Shaping the Future of the Newspaper Blog - Print Data

Virginia paper outsources page production to Chicago Tribune

Wed, 10 Mar 2010 16:41:44 -0600

As a part of the Tribune Co.'s efforts to reduce costs and direct resources to focus on local coverage, the Daily Press of Newport News, Virginia will outsource page design, formatting and editing pages to the company's flagship paper, the Chicago Tribune. This announcement came to the staff at both the newspapers on Monday, the Tribune reported.

The transfer of responsibilities from the Daily Press suggests elimination of copy editors and designers, Hampton Roads reported. The newsroom staff will likely be reduced by 15 percent, Digby Solomon, president and chief executive of the Daily Press, told the Tribune.

3D newspaper published in Belgium

Wed, 10 Mar 2010 16:40:03 -0600

Belgium's La Derniere Heure released an edition Tuesday in which all photos and advertisements are in 3D, and readers are given cardboard 3D glasses with every copy, ABC News reported today. Text is not three-dimensional.

It took two months to create the 3D edition, which had a print run of 115,000, higher than usual. Editor Hubert Leclercq told ABC News that the paper was following the trend of the recent rise in popularity of 3D films, television and video games.

News International ads showcase power of print

Mon, 08 Feb 2010 16:58:07 -0600

News International Commercial has launched outdoor and print advertisements that aim to show the power of newspapers and magazines, MediaWeek.co.uk reported today.

The ads are based on research from Microsoft Advertising, which in December stated that for large retailers, print advertising is more effective than online ads, and more than twice as effective as television ads. Each £1 spent on print ads garner £5 in revenue, while TV and Internet ads bring in £2.15 and £3.44, respectively.

Chicago Tribune, LA Times cut print size

Tue, 02 Feb 2010 17:55:12 -0600

To save on print production costs and to streamline operations, Tribune Co. papers the Los Angeles Times and Chicago Tribune are rolling out changes this week and next. The LA Times today launched LATExtra, a new section that includes local and California coverage, as well as late-breaking news. It has also trimmed an inch off its print version, and is now 11 inches wide, LA Times Blogs reported today.

The Chicago Tribune, meanwhile, will also trim an inch from the width of its newspaper beginning Monday, according to MediaPost.

Sarkozy gives French youth free subscriptions

Tue, 15 Dec 2009 13:27:12 -0600

As part of a €600 million aid package, the French government is buying newspaper subscriptions for young readers, the Christian Science Monitor reported today.

Readers between ages 18 and 24 will receive a one-year subscription to the paper of their choice as part of the bailout. The offer is open to the first 200,000 who sign up for "Mon Journal Offer," and they can choose from 60 newspapers.

Coverage of the World Newspaper Congress and World Editors Forum in Hyderabad

Mon, 30 Nov 2009 03:09:02 -0600

Over the next few days, the Shaping the Future of the Newspaper blog will be providing extensive coverage of the 62nd World Newspaper Congress and 16th World Editors Forum, working with our sister publications, the Editors Weblog and the dedicated WAN-IFRA multimedia conference blog.

You can follow our coverage on Twitter @NewspaperWorld and @WANindia2009, using the hashtag #WANindia09, or on Facebook at the conference page.

Cross-platform issues: Efficient publishing, measurement

Fri, 30 Oct 2009 09:09:51 -0600

NBC's New York Telemundo station, WNJU, announced today it will restructure in order to better produce news for multiple platforms, MediaWeek reported. In doing so, the station has created a new position, vice president of content.

Better measuring online readership, meanwhile, is another important next step in a multi-platform world, the Guardian pointed out yesterday. "In a fragmented media world, the paper is just one way among many to publish a story," the article stated, using The New York Times as an example.

Outsell: Newspapers slow on digital transition

Thu, 27 Aug 2009 11:23:44 -0600

"The news industry has so far failed to make the digital transition," according to veteran industry analyst Ken Doctor in the new Outsell report "Top 15 U.S. New Companies Print-to-Digital Market Size and Share," MediaPost reported.

According to Doctor, newspapers only made 11 percent of their overall revenues from digital sources, including both advertising and circulation, in 2008. Even the best performers in the industry, the Washington Post Co. and News Corp., marked quite low proportions of online revenue in the overall profits (15 percent and 14 percent, respectively).

Teens use social media more than parents think

Thu, 13 Aug 2009 14:56:00 -0600

Teenagers use social media much more heavily than their parents think they do, according to a study by Common Sense Media, a non-profit firm that tracks media use by children, out this week.

A poll, conducted by The Benenson Strategy Group, showed that teens increasingly rely on social networking to connect with friends, classmates and people with similar interests, with 51 percent responding that they check social networking sites more than once a day. Meanwhile, just 23 percent of parents said they thought their kids check the sites more than once per day.

London Evening Standard to be relisted as a regional

Mon, 13 Jul 2009 10:38:08 -0600

The London Evening Standard will no longer be part of the monthly national newspaper audit after choosing to reclassify as a regional newspaper with respect to the classification of circulation statistics, according to a Media Guardian report on Friday.

The Audit Bureau of Circulations has confirmed that the newspaper made a last minute decision to remove itself from the national listings, just before newspaper sales figures for June were released.

National Digital Newspaper Program celebrates 1 million pages

Wed, 17 Jun 2009 11:26:24 -0600

The National Digital Newspaper Program on Tuesday celebrated the digitalization of 1 million pages onto its government funded, free access Web site, the Associated Press reported.

This total has already increased to 1.2 million pages and staff believe the archive should eventually reach 20 million pages, extending back to 1836 and covering until 1922 where newspapers began to be copyrighted. The collection is available at the Library of Congress' Chronicling America Web site.

Newspapers work to tender industry survey

Thu, 11 Jun 2009 13:16:03 -0600

Australian newspaper publishers have started a multimillion-dollar fight for the right to conduct the country's first industry-funded and managed readership survey, The Age reported Thursday. As a result of an extended dispute with longtime research provider Roy Morgan, the survey has been offered to local and international researchers for tender.

The industry based readership survey was initiated two weeks ago by industry group Newspaper Works, a product of Fairfax Media, West Australian Newspapers, APN News & Media and News Ltd.

Power of Print Conference: Know your audience, serve it best

Thu, 28 May 2009 11:10:48 -0600

BARCELONA - Knowing your audience is the key to success on any platform, as newspapers presenting at the World Association of Newspapers' Power of Print conference in Barcelona showed Thursday.

Francis Matthew, editor-at-large of the Gulf News in the UAE; Fergus Sampson, CEO of emerging markets at Media24, which owns The Daily Sun, in South Africa; and Tim Wall, editor-in-chief of the Moscow News, Russia, all represented their own vastly different publications that have one thing in common: they are succeeding in print thanks to fitting with audience needs' perfectly.

Houston Chronicle cuts ink waste by 61%

Thu, 21 May 2009 13:01:48 -0600

The Houston Chronicle has employed use of a Goss Metro press with digital inking, in order to reduce ink waste by 61 percent, Goss International announced in a press release.

Before the digital outfit, ink waste totalled an average of 5,500 kgs per week. Now ink waste is at an average of 1,927 kgs per week. Black ink waste was reduced the most, at 68 percent, and magenta rounded out the bottom end with a 46 percent reduction.

Reports focus on newspaper decline, television neglected

Mon, 11 May 2009 06:30:40 -0600

While newspapers have provided a plethora of print on their ongoing struggle to survive, the similar audience issues of network television in the United States has been neglected by TV news coverage, according to a University of Pennsylvania study released last week, The New York Times reported on Sunday.

While print and broadcast media have been facing similar audience degeneration, both media have focused primarily on the problems facing the newspaper industry.