August 2006 Archives

Reviews and advertisers of Associated Newspapers' new freesheet London Lite are not particularly impressed with the product. Launched this week London Lite was described as not being designed well enough to reach the young audience at which it is being marketed.

Google is to offer users copies of novels past copyright such as Dante's Inferno for free download and printing. Google's plan to scan the world's books has been in the works for some time and includes partners such as Harvard, Oxford and the New York Public Library.

Following up on a study about "The Use of the Internet by America's Newspapers," Internet communications firm The Bivings Report has followed up with some suggestions don how to make newspaper websites better.

Credit Suisse has recommended that Dow Jones invest heavily in its digital operations to make the company's offerings half print and half digital. Having been looking to sell six of its smaller print publications of subsidiary Ottaway Newspapers, the publisher of the Wall Street Journal could soon have some money to invest in such a venture. 

Source:Forbes  

Newswatch quotes the Korea Times which reports that Internet advertising on the southern half of the Peninsula accounts for almost 10% of the entire advertising market, coming after TV and newspapers at 33.5 and 26.4% respectively. Online ads are expected to grow 30% a year through 2008 whereas TV, newspapers and radio lost 5 to 8% of their share over the 2003-04 period.

Source: Newswatch 

The summer waiting period is over. The London freesheet war has begun as Associated Newspapers launches its afternoon cover price-less paper, London Lite, days ahead of News International's planned thelondonpaper. On the same day, Associated has spiked the price of its long-running Evening Standard by 25%, bringing it up to 50%. What does this mean for the future of a bastion of London evenings?

In response to this week’s cover story about the decline of newspapers from the best weekly in the world, The Economist, BBC Radio 4 chatted with Guardian editor-in-chief Alan Rusbridger and his equal at the Independent, Simon Kelner to hear what they think about the future of the newspaper.

Recently released in India, the National Readership Study 2006 (NRS 2006) shows that dailies readership continues to grow in the country, having added 12.6 million readers since last year and now counting 203.6 million people.

Torstar, publisher of the Toronto Star, will soon begin publishing an 8-page electronic evening afternoon edition that readers can download, print out, and take home with them. The paper will be available daily at 3:30 p.m. and include breaking news, puzzles, features and entertainment.

Internet users in the UK are currently unable to access an article on the New York Times' website due to some legalities. The article entitled "Details Emerge in British Terror Case" is now inaccessible in Britain because of a "British law (prohibiting) publication of prejudicial information about the defendants prior to trial," which is the message that greets British users who click on the Times' headline.

The free newspaper war that has been looming over London's evening newspaper market is ready to begin. On August 30, Associated Newspapers is hitting the newsstands first with London Lite, its answer to News Corps' thelondonpaper, a freesheet which will employ a mere 20 journalists and begin distribution on the September 4.

Keeping readers on their sites is perhaps the biggest problem for individual newspapers on the Web. If readers have the print product in hand, it is likely it will be the only publication they will read. But online, choice is abundant and interests are fleeting.

Two years after the first issue of the international version, OhMyNews CEO Oh Yeon-Ho announced on Monday the launch of OhMyNews Japan. The three sites will cross translate their most significant contents.

The New York Times Company has acquired Baseline StudioSystems, a subscription TV and film database service used by Hollywood and video production companies. The site will be used to add depth to the company's entertainment reporting and blogs through biographies and other features that Baseline provides.

Despite a $50 million campaign by the Newspaper Association of America to attract advertisers to print (because print is a "destination, not a distraction"), a couple of new breakthroughs in digital advertising could keep the already stagnant print ad industry in its rut.

E-consultancy reports that the latest study by Outsell analysts has determined that a "perfect storm" of falling circulations, waning print advertising and the increasing popularity of online news will plunge American newspapers into a $20 billion hole by 2010.

Sweden’s largest subscribed daily Dagens Nyheter appointed Thorbjorn Larsson as its new editor-in-chief.
Larsson takes over from Jan Wifstrand, who resigned as DN editor on the 11th of August, after helding the job for more than three years.

Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi's son Saif al-Islam, called for a truly democratic system speaking in front of a crowd of youth activists gathered in Sirte on the 20th of August.
The lack of free press was one of the most critical comments expressed by Saif al-Islam, a significant claim considering that in Libya all of the media are state owned.

 

Source: Reuters