show off the good news about newspapers as a way to counter the inundating "doom-and-gloom" coverage the industry has been receiving over the past few years, The Associated Press reported Monday.

"We are still a dominant media, and we don't give ourselves credit for that," Donna Barrett, chief executive of Community Newspaper Holdings Inc., told the AP. "The crisis has to do with revenue, not with audience."

Barrett heads up the campaign, called the Newspaper Project, and is also director of the AP. Other executives behind the project include Randy Siegel, publisher of Parade Publications; Brian P. tierney, CEO of Philadelphia Media Holdings; and Jay Smith, former CEO of Cox Newspapers.

Swiss publisher Tamedia is acquiring the majority of share in tilllate.com, the leading Swiss nightlife online platform. It bought another 51 percent, which makes 86 percent owned by the publisher in total, Press Business reported.  

 

The other 14 percent will still belong to the founders, who will keep on supporting the platform's expansion.

From October 2008 through the end of the year, France's magazines saw an estimated sales decline of 10.2 percent when compared to the same period in 2007, Le Monde reported Monday.
 
A confidential study by Nouvelles Messageries de la Presse Parisienne (NMPP) revealed that the industry experienced a 5.6 percent drop in distribution throughout last year. However, if bulk sales are not taken into consideration, the figure is closer to 3.4 percent.

Online video ad spending in the United States will keep growing by 22.5 percent this year. However, the increase has slowed down since 2006, according to estimates by AccuStream iMedia Research in January 2009.

 

The growth level last year was 36 percent, but it would rise again in 2010 to 28.2 percent, according to eMarketer.

Social networking is the catalyst of mobile Web users in Western Europe, according to comScore latest data. 

 

 

In November 2008, 34 percent of mobile phone users in the region who visited social networking sites only accessed social media exclusive of all other mobile Internet content.

Public safety reporter Chris Freiberg, writing for the Fairbanks, Alaska newspaper Daily News-Miner, has conceived the "National Buy a Newspaper Day" through Facebook events site www.buyanewspaperday.com, Editor & Publisher reported Monday.

Almost 20,000 users have joined, vowing to purchase a print title on Monday.

State-owned media holding company All-Russia State Television and Radio Company (VGTRK) will be allowing media firm Rambler to use its rights-protected content for free on its Web sites, Lenta.ru reported Monday. The Russian-based Web enterprise will be able to feature video clips of the VGTRK TV channel Vesti as well as links to Vesti's site.

According to Lenta.ru, this is the first time VGTRK has signed an agreement without court interference. The contract will be valid for at least a year, but "after some time" the media holding firm will be implementing a fee for using its material.

Prominent U.S. newspaper The Los Angeles Times announced Friday that it will slash 300 jobs and cutting its daily sections from five to four, The International Herald Tribune reported.

Editor Russ Stanton said in a memo that cuts at the Tribune. Co., Inc. newspaper will be 11 percent, and 70 editorial positions will be lost in the near future.