the newspaper business

Myrtle Beach thinks those little ads in the back of the paper use up too much newsprint, so they are dropping them from their editions on Monday and Tuesday.

“the region’s largest classified inventory available anywhere” will be available on MyrtleBeachOnline.com. 

Says the V.P. and Editor Trisha O’Connor.

What? The editor decides to drop advertising?  Those little ads are usually sold for multiple day runs - 7, 14, 30 days, etc. There is some lost revenue in this plan. Unless her classified department is a dud and doesn’t have ANY ads on Monday or Tuesday.

Not hard to believe that an editor doesn’t think those little ads are readership items either. When the rest of the newspaper is very small, the importance of those little ads as readership is multiplied dramatically.

Before I’d kill classified ads in Monday and Tuesday in print, I’d give them away. Unless readership isn’t important to Editor O’Connor.

A 3G and WiFi compatible reader is being tested in France. It’s called Read&Go.

French telecom company Orange has announced a new e-book reader, entitled the Read&Go. While most such readers — like the Kindle — are meant to be universal devices, Orange’s machine concentrates almost exclusively on newspapers.

In addition to all the news that is on our website, we like to think we provide some “long-tail” information: weather, movie show times, movie reviews, etc.Meh.Google has it - and it’s better.

• Weather? Just type in the search box weather (city name) 
• Movie show times? Horton Hears a Who (your zip code)
• Movie review? Not just one, but dozens, for the same flick? movie: Horton Hears a Who
• Flight status? Airline and Flight number
• Math? Calculations? Need to know 546 times 9? 546*9. How many kilos in a ton? How many kilos in a ton?

h/t

I don’t want to say that Chrysler LLC vice chairman sounds like Fox News Circus Clown in Residence. I have a lot of respect for Jim. But when asked about the economy and market volatility and plummeting consumer confidence, Jim suggested that the best thing folks could do is “stop reading the newspapers.“

(Emphasis mine)

So auto buyers read newspapers. He thinks newspapers are persuading people not to buy cars.
Taking him at his word, wouldn’t it make sense for car makers to advertise heavily in newspapers?

Can somebody explain how this logic is flawed?

Straight from the pixels of one of America’s outstanding journalism reviews, WWD.com (Women’s Wear Daily website), comes the news that the Journal will be showing off a prototype magazine next week.

Days from now, the Journal will take prototypes for its upcoming quarterly glossy on the road, making a pitch to the coveted luxury advertiser resting on two major points: that the demographics of the paper are ripe for luxury marketers, and that new editor Tina Gaudoin possesses the experience and contacts to convincingly speak to the high-end audience.

The magazine will be aimed at $300,000+ income households and will debut in September with another issue in December. Plans are for it to go monthly. As Murdoch announced, he wants Dow Jones to compete head-to-head with the NYT.

Does your newspaper have a magazine?

As usual, Mark Cuban, billionaire owner of the Dallas Mavericks, wrote a thoughtful and well reasoned post on how bloggers are different from MSM. Also he makes another observation which I found interesting.

Newspaper blogging is probably the worst marketing and branding move a newspaper can make. The barriers to entry for bloggers are non existent. There are no editorial standards. There are no accuracy standards. We bloggers can and do write whatever we damn well please. Historically newspapers have set some level of standards that they strived to adhere to. By taking on the branding, standard and posting habits of the blogosphere, newspapers have worked their way down to the least common demoninator of publishing in what appears to be an effort to troll for page views.

I think the standards he is looking for would have to be instilled in the reporter doing the blogging through education and experience. Having standards is not something you get from your workplace or your boss.

BTW: the Mavs have always been very open - even before Cuban. My daughter was sports editor of a high school paper in Indiana and got an interview with Steve Alford when he was with the Mavs.

UPDATE:

A blog is a blog is a blog is a blog. The NY Times Blogs on their website are blogs. People who have blogs have a hard enough time coming up with a definition of what blog is. Potential or even current readers have no real idea of what the term blog reflect in terms of quality or content.

much more… 

Email announcement today from Jerry Lyles, Vice-president, Publisher Relations, Publishing Group of America.

I’m writing to share some great news for our company and yours.

Today, we completed the sale of Publishing Group of America to Bain Capital and Shamrock Capital, two firms with excellent track records in stewarding corporate growth. You probably know some of their current and past holdings, which include Doubleclick (internet advertising services), Warner Music Group (music publishing), Modern Luxury (16 city-regional high-end consumer magazines), Latin Communications (previous owner of Spanish newspaper La Opinion), and NextWave Media Group (online advertising agency).

As you know, our magazines have resonated with readers as national supplements to local news. We have expanded our support products from Hometown Content to online auto mall UpstreetAuto.

Bain and Shamrock share our commitment to providing content solutions for newspapers. They see substantial growth opportunities for us all. With their backing, we will be expanding our magazine lineup and introducing new digital products to enhance readership, connectivity and support.

First among these is Spry, a monthly health magazine that debuts next September at 9-million circulation, making it one of the largest launches in history. All of our testing to date shows that this magazine is a winner. And there will be more to come. In the meantime, we will be upgrading our digital capabilities to extend the community that your readers have created in the magazines.

We’re looking forward to making 2008 an exciting year. Toward that end, if there is anything I can answer on our new ownership, please don’t hesitate to call.

The “grand poo-bahs of citizen marketing” - according to another marketing blogger wrote this today:

Seventy-eight percent of the people Nielsen polled trust the recommendation of a friend. That’s 15 points higher than the next ranking, newspaper ads. Coming in second must surely be good news for worried dailies.

Look!