Close to four weeks ago we blogged about the Tribune’s sale of Newsday to Cablevision and at the time we didn’t allude to, at least not to a great extent, the publishing companies financial situation. In more recent news however, we see that the Tribune is looking to off load more of its media properties. According to a Tribune spokesperson, the publisher is looking to sell its Tribune Media Services (TMS) unity – a segment of the organization that aggregates and distributes news and entertainment to consumers via print, online and on-screen access. It is estimated that the TMS unit could go for as much as $200 million.

It seems to be a logical move for the Tribune Company to look to sell TMS as all indications of its mid-year 2007 activity led us to believe that the division could be costing the Tribune more than it bargained for.

written by Beverly Crandon \\ tags: TMS, Tribune Company, Tribune Media Services

Borrell & Associates released the results from their recent study called ‘What Local Media Sites Earn’ and for the first time ever in this six time report, newspaper online local ads topped more than $2 billion in revenue during 2007. Overall, newspapers held a 24.6% share of the total local online ad market. Many other forms of media, according to the Borrell report, paled in comparison to newspapers:

• Directories held a share of 7.8%
• Broadcast TV had a 6.9% share of the overall ad spend
• Local radio had a 0.8% share overall
• The majority share of local ad dollars (57.3%) were allotted to pure-play Web sites

“One company in our survey, with $400 million in total revenues, was generating $11 million in online ad sales on $3.8 million in expenses, for a profit margin of 65,%” says the report.

If there is one area of the Borrell report that should stand out for publishers looking to improve their online revenue and share, it is the profile of the top performing newspaper sites. According to Borrell and Associates, the top performing sites tend to have three things in common; they are less dependent on classified vertical categories; they have larger dedicated online sales forces; and they host multiple Web sites.

written by Beverly Crandon \\ tags: 2007, Borrell and Associates, local online ad dollars, Newspaper online revenue

A study from Brodeur and Marketwire discusses a reporters view on social media and the results show that journalists are warming up to the idea of social media and its impact, but are still cautious to admit to the high quality of blogs and user interactive news sites.

The report surveyed journalists covering various verticals; politics, health, lifestyle, travel and technology. Journalists were asked about the influence of social media and whether the impact to news coverage was positive or negative. They were also questioned about their usage of social media and whether they visit some of the most popular sites

Some of the results:

• Over half of all reporters said social media and blogs are having a positive influence on the editorial direction of reporting
• Nearly half (47%) of all technology reporters and over one-third (38%) of political reporters said they blogged as part of their reporting
• Reporters were also overwhelmingly positive on the influence of social media and blogs on the diversity of reporting, with approximately 4 in 5 indicating a positive influence
• Social media’s impact on the quality and accuracy of reporting were two areas that journalists overall view less favorably.

Although the quality of social media is still being questioned by the majority of reporters, the results of this survey show that traditional reporters have either included social media and blogging as a part of their day to day or at least see the positive effect this source of media is having on the direction of their editorial content.

written by Beverly Crandon \\ tags: journalists and blogs, Journalists on Social Media

The McClatchy Co. has reported its April financials and the story is unfortunately, a familiar one.  McClatchy  announced that its advertising revenues were down 14.8%, compared to April 2007, and that is largely due to print revenue declines.  The publisher did see a gain in online revenues of 14.3%, but as usual, that gain was not enough to combat print revenue declines.

Year to date McClatchy has seen a 15.2% decline in advertising revenues and that does factor in their 11.6% gain in online.

written by Beverly Crandon \\ tags: MCClatchy, McClatchy Advertising Revenues, Newspaper Revenues

Monetizing video has always been a daunting task for traditional print publishers building their online properties and the equation gets even harder when you look at trying to monetize user-generated video. And although I recognize that there are many models one can study and take things from to build your own, I would strongly suggest that publishers reviewing their video models take a look at the Metacafe model.

Metacafe is a UGV site, which has been in existence since 2003. Knowing that amassing content was their primary objective; Metacafe decided not to bill the content providers (the marketplace) and instead created a revenue model that complimented the user and user activity. What Metacafe does is sell inventory through video networks, charge for prominent placement of promotional videos and offer overlay units within videos. The site also uses the Google’s AdWords program for running display ads. Certain content providers are paid out of the AdWords revenue and it’s all based on video performance and popularity - See the Kip Kedersha story for more details.

The model seems to be working for Metacafe as they manage to increase their market reach in not only North America, but world wide, on a daily basis. Today Metacafe celebrates 30 million visitors per month, 500 million page views and 200% year over year growth! Traditional print publishers will also be happy to know that Metacafe moderates their content before it is published to the web - don’t know if I quite agree with that operating process however.

written by Beverly Crandon \\ tags: Metacafe, Monetizing Video, Video, Video Classifieds

The BBC World announced that it would be launching its first US based magazine in August. The magazine is entitled Knowledge and its core focus will be to bring you stories about history, nature and sciences. The BBC plans to publish the magazine only six times a year, but promises to offer value in this 100 page glossy pub.

BBC’s publishing editor Andy Benham said this when talking about the BBC Knowledge magazine “While the content will feed American interests, the Britishness and BBC-ness of the magazine are seen as being key assets, offering consumers a fresh alternative to what is currently on the market.” And he is not far off - the BBC news site is listed amongst the top 100 sites in not only the UK, but also in Canada, the US and India. The BBC outranks many local news sites in the previously mentioned countries, so there is an obvious entrenched value for the BBC brand, cross-border and waters.

BBC Knowledge will be racked in stores and will be sold at a cover rate of $5.99.

written by Beverly Crandon \\ tags: BBC, BBC Knowledge

Rupert Murdoch dropped his bid for Newsday on Saturday, making Cablevision the winner.

Cablevision and the Tribune reached an agreement where Newsday would be sold for $650 million dollars. “The possibilities are unlimited as these two Long Island media properties join forces to create new ways of delivering exceptional editorial content, with deep knowledge of and commitment to Long Island and New York,” said Newsday publisher Tim Knight.

The sale and relationship with Cablevision and Tribune is a unique one, but hopefully the strength of the two will enable Newsday’s share, both online and offline, and their revenues to improve,.

written by Beverly Crandon \\ tags: Cablevision, Newsday, Rupert Murdoch, Tribune

Covering stories from blog.ad-ition.com and other relevant classified media news.

This episode’s covered news bits include a review of the Washington Post Q1′ profit losses, Scarborough Research Newspaper Audience report and social networking and its affect on mobile usage.

 

 Standard Podcast [23:25m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

written by Beverly Crandon \\ tags: classdified industry podcast, Facebook, Google, Mobile Social Networking, Newspaper audience, Newspaper market share, newspaper podcast, Newspaper Revenues, Washington Post

I recently stumbled upon a Nielsen report covering mobile social networking use and what caught my attention, was how well this report grasped the story of where new media is headed!

According to Nielsen, 4 million US mobile customers use their devices to access social networks, each month – this represents 1.6% of all mobile users in that country. This number alone truly doesn’t paint the picture of wide spread mobile usage for social networking activity, until you compare it to what is happening in Europe.

Nielsen reported that in the UK, the leading EU country using mobile devices for social networking, 812,000 people used their device each month to access social networks. The UK adoption rate for mobile social networking came in at 1.7% of all of its mobile users.

Now for the startling parallel. In Europe, where owning and using a mobile device for everything is second to breathing, their leading country for mobile social networking has an adoption rate that surpasses the US by only 0.1%. So, although the US mobile market has been slow to respond in many areas, when compared to other parts of the world, mobile social networking seems to be the balancing draw.

As publishers contemplate taking their content mobile, considering how they could build social networking parallels within their products, as well as directory services, is not a bad idea at all.

written by Beverly Crandon \\ tags: Directories, Mobile, Mobile Advertising, Mobile Directories, Mobile Social Networking, Social Networking

This is a really neat resource from Scarborough Research.  This 19 page annual Newspaper Audience Ratings report is organized by Designated Market Area and lists newspapers whose websites have at least 1% penetration in their market, as well as a Sunday print edition.  download-here-Scarborough-research-newspaper-ratings-2008

written by Beverly Crandon