At Poynter, fresh doubt is cast over digital first’s ability to support news organisations by compensating for print advertising losses. Statistics released last week by the Newspaper Association of America (NAA) “show $798 million in print losses for the first half of 2012 compared to the same period a year ago. That is only slightly offset by a $32 million gain in digital. The ratio of losses to gains is 25 to 1”, writes Rick Edmonds.

The same NAA statistics revealing falling print ad revenue has prompted industry observer Frédéric Filloux to re-issue his calls for higher newspaper prices. The appeal reflects the reality “that the print product is still the primary source of revenue as newspapers migrate to the Web”, reports Ian Tennant for the Knight Centre for Journalism in the Americas.

The BBC’s New Broadcasting house is finally ready to go on air, reveals The Guardian’s Dan Sabbagh. After broadcasting The Andrew Marr show last Sunday, in the coming months the £1bn building will welcome flagship BBC programs including in the One, Six and Ten O’clock news and Newsnight.

Journalism.co.uk reports on Narrative.ly, the New York-based “digital multimedia magazine” campaigning for funds through Kickstarter. The project, which this week started its daily publication of multimedia pieces, had raised $53,000 at the time of writing, with the campaign due to close later today, writes Rachel McAthy.

Newspaper publishers and banks could soon provide customers with free smartphones and tablets as the price of the latest gadgets continues to fall. Speaking to The Australian Financial Review’s Brian Corrigan, Fairfax Metro Media CEO Jack Matthews explains: “The size of the [subscription] deal would determine how much [a customer] paid for the tablet or even the quality of the tablet”. A subscription to The Sydney Morning Herald and The Australian Financial Review could now make the model viable with tablets available for less than $200, he added.

For more industry news, please see WAN-IFRA's Executive News Service.