Results matching “to boost print sales”

One of the reasons readers are trading online for print that is rarely discussed is that newspaper stories are too long, while online articles are more to-the-point, Michael Kinsley argues in the Atlantic this week.

His reasoning? "Context," which newspapers pride themselves on providing, has become "an invitation to hype," causing readers to go elsewhere to just get the facts. Shorter, more concise articles could cause a boost in print sales, but existing mandatory newsroom rules to give more context may be hurting print, he writes in his column.

Hearst Corp. have been particularly secretive about their plans in the e-reading domain, but last Friday the public were given a little glimpse into the upcoming launch of 'Skiff', its e-reader device/service.

Previously named 'First Paper', Skiff is a service and digital store that 'specializes in the delivery of magazine and newspaper content to e-readers,' reports Editor and Publisher.

The Wall Street Journal has announced a growth in its daily circulation with figures presented to the Audit Bureau of Circulations showing a 0.6% increase compared to the same six month period last year.  

The modest rise means the paper is now the top circulating U.S daily after previous number one, USA Today, recorded its worst year ever with a 17 percent drop in circulation.

Reuters reports that the success of The Wall Street Journal is a result of 'ongoing investment that Dow Jones has made in the franchise during the past few years. This growth combined with increased subscription rates has led to an increase in total circulation revenue of 10.1% to the Journal year-over-year.'

Remember how wonderful and magical it was when the musical motion picture, The Wizard of Oz went from black and white to Technicolor? The New York Daily News is about to undergo a similar transformation when it purchases new color printing presses that will allow the paper that once carried the logo "New York's Picture Newspaper" to print in color from cover to cover. Boston Properties Inc. chairman Mort Zuckerman has raised about $31.6 million in company stock sales to finance the presses, reported Bloomberg. 

"Wait till you see the way this paper is going to look four or five months from now. We are going to once again be able to be the picture newspaper in a way that nobody could have imagined," Zuckerman told Bloomberg.

The Zimbabwe newspaper, the Zimbabwean has taken a truly innovative approach to advertising.  Its sales campaign used the troubled African nation's bank notes, rendered almost worthless by extreme inflation, to make billboard advertisements. The project has been honoured with the prize award in the outdoor category of the Cannes Lion Advertising Festival, while the campaign won a Gold Lion in the media section.

The advertisements were produced by the South African agency agency TBWA/Hunt/Lascaris/Johannesburg.

In 2005, the Guardian prepared itself for what was heralded as a revolution in newspaper journalism by switching from traditional broadsheet to the Berliner format. (See the first issue of the Berliner Guardian, right, printed 12 September 2005.) For the first time since its makeover, the Guardian explains in detail why it decided to make the move and how it went about doing it.

Four years ago, when news first got out that the Guardian was getting geared up for a reinvention, journalistic tongues were soon wagging, such was the interest generated among its rivals.

According to a new book published by Dr Andrew Cook, Jack the Ripper was an invention created by journalists to boost sales. Historian Andrew Cook claims that the murders of several women in Victorian London were the work of not one man, but of various men involved in a spate of unrelated attacks.

In his book entitled "Jack the Ripper: Case Closed," Cook draws on the evidence and accounts offered by police and medical experts at the time to argue that there were too many differences in the style of the killings to suggest that all the victims died at the hands of the one same man. Among the testimonies supporting this view include one from assistant police surgeon Percy Clark, based at the Whitechapel Division. Clark, who had unparalleled access to all the victims, told the East London Observer in 1910: "I think perhaps one man was responsible for three of them. I would not like to say he did the others."

It is generally agreed that 2008 was not a good year for newspapers.  Media pundits have been watching the demise of the printed press and whether with glee or dismay, often accepting it with an air of inevitability.  Governments and writers have been conjuring up ways to boost print readership and make papers profitable.  Many newspapers have suffered staff redundancies and budget cuts.

But recent figures show that it really isn't all bad.  Surprising though it may seem, there is still light at the end of the tunnel for the newspaper industry.

Traffic to CNN.com is higher than ever, the news organizations owner, Time-Warner has been profitable for eight years, yet the new general manager, K.C. Estenson is trying to change the way people visit the site. 

Estenson wants people to visit the site "out of love," not just out of habit.  He believes that getting people to stay on the site is key to its growth.  Last year Nielsen ranked CNN.com as the number one global news website with a monthly average of 1.7 billion views.

Having learnt their lesson from Election Day, US newspapers are determined not to let the potential profit-making madness that is Barack Obama's Inauguration Day slip through their fingers.  The astronomical and unexpected demand for Election Day copies from readers who wanted both information and souvenirs of the historic result left newspapers reeling and print presses smoking.

So on January 20th, nothing will be left to chance.  The Washington Post is so far the publication with the grandest plans; they intend to have an extra afternoon edition on the stands by 2.30pm and are adding a 4-page wraparound special to their usual 6pm edition. Both will be sold at a mark-up, $2 compared to the usual Post price of 75c.  They also plan to have more than 70 journalists in Washington, greatly increased press runs and will employ 500 street 'hawkers' to sell their paper throughout the city.  The Post will release a commemorative edition on the 21st January, which is also selling at $2 per copy - although advance orders are being taken for $9.95.

Obama's hometown paper The Chicago Tribune is cashing in on his success with plans for an afternoon edition, and a promise to keep the presses rolling until demand is satisfied. The New York Times is set to increase its press run by 950,000 after the big day and has revealed plans for an Inauguration themed magazine two days before, as has the Washington Post.  USA Today has decided to release its own two Inauguration magazines, on 20th and 21st January, which will retail at $4.95.

Inauguration is proving to be a great day for citizen journalism too with many, often smaller, publications actively asking for their readers' input. The Journal of Martinsburg, West Virginia for example 'would like to invite all Journal readers to become citizen journalists and help share in the coverage of this historic day.' They are offering readers the chance to post their own photos and stories of the day on a specially dedicated section of their 'Virtual Newsroom'.  The Atlanta Journal-Constitution is also encouraging their readers to document the day, whether they have tickets or not.

It's not just the newspapers that are determined to make the most of Inauguration Day either.  There are many temporary and slightly out of the ordinary alliances forming - MSNBC coverage of the event will be streamed in 650 Starbucks stores across the country, for example.  Fox News are broadcasting in Times Square for the day, MSNBC will be shown in many theatres and cinemas, and CNN have given permission for their day's footage to be used by a variety of groups (including public school systems).  The AP is planning its 'most comprehensive multiplatform reporting ever' for 20 January, following an increased trend towards multimedia reporting.

The big event offers a timely boost in sales for the struggling media industry, which has been battling the increase of news on the web and the resulting lack of desire for newspapers for some time.  With all the extra copies, special editions, exclusive screenings and increased prices, it seems that demand for news on Inauguration Day is set to exceed all previous events - or so newspaper bosses hope.

Source: Editor & Publisher,  Followthemedia.com, New York Times, Poynter Online

It isn't a secret that the American newspaper industry is experiencing difficult times, as core print revenues and circulation are falling. Many think that online news, which has been accompanied by double-digit online advertising growth in recent years, can make up for the decline in print. But several studies and articles think otherwise.

"The Web audience is growing at a great clip, while print circulation is not. And online revenues are growing faster, too, albeit from a smaller base. If the trend continues, there's little doubt that -- "eventually" -- online becomes the main business," said Bill Keller, the New York Times Executive Editor, in a 2007 interview with IwantMedia.

But as sanguinity faces off with the numbers, perhaps we shouldn't hold our breath for "eventually."

Internet revenue is growing -- in 2003, newspapers collected a mere $1.2 billion from online advertising; last year the figure was nearly $2.7 billion. "We're growing at a double-digit rate," said Randy Bennett, of the Newspaper Association of America.

But there's a problem. Scott Karp, of Publishing 2.0, has dubbed it the "10% problem." Karp explains that looking at New York Times print and web circulation numbers, "What you find, with some modest rounding, is that print circulation is about 10% of total audience reach, while online advertising revenue is 10% of total ad revenue -- the economics are nearly the perfect inverse of what they should be."

Why, as audiences shift to the web, are advertisers not following?

Although newspaper websites are attracting a lot of visitors, they aren't keeping them there.

According to the American Journalism Review (AJR), the typical visitor to nytimes.com, which attracts over 10 percent of the entire newspaper industry's online traffic, spent an average of just 34 minutes and 53 seconds browsing its extensive editorial and interactive offerings in October. That's 34 minutes and 53 seconds per month - just 68 seconds per day online. By contrast, according to Scarborough Research, print readers report spending 16 minutes a day with their newspapers.

And as small as 68 seconds a day is -- it's actually about three times longer than the average of the next nine largest newspaper sites.

Although a minority of news hounds linger on the sites, Greg Harmon, director of Belden Interactive, estimates that as many as 60 percent of online newspaper visitors are "fly-bys," people who use the site briefly and irregularly. "Everyone has the same problem," explains Jim Brady, editor of washingtonpost.com. The news industry's continuing challenge, Brady says, is to turn "visitors into residents."
 
Thomas E. Patterson, of Harvard University, who has conducted a yearlong study of 160 news sites, also offers an intriguing, if not unsettling, theory: the web is a fundamentally different way of viewing information, and as such, web ads may not be as effective as the traditional kind. "I'm not sure [advertisers] are convinced yet about how terrific a sales tool [a Web display ad] is," said Patterson. "The evidence isn't strong yet that it can drive people into a store the way a full-page newspaper ad can. They're less confident about what they're getting online."
 
To add insult to injury, online newspapers face these challenges in a fiercely competitive new medium. "Unlike the print business, in which newspaper publishers generally enjoy near-monopoly status, the online news world is littered with entrants - from giants like MSNBC.com and AOL.com, to news aggregators like drudgereport.com, to blogs by the millions," writes Paul Farhi of AJR. "This makes it tough for any online ad seller to do what newspaper publishers have done for years - keep raising their ad rates." "Ultimately, it comes down to supply and demand," said Leon Levitt, vice president of digital media for Cox Newspapers. "And there's an awful lot of supply out there."

In the midst of this, the online ad growth is beginning to slow. The confidence-building, double-digit increases are fading fast. In the first quarter of 2007, the newspaper industry saw a 22 percent gain in online revenue - impressive, but less so when seen as the smallest uptick (in percentage terms) since the NAA started keeping records in 2003. In the second quarter, the industry rate slipped yet again, to 19 percent.

And even with these double-digit increases, newspapers' print ads still draw more than 20 times the revenue from online sales, having collected  $46.6 billion in print ads last year.

The New York Times Co., the leading online newspaper company, derives just 11 percent of its revenue from the Web, and it not public how much of that 11% comes from nytimes.com vs. its other digital holdings, such as the popular about.com.

The challenge news sites face now is how to continue to move online, but bring advertisers with them.

It's "in the interest of both newspapers and advertisers to shift content to the Internet," said Philip Meyer, author of The Vanishing Newspaper.

Advertisers can focus their target audiences and can monitor consumers' behavior online, Meyer points out. At the same time, "newspapers can at last grow their businesses without being held back by the variable costs of newsprint, ink and transportation...In the recent past, newspaper owners have preferred to cut fixed costs, like editorial staff, which gives a quick boost to the bottom line but weakens their hold on the audience. Using technology to cut the variable costs is a better strategy even though the payoff takes longer."

Sources: The American Journalism Review, The State of the News Media 2007, Publishing 2.0, The New York Times
 

The Press Gazette suggests that newspapers’ web-first policy may help boost print circulation, by raising reader awareness and attracting a younger audience.

The aggressive UK newspaper market has embraced online news, making developments quick to stay ahead of the game. Editors Weblog has spoken to top executives at two quality and two tabloid newspapers to try and garner the key themes and learnings from potentially the most competitive newspaper market in the world.

After ‘toe in the water’ trials with print advertising Google may have found their niche in yet another market – selling newspaper print ads. Google tells Editors Weblog that not only does this project bring new advertisers to the print market but it also provides significant benefits to editorial departments. It looks good but some question the dominance this would give Google.

While maximizing ad revenues may not seem to be directly related to editorial quality, increased revenues do enable more newsroom independence – and investments. As more papers reduce page-width, they might switch from linear inch ad sales models to modular ad sales.

On Wednesday the Guardian announced its adoption of a “Web first” policy, but fellow British national newspaper the Daily Telegraph took a step in the completely opposite direction: delaying the publication of print articles on the Web until later in the day.

As newspapers struggle with declining circulations, Saturday and Sunday editions along with supplements have proven to boost sales. George Brock, Saturday Editor of the UK's Times, Jan Jensen, Editor-in-Chief of Ekstra Bladet in Denmark and Berna Gonzàlez-Harbour, Sub-director, of the Spanish daily El Pais told the crowd at the 13th World Editors Forum of their papers' experiences with these feature-driven publications.

On August 29th, another American newspaper will jump on the tabloid bandwagon. The daily newspaper of Troy, New York called The Record, whose circulation has dropped 45% over the past ten years, is making the switch, simultaneously adding more local coverage and hiring new staff. The paper's VP of advertising and marketing, D. Lee Karlson, is optimistic because where most advertisers cringe at the thought of smaller pages on which to place their ads, The Record's advertisers welcome the change because surveys show that most readers welcome a smaller newspaper and will thus be more engaged when reading it. But not everyone in the newspaper business thinks a compact format can save waning circulations.

The Commonwealth Press Union (CPU) is holding its biennial conference in Sydney, Australia from February 20-22, and includes the Commonwealth's Editors' Forum. 80 to 100 senior editors are attending the sixth forum and all major newspaper groups in the Commonwealth support the conference. Below are a few of the main ideas that have are being discussed.

1.) Websites boost brand loyalty: Publishing a paper's news online is now obligatory, but editors need to clarify certain issues, such as charging for the website, deciding how much content should be published online, and determining what effect the website will have on sales and circulation. Keith Perch, Editor and Managing Director of the UK's Northcliffe Electronic Publishing pointed to a survey of his company's websites which showed that its internet readers were also the biggest readers of the print edition. "It would appear that, for the fans of our newspapers, the websites simply strengthened that loyalty, despite the fact that the content was pretty much duplicated," said Perch. "On the whole people buy the newspaper because they like the newspaper, they use the internet site when it suits them and, in general, it doesn't stop them buying the paper." However, some statistics of completely losing some readers to the internet were still a bit worrisome. To bring them back, Perch suggested that editors rework their display of and distinguish between the content of print and online editions in an attempt to adapt to this changing readership who has become accustomed to the immediacy of online news, something with which print can't compete.

The Commonwealth Press Union (CPU) is holding its biennial conference in Sydney, Australia from February 20-22, and includes the Commonwealth's Editors' Forum. 80 to 100 senior editors are attending the sixth forum and all major newspaper groups in the Commonwealth support the conference. Below are a few of the main ideas that have are being discussed.

1.) Websites boost brand loyalty: Publishing a paper's news online is now obligatory, but editors need to clarify certain issues, such as charging for the website, deciding how much content should be published online, and determining what effect the website will have on sales and circulation. Keith Perch, Editor and Managing Director of the UK's Northcliffe Electronic Publishing pointed to a survey of his company's websites which showed that its internet readers were also the biggest readers of the print edition. "It would appear that, for the fans of our newspapers, the websites simply strengthened that loyalty, despite the fact that the content was pretty much duplicated," said Perch. "On the whole people buy the newspaper because they like the newspaper, they use the internet site when it suits them and, in general, it doesn't stop them buying the paper." However, some statistics of completely losing some readers to the internet were still a bit worrisome. To bring them back, Perch suggested that editors rework their display of and distinguish between the content of print and online editions in an attempt to adapt to this changing readership who has become accustomed to the immediacy of online news, something with which print can't compete.

The Commonwealth Press Union (CPU) is holding its biennial conference in Sydney, Australia from February 20-22, and includes the Commonwealth's Editors' Forum. 80 to 100 senior editors are attending the sixth forum and all major newspaper groups in the Commonwealth support the conference. Below are a few of the main ideas that have are being discussed.

1.) Websites boost brand loyalty: Publishing a paper's news online is now obligatory, but editors need to clarify certain issues, such as charging for the website, deciding how much content should be published online, and determining what effect the website will have on sales and circulation. Keith Perch, Editor and Managing Director of the UK's Northcliffe Electronic Publishing pointed to a survey of his company's websites which showed that its internet readers were also the biggest readers of the print edition. "It would appear that, for the fans of our newspapers, the websites simply strengthened that loyalty, despite the fact that the content was pretty much duplicated," said Perch. "On the whole people buy the newspaper because they like the newspaper, they use the internet site when it suits them and, in general, it doesn't stop them buying the paper." However, some statistics of completely losing some readers to the internet were still a bit worrisome. To bring them back, Perch suggested that editors rework their display of and distinguish between the content of print and online editions in an attempt to adapt to this changing readership who has become accustomed to the immediacy of online news, something with which print can't compete.

The New York Times has launched a partnership with one of Germany's leading broadsheets, the daily Süddeutsche Zeitung said Friday. The New York Times International Weekly, featuring a selection of articles from the US newspaper, will appear as an English-language supplement with the Süddeutsche from May 3. Süddeutsche editor-in-chief Hans Werner Kilz said the addition was targeted at its "internationally oriented readers" and was an exclusive agreement for German-speaking Europe. The 16-page supplement will include articles selected by the editorial staff of the two newspapers and have a print run of 430,000. SZ managing director Klaus Josef Lutz said he expected the agreement to boost international advertising sales. The New York Times International Weekly already appears with several leading European newspapers including La Repubblica in Italy, Le Monde in France and The Daily Telegraph in Britain.

Source: AFP