Eighty-one percent of newspaper Web site readers have also read the printed newspaper in the last seven days, according to a new released study by Newspaper National Network LP and Scarborough Research.

Those crossover users have a strong affinity with both versions of the newspaper, the study found. Crossover users visit the newspaper Web site in order to:

• Access breaking news (96%),
• Find articles seen previously (85%),
• Find things to do or places to go (72%).

“The study shows that the core newspaper reader now accesses his or her local newspaper across multiple formats, print and web, and is deeply engaged with both,” stated Jason E. Klein, President and CEO of the Newspaper National Network.

The study also indicated that 55 percent of Web-only readers are female, while only only 48 percent of the crossover readers are female. Web-only users cited the main reasons they use newspaper websites, including:

• Accessing local news (84%),
• Entertainment information (74%),
• Food or restaurant information (58%).

The Web did not harm overall newspaper consumption, the study found, since 87 percent of crossover users said their time spent reading the printed newspaper has increased or remained the same.

The Audit Bureau of Circulation has announced it will begin offering combined print and Web readership data of U.S. Newspapers.

Web and print numbers combined will be much more positive than print alone; however, an emerging question is whether advertisers will buy into it. Usually advertisers are guided by circulation when they buy print, and they pay much more for print readers than for Web readers. So, although the total readership is up, will advertisers look at the figure, or just concentrate on merely print and online numbers, like they always have?

The result of combining Web and print readership for the current six-month period will be released Nov. 5.

The new Web site IOL Classifieds, launched this week, will give access to the collective classified advertising sections of all the newspapers in South Africa's Independent News & Media Group.

These papers include The Star, The Cape Times, The Cape Argus and The Mercury, as well as IOL's own service. The collective circulation of the group's newspapers reaches over 2.2 million print readers and 2.2 million unique online users.

The Web site is intended to capitalise on the group's assets.

“By using our special high-tech search engine, users will be able to find what interests them and is available locally in just a few clicks,” said Lawrence Brown, or IOL, in a BizCommunity article. “At the same time, those wishing to actually place an ad will be able to do so via our unique online ad-booking and creation platform, complete with secure online payment gateway.”

Google has bested Yahoo! and Microsoft in revenue earned per share in the second quarter of 2007, according to the white paper “Market Share Trends within the Engines, and Their Impact on Brand Marketers,” from SearchIgnite and RBC Capital Markets.

This report revealed that Google has a 76 percent market share, regardless of only 60 percent of ad impressions. Because of Google's continual tweaking of quality score algorithms and minimum bid requirements, its revenue per search keeps on growing. On the other hand, Yahoo! had 34 percent of searches among its network even though it held 18.3 percent of media spend in the second quarter this year.

Search engine market share is defined as the percentage of media spend. It has stabilised this year, since Google, Yahoo! and Microsoft could not make significant gains.

This study was conducted from January 2006 through June 2007, tracking more than 14 billion impressions and 185 million clicks on Google, Yahoo! and MSN across over 500 marketers.

Korea has reached 90 percent high-speed Internet saturation in April this year with 14.3 million subscribers, according to the Ministry of Information and Communication, and the penetration keeps on growing.

This figure defied the idea the broadband penetration rate had already reached its limit a couple of years ago. Yet, an official at the Information Ministry said, that's not the case.

"The number gained about 70,000 a month this year on average, or upside of 400,000 in the first half alone. The overall figure is on pace to approach 15 million late this year," he said.

In and around Seoul, almost every household is connected to broadband service, with the combined penetration rate even over 100 percent.

Experts said the seamless increase of high-speed Internet was due to the emergence of the country's number three broadband operator LG Powercomm and other small-sized companies.

Google Inc. announced Tuesday it is expanding its Print Ads program that will allow online advertisers to buy print advertisements in 225 U.S. newspapers. The programme is in general release now.

Google launched a limited test for the Print Ads program in November 2006, allowing advertisers to make offers for newspaper advertising inventory online in the same way they buy Web, radio or TV ad space.

“We started with roughly 70 daily newspapers, and now we have 225. Currently the network embodies more than 50 percent of United States daily circulation,” said Spencer Spinnell, head of advertising strategy for Google Print Ads. “With this enhanced publisher network we now believe that we're ready and we've just released the user interface, the platform, to hundreds of thousands of U.S. advertisers who already have an AdWords account.”

Separately, Yahoo! also announced yesterday it has increased its ad sales partnership with U.S. newspaper publishers to 17 chains covering 400 newspapers. This is up from 176 publications when the Yahoo! program began in November.

As Gannett Co. reported higher second-quarter profits Wednesday, helped by a gain due to selling several newspapers, its earnings excluding those sales fell, as advertising for the entire industry is migrating to the Internet.

The largest newspaper publisher in the country saw net income increase to $365.7 million, or $1.56 per share for the three months ending in June. In the same period last year, net income was at $310.5 million, or $1.31 per share. Excluding $73.8 million in earnings from the sale of newspapers and discontinued operations, profit was in line with the McLean, Virginia-based company's forecast, at $1.24, versus $1.28 a year ago.

Revenues, however, fell 3.4 percent to $1.93 billion.

Gannett, which own USA Today, stated a slump in advertising revenues, which fell 5.3 percent in the quarter, was mostly to blame for the drop in revenues. Ad revenues plummeted 7.7 percent in the company's U.S. newspapers, and 2.5 percent in its UK papers.

The company's newspaper results are part of an across-the-board decline in newspaper advertising that has been accelerating in the past several months, as readers and advertising are increasingly turning to the Internet for news and entertainment.

After months of negotiations, the Dow Jones & Co. Inc. board has voted in favour of a $5 billion buyout offer from Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. The deal will have to be approved by the Bancroft family, which controls 64 percent of Dow Jones' voting shares.

The 16-member board was not unanimous in its decision, but a “strong majority” voted to approve the deal, according to a source familiar with the matter.

“(The board) has determined that it would be prepared to approve, and recommend to the Dow Jones stockholders, including the Bancroft Family stockholders, a merger agreement,” Dow Jones executives said in a statement.

The Bancroft family is evaluating the offer, the company has said, and will meet Monday, according to reports by The Wall Street Journal, the flaship newspaper Dow Jones publishes.

The Fresno Bee has announced it will outsource some of its advertising production jobs to workers in India.

The California newspaper, owned by McClatchy Company, will send seven of its 31 ad production jobs to India, and those currently holding the positions in Fresno will be terminated if they can not be placed in other jobs, said Ken Hatfield, a spokesman for The Bee.

The deal to hire seven people in India is with Express KCS LLC of San Jose, Calif., which has production facilities in New Delhi. Express also handles some production for at least five other California newspapers. The Indian workers will take over the jobs in September.

The move is meant to “serve our advertising customers more effectively, efficiently and economically while focusing our core business: producing relevant and compelling news and advertising information in our newspaper and on our Web sites,” said Ray Steele, publisher and president of the newspaper, in a statement.

Hatfield said that because India's workday happens during nighttime hours in California, it could speed up some production processes.

McClatchy is the third largest newspaper publisher by circulation in the United States.

Due to dropping cash flow and revenue, the Tribune Co. will run advertisements on the front pages of most of its daily newspapers. The move to increase ad sales breaks the company's tradition of keeping ads off the front pages of its largest dailies.

The newspapers will soon offer a 1.5-inch strip along the bottom of their front pages to select advertisers, said Scott Smith, publisher of the Chicago Tribune. He did not say when the ad placements would begin.

The Los Angeles Times, the company's largest newspaper, announced over the weekend it would be one of the papers to launch front-page ads. The paper is still determining how much the ads will cost, as well as guidelines for the ads and when the paper will start selling them, said David Hiller, Times publisher.

Smith and Hiller told the Chicago Tribune that editors at the two papers strongly resisted front-page ads, but as the company is still trying to close its $8.2 billion deal with Chicago billionaire Sam Zell, the pressure to reverse declining circulation and revenues is stronger.

“There is real demand (for front-page ads) that will turn into real revenue,” Smith stated in the Tribune article. “But we have to do it with high-quality standards. That's important to both readers and advertisers.”

Google Inc. is planning a new search service for mobile users that will help them find and buy mobile content, such as ringtones and games, the Wall Street Journal has reported.

While Google has had the services for mobile users to search the Web, the search engine would like to become a portal for finding and purchasing mobile media content.

The company has been working with mobile phone content providers for several months to index their products and make them available on the mobile search. However, the plan has been delayed due to a series of technical issues, and the launch date for the service is not yet clear, according to people familiar with the matter, the Wall Street Journal stated.