Results matching “diversifying a”

The Financial Times has launched a series of new iPhone apps for its FT-branded travel guides, Brand Republic reports. `

The newspaper publishes the Little Book of Business Travel series. Content from the guides to Beijing, Hong Kong, Macau and Shanghai will be available on the new apps. And their content will be primarily the work of FT journalists.

Working closely with advertisers can help newspapers to establish a good brand image, says Paz Alvarez Sanchez-Arjona, Market Intelligence director of Marca/Unidad Editorial in Spain, speaking at the WAN-IFRA conference 'Using sports news to optimise your revenues'.

She has worked closely with marketing and advertising teams. This was satisfactory for the advertisers because the campaigns were distinctive and became well-known. This created loyalty and gave her brand a good, dynamic image, as well as revenue.

Marca is the leader among newspapers in terms of readership in Spain. It has 2.8 million readers, far more than any other newspaper in Spain. There are 40 million people in the country, with four national sports newspapers. Marca is located in Madrid and focuses a lot on Real Madrid and football, although it covers all the sports. In the last few years, a number of local papers have popped up, focusing on local teams. These detract from Marca's readership.

When newspapers run community events, it's important to stay committed to the convictions of the paper, says Marcin Gadzinski, editor of Sport.pl/Gazeta Wyborcza in Poland, speaking at the WAN-IFRA conference 'Using sports news to optimise your revenues'. Get that right first, and profit will follow, he adds.

His paper, which runs some sporting events, is no. 2 in Poland in terms of circulation, and likes to get involved in social issues and public advocacy campaigns. People all around Poland work for the paper, so it's helpful to use their contacts to organise activities.

They were not very successful when putting sports content on the web, he says, so in 2007 Sport.pl was launched, a strictly internet sports brand. They added online-only features rather than seeing it as a way to promote newspaper content. In 2009 the paper jumped from the number 5 to the number 2 sports website in Poland, with 5 million unique users a month. Plus, every Monday the paper publishes a Sport.pl-branded section.

Nieman Journalism Lab has published the full speech given by Associated Press chief executive Tom Curley at the Hong Kong Foreign Correspondents' Club last week, in which he mentioned the possibility of offering AP content as an exclusive for a certain period of time. In his speech, Curley focused on how the organisation is trying to create new revenue streams and to protect its content. 

"First of all," Curley said, "more people are seeking news more times a time in more places than ever before." However, there are also more people creating news, and Curley sees "an oversupply, at least in the short term," which he believes is causing difficulties in the market. It is no secret that the AP has been suffering financially from reduced membership fees in recent years.

A large proportion of the discussion and innovation with regards to monetise newspapers' online content has come out of the United States, possibly unsurprisingly considering the intensity of the economic downturn there, and arguably the American entrepreneurial spirit. But the US is not alone in its contemplation of the issue, which could potentially 'save' newspapers, and the Editors Weblog took a look at the situation in France and the ideas that are emerging, based on two recent studies.

Masters student Matthieu de Vivie carried out a major research project entitled "Can online news be profitable?" in which he analysed the sectors' sources of income, along with debates that have taken place on French media blogs over the past few months. The Institute of Audio-visuals and Telecommunications in Europe (IDATE), a market analysis and consulting firm, has produced several reports on online strategies for the press.

The French situation

In France, printing and distribution costs are high, partly due to state regulation and to a very powerful printing union, meaning that print profits tend to be lower. However, papers do benefit from much public aid, and this was increased in January when president Nicolas Sarkozy offered the press a 600million euro bailout. Many media outlets are owned by groups which do not actually specialise in media, but are looking for "prestige and influence within it," according to de Vivie. He gives financial daily Les Echos as an example, which is owned by Bernard Arnault, LVMH. Groups such as Dassault which owns national daily Le Figaro, or Lagardere which owns the magazine Paris Match, Journal du Dimanche and part of Le Monde, have leaders who are friends with Sarkozy. Many journalists have protested at what they see as threats to the independence of their papers.

Related to this issue of possible government influence, the French press is suffering from a lack of reader confidence, similar to that in the US. A 2008 survey showed that 46% of people did not believe a large part of what they read in newspapers. The Internet has "done away with journalists' monopoly over the production of information," states de Vivie. The increased presence of other fonts of information and aggregators has encouraged people to look far and wide for news, as in other countries.

De Vivie concluded that today, it would be impossible for a major French newspaper to survive online-only, due to the abundance of information available online and weak advertising revenue. IDATE's reports also suggest that traditional advertising is not going to support a newspaper on its own. So what are the options for newspapers as their readers migrate online?

Charging readers

The most basic option is to charge readers for online content, as newspapers have done in print for many decades. IDATE believes that the pay wall model is extremely limited. However, leading newspaper Le Monde seems to have successfully adopted a part-paid, part-free model online. It is a rare feat for a general interest paper, at least compared to the English-speaking world, where only financial giants such as the Financial Times and the Wall Street Journal seem to have accomplished this. Articles are free for three days after publication, after which they go behind a pay wall. They can then be purchased individually, or basic and premium subscriptions are available, the premium option including access to digital copies of the print paper. Subscriptions represented about 35% of LeMonde.fr's revenue, while advertising accounts for 65%, according to figures obtained by de Vivie in November 2008. LeMonde.fr still has high readership, suggesting that the site's traffic has not been damaged too much by the pay wall, and that the model makes sense.

De Vivie also looks at French site Mediapart, a participatory, paid venture without advertising, launched in 2008 but Edwy Plenel, a former Le Monde editor. It is free to read other citizen participation, but a subscription gives users the right to write articles or leave comments, and to read articles from the Mediapart team. The site, however had not captured its target number of subscribers in 2008.

Alternatives to advertising?

But if papers do not succeed in persuading users to pay for their news: what are the other options? In terms of advertising, the Internet has allowed new measures to develop, as well as the CPM, pay-per-click and pay-per-action rates offer a more accurate assessment of an advertisement's effectiveness. It also allows for targeted advertising, however this is not much used in France. CPMs are also considerably lower in France than in the UK or US: according to de Vivie, a CPM of $10 is considered good in France, compared to $30 elsewhere. Part of this is due to lower investment in advertising, as well as lower Internet penetration.

IDATE's report on the future of the press considers below-the-line advertising as "essential" for a newspaper's online advertising strategy, and also recommends e-commerce as a distinct possibility: "the media now have the opportunity of developing into veritable media stores by incorporating e-commerce offers into their editorial content. IDATE suggests that newspapers form alliances with book sellers to market the books that they review, or with ticket sellers to market plays or other events. Another option is to get involved with products that target a newspapers' readership, such as the Wall Street Journal's partnership with Wine.com. The Lagardere group has signed an agreement with Sumitomo, a Japanese leader in online commerce. The firm sees advertising and e-commerce as the main revenue streams from mobile news, rather than making users or telecoms operators pay for content.

De Vivie also believes that for larger media groups, diversifying online can be profitable. He cites the example of the Washington Post's ownership of profitable education service Kaplan Inc. which he feels "is allowing the Washington Post to survive." The French Le Figaro group includes numerous commercial websites such as Evene, Sport24, Cadremploi, BazarChic ou TickeTac, which represent "an important source of revenue." LeFigaro.fr is not currently profitable but it has an important audience. One of the problems with such a strategy, however, is that it risks diluting the brand's value, which is already a fear of many papers as reading habits change online.

Potential of online-only

De Vivie is does see some potential in online-only sites, but only in certain conditions. Firstly, he believes that small "supple" organisations which offer content with significant added value, focussed on specific niches and gathering a large community, are a good approach. "This equilibrium is nonetheless precarious," he added, particularly in France where advertising brings in less revenue than in the US and it is often necessary to develop alternative sources of income.

One French success story is Rue89, which combines the skills of journalists with the knowledge of experts and the participation of citizens. Amateur contributions are checked and edited by the site's reporters. De Vivie explains that the site quickly acquired "strong journalistic credibility," offering exclusive stories and investigations. He estimates that the site could quite feasibly become profitable, especially as Rue89 does not make all of its income from advertising, but also develops websites for others, which makes up an estimated one third of its revenue. He believes that other online players also have potential to break even, due to their low fixed costs and overheads.

The impression that emerges from the studies is that online news has great potential and possibilities continue to evolve. It is therefore advisable that newspapers continue to innovate and do not resign themselves to relying on print income for as long as possible.  

The International Journalism Festival took place in Perugia, Italy from April 1-5. The festival addressed the differences between old and new media and the necessity to integrate the two, and many other widely discussed issues affecting the media today, such as integrating print and web news in light of readers' migration online, the necessity to finance journalism as a watchdog, and hence the need to make readers pay for online news.

Japan's public broadcaster NHK has announced the launch of a 24-hour news channel.  The first of its kind in the country NHK World TV will provide news in English that is focused on Asia and Japan, and will be available in 70 countries and regions via satellite, cable and the Internet.  The service will not however be available in Japan due to broadcasting laws.

NHK Vice President Yoshinori Imai has hopes that NHK World TV will "join the ranks of CNN International and BBC World Service" and hopes that it will "earn a reputation for strong coverage of Japan and Asia news."  The channel will run 30-minute news bulletins every hour, and also include documentaries and other features.  NHK World Service joins the likes of France 24 and Al Jazeera English, showing the diversifying of international news services away from US and UK based channels.

Journalists are facing serious problems in the print industry, but are also faced with a new opportunity--switching platforms so they can work everywhere.

"Newspapers are finding video skills at television stations, and stations are finding interactive thinking at newspapers," says Regina McCombs of Poynter Online.  The way in which news organizations produce content is similar across all platforms, so diversifying the staff makes sense.

Newspaper online ad growth in the US has been about 30-40% per year recently. However, in 2007, online advertising fell to about 20% in the first half and slowed even more in the third quarter.

Last week, as the official takeover date of Dow Jones by News Corporation approaches, news was published that showed News Corp head Rupert Murdoch may be broadening coverage in DJ's Wall Street Journal flagship to compete more directly with the New York Times, if not the entire American newspaper market.

Several newspaper analysts have recently opined about the approach newspapers should adopt to take advantage of Facebook. Here’s a list of ideas for apps that can attract the crowd, without losing sense of newspapers’ mission.

Robert Kuttner, columnist for the Boston Globe, predicts in the Columbia Journalism Review that newspapers will all be digital within 25 years. Despite gloomy forecasts and a late start, most newspapers have engaged into a viable transition to digital.

Reuters should be launching its own oversion of MySpace this year, a financial community website aimed at fund managers, traders and analysts. Newspapers and news organizations are increasingly probing the community aspect.

Newspaper Next (project by the American Press Institute) attempts to transplant the winning strategies of an industry leader to the newspaper industry. As different as the two markets may be, here is what Toyota ‘does’ that newspapers should be doing.

In five years, Metro, 20 Minutes, and the other free papers that followed have transformed French media and their audience. This is a recap on freesheets’ path, and how paid-for papers are still seeking countermeasures.

A recent study from the American Press Institute (API) reports that newspapers are falling behind in local information and advertising opportunities.  The survey, “Newspaper Next: The Transformation Project,” was released last week after one year and $2 million in costs. 

The Daily Mail and General Trust, one of Britain's largest publishers, is diversifying its online offerings by purchasing a company which runs dating websites as well as a majority stake in a company which runs an automobile classifieds site. DMGT, which has recently experienced a roller coaster ride with its struggling regional newspaper company Northcliffe Newspapers, is following a trend of many publishers such as the New York Times Company in investing in online acquisitions.

Source: Reuters 

Seems like News Corp. can’t get enough of web 2.0 investments with both Intermix Media Inc., who owns MySpace.com, and Simply Hired Inc. under its arm. But the corporation is back at it again. News Corp.’s Fox Interactive Media has purchased two more websites for the company, this time the focus is on users and their media on the Internet.

Covering major sporting events, such as the football World Cup to be held in Germany this summer, can present free papers with the possibility of diversifying their advertising portfolios by attracting advertisers who target male readers.

Here is a good example of a newspaper trying to diversify revenues: USA Today, the largest-circulation daily in the US, announced last week that it is going to launch a glossy technology magazine in October. The new magazine will cover consumer electronics and trends, and feature articles on shopping for electronics and how to install them at home as well as polls and Q&A interviews with experts, reports AP (through Editor & Publisher). The new magazine USA Today Now Personal Technology will consist of 80 pages and be sold across the US for $4.95 from October 17. USA Today, flagship of its publisher Gannett Co., already publishes the magazine USA Today Sports Weekly that covers baseball and football.

Source: Editor & Publisher

Here is a good example of a newspaper trying to diversify revenues: USA Today, the largest-circulation daily in the US, announced last week that it is going to launch a glossy technology magazine in October. The new magazine will cover consumer electronics and trends, and feature articles on shopping for electronics and how to install them at home as well as polls and Q&A interviews with experts, reports AP (through Editor & Publisher). The new magazine USA Today Now Personal Technology will consist of 80 pages and be sold across the US for $4.95 from October 17. USA Today, flagship of its publisher Gannett Co., already publishes the magazine USA Today Sports Weekly that covers baseball and football.

Source: Editor & Publisher

If you hadn't noticed, more and more videos seem to be popping up on the World Wide Web, adding to the richness of the medium. This past week, news aggregator Topix.net added Reuters video streams to its list of sources, expanding its news gathering capabilities. The Editors Weblog conducted an email interview with Topix.net CEO and founder Rich Skrenta find out where Internet video is going. Be sure to join Skrenta, who will be speaking at the 12th World Editors Forum in Seoul, during the Editors BlogCong, from May 29 to June 1 at www.editorsweblog.org.

1. How important do you think video feeds will be to the future of Internet news?

Video content on television is obviously hugely popular with consumers. The Internet is primarily a text and static image medium today, but as the technology allows more users access to video it will become an essential part of the package. What's exciting is that the Internet can merge the benefits of a detailed written report from a newspaper with the richness of a video report from television, all in a single package.

Television is a linear experience -- you turn it on, watch for 30 minutes or an hour, and shut it off. Internet delivery is going to be much more about finding individual pieces that you want to watch, interspersed with other content.

If you hadn't noticed, more and more videos seem to be popping up on the World Wide Web, adding to the richness of the medium. This past week, news aggregator Topix.net added Reuters video streams to its list of sources, expanding its news gathering capabilities. The Editors Weblog conducted an email interview with Topix.net CEO and founder Rich Skrenta find out where Internet video is going. Be sure to join Skrenta, who will be speaking at the 12th World Editors Forum in Seoul, during the Editors BlogCong, from May 29 to June 1 at www.editorsweblog.org.

1. How important do you think video feeds will be to the future of Internet news?

Video content on television is obviously hugely popular with consumers. The Internet is primarily a text and static image medium today, but as the technology allows more users access to video it will become an essential part of the package. What's exciting is that the Internet can merge the benefits of a detailed written report from a newspaper with the richness of a video report from television, all in a single package.

Television is a linear experience -- you turn it on, watch for 30 minutes or an hour, and shut it off. Internet delivery is going to be much more about finding individual pieces that you want to watch, interspersed with other content.

If you hadn't noticed, more and more videos seem to be popping up on the World Wide Web, adding to the richness of the medium. This past week, news aggregator Topix.net added Reuters video streams to its list of sources, expanding its news gathering capabilities. The Editors Weblog conducted an email interview with Topix.net CEO and founder Rich Skrenta find out where Internet video is going. Be sure to join Skrenta, who will be speaking at the 12th World Editors Forum in Seoul, during the Editors BlogCong, from May 29 to June 1 at www.editorsweblog.org.

1. How important do you think video feeds will be to the future of Internet news?

Video content on television is obviously hugely popular with consumers. The Internet is primarily a text and static image medium today, but as the technology allows more users access to video it will become an essential part of the package. What's exciting is that the Internet can merge the benefits of a detailed written report from a newspaper with the richness of a video report from television, all in a single package.

Television is a linear experience -- you turn it on, watch for 30 minutes or an hour, and shut it off. Internet delivery is going to be much more about finding individual pieces that you want to watch, interspersed with other content.

If you hadn't noticed, more and more videos seem to be popping up on the World Wide Web, adding to the richness of the medium. This past week, news aggregator Topix.net added Reuters video streams to its list of sources, expanding its news gathering capabilities. The Editors Weblog conducted an email interview with Topix.net CEO and founder Rich Skrenta find out where Internet video is going. Be sure to join Skrenta, who will be speaking at the 12th World Editors Forum in Seoul, during the Editors BlogCong, from May 29 to June 1 at www.editorsweblog.org.

1. How important do you think video feeds will be to the future of Internet news?

Video content on television is obviously hugely popular with consumers. The Internet is primarily a text and static image medium today, but as the technology allows more users access to video it will become an essential part of the package. What's exciting is that the Internet can merge the benefits of a detailed written report from a newspaper with the richness of a video report from television, all in a single package.

Television is a linear experience -- you turn it on, watch for 30 minutes or an hour, and shut it off. Internet delivery is going to be much more about finding individual pieces that you want to watch, interspersed with other content.