Results matching “increase in print an”

The Digital Media Asia Conference and Asian Digital Media Awards will be held in Hong Kong from 23 - 25 November 2011 and will reward the best in online, mobile and tablet publishing. 

As WAN-IFRA Deputy CEO Larry Kilman writes, the conference is Asia's largest conference on new media and is designed to recognize the achievements and discuss the future of the news and digital media firms from the Middle East to the Asian Pacific. Read the full list of speakers here. 

The role of new digital media in the Asian news industry is still in the process of evolution; print circulation remains stronger in younger, vibrant Eastern markets than in mature Western markets where print is encountering difficulties. As Christoph Riess, WAN-IFRA CEO, reflected: "Circulation is like the sun. It continues to rise in the East and decline in the West."  

Building an integrated newsroom might require some architectural upgrades. However, at the World Editors Forum session on "Integration: The latest experiments in a multi-platform age," several editors worldwide say an attitude change is the crucial factor.

"It's not a matter of age, but a matter of attitude," says Olalla Cernuda (left), head of online at ABC newspaper in Spain. Some of the younger journalists she has worked with wanted to write only for the printed paper, even though they were the ones expected to be tech-savvy.

Many employees, who were used to working for a very traditional paper, feared that they would see an uptick in work following integration. However, Cernuda says there hasn't been an increase, only adjustments in order to provide coverage 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.

Newspapers are faring well in Austria, with 73% of the country reading them on a daily basis. In the last few years, there's even been an increase.

by Larry Kilman

Newspaper circulation declined in print world-wide last year, but was more than made up by an increase in digital audiences, the World Association of Newspapers and News Publishers (WAN-IFRA) says in its annual update of world press trends.

"Circulation is like the sun. It continues to rise in the East and decline in the West," says Christoph Riess, CEO of WAN-IFRA, who presents the annual survey at the World Newspaper Congress and World Editors Forum.

François-Xavier Lefranc, director of the regional and local newspaper Ouest-France spoke at WAN-IFRA's Summer University in Paris about the paper's new strategy in developing and multiplying local coverage in order to increase circulation.

As the name implies, Ouest-France, with 47 local editions, covers three regions in the west of France: Normandie, Bretagne and Pays de la Loire, which represent a mosaic of territories with 12 departments and 4800 towns.

According to French circulation bureau OJD's figures, it is the best selling French newspaper and, after Le Parisien, its website is second in the ranking of French regional newspapers' websites with 8.7 millions unique users.

Alan Rusbridger, the editor of The Guardian, spoke to BBC Radio 4's Media Show about the paper's recent decision to face the future with a "digital-first" strategy. He confirmed what most commentators already suspected, namely that the new strategy would result in "significant" job cuts.

According to Rusbridger, The Guardian's declining revenues and print readership are in line with the developments in the industry in general. He described the new strategy as a response to a "pre-crisis moment", a change of course before the newspaper is forced to make vicious editorial cuts, resulting in a lower-quality paper: "You don't want to get into that spiral of decline that we've seen with a lot of American newspapers."

Some people say that 'hyperlocal' is the future of journalism. But for Bart Brouwers and editors like him, hyperlocal represents the past, present and the future.

"Reporting about what's close to you always gives the best results for your audience," says Mr Brouwers, the Managing Editor for hyperlocal online at Telegraaf Media Group in the Netherlands and a speaker at the upcoming Summer University in Paris organised by the World Association of Newspapers and News Publishers (WAN-IFRA) and the World Editors Forum.

Success for hyperlocal projects depends on "credibility, authenticity and the ability to mix fine journalism and an engaged audience with sustainable business models," he says.

Guardian News & Media (GNM), the publisher of The Guardian, announced yesterday that it would become a "digital-first" organisation. Alan Rusbridger, editor-in-chief of GNM, and Andrew Miller, chief executive of Guardian Media Group (GMG), revealed outlines of a "major transformation programme", which would push operations at The Guardian "beyond the newspaper, shifting focus, effort and investment towards digital, because that is our future".

Miller described The Guardian's undertaking as "a major transformation that will see us change from a print-based organisation to one that is digital-first in philosophy and practice". The company said the new strategy was a response to challenges facing the whole media industry, which is seeing on the one hand a decline in print circulation and advertising revenues, but on the other, rapid growth in digital audiences.

The GMG chief also said that the newspaper and its sister publication The Observer had lost £33 million in cash terms last year. He warned that unless GMG changed its business operations, it could run out of cash in three to five years. The new strategy includes a plan to save £25 million over the next year. More importantly, the newspaper aims to double its digital revenues, which are expected to be at £47 million in the current financial year.

Every week seems to bring new points of view to the great paywall debate. Recently it was reported that smaller newspapers were more active in setting up paywalls than their big counterparts and that in the case of smaller publications, the paywalls' effect on pageviews was surprisingly small.

More recently, Business Insider pointed out another way to approach the subject, using the New York Times as an example. When weighing up whether the newspaper's decision to put up a paywall was a success or not, most commentators concentrate on examining the pageviews of NYTimes.com. But this is an incomplete way of looking at the effects of the decision, as digital paywalls have an inevitable effect on print subscriptions as well. And in the Times's case, the print subscriptions seem to be on the rise.

Although Google has occasionally rubbed the press the wrong way in the past, it is now launching a new partnership with a French journalism school to encourage digital journalism. 

In the U.S., Google's relationship with the press has previously been strained. The company aggregates news stories from around the world on its Google News feature. The press has taken issue with it before, such as the incident two years ago when Google was under scrutiny for profiting from content produced by news editors, magazine publishers, and the Associated Press.

To many newspapers, starting a local or hyperlocal service in digital form might seem like an obvious thing to do. What is not so obvious, though, is how to succeed in a publishing field that already has become hyper competitive in many areas.

That is where WAN-IFRA and the World Editors Forum can help editors and publishers, through their Summer University 2011, which will focus on "Putting local and hyperlocal content at the heart of your future projects." The 6th annual seminar, on 27 and 28 June in Paris, will examine strategies, best practices and journalistic approaches with hyperlocal pioneers and leaders from Europe and the United States.

Expansion is in the air. The Guardian and Mail Online have been expanding into the US market for the past year, and the Huffington Post recently announced its expansion plans in the UK. Joining these publications, Forbes will soon launch a European edition of its magazine, reported the Guardian. The publication will be available bi-weekly in 11 countries. A European version of the site is already up and running.

Its first print run will be 20,000 English-version copies, which will be distributed to business executives. Copies will also be available on newsstands from around €5 to €7, with prices varying in different countries. 25 to 30 Europe-based contributors will be hired for the venture.

Profitability and finding a sustainable economic way for newspaper in the digital world is probably if the not the main, at least one of the main challenges facing the news industry today.

The whole picture can be seen by different perspectives: how to combine print and digital formats; which approach to follow online - free of charge, relying on advertising or putting content behind a paywall accessible through subscriptions; how to make money from digital devices, such as tablets and smartphones.

The Daily Telegraph launched today an updated version of its iPad app, Financial Times reported. The new edition of The Telegraph for the iPad can be downloaded for a one-off fee of £1.19 or as part of a monthly subscription, priced at £9.99. The previous version of the app, launched last September, was free.

The app's new features include interactive crosswords, picture galleries and a seven-day archive of the paper's cartoons. Also added is the possibility to increase text size by "pinching", a 30-day archive of back issues and a night-reading mode.

The launch follows yesterday's news concerning Apple's deal with Hearst Corp, which saw the iPad manufacturer take a more flexible stance than before as regards its App Store terms. Financial Times's Tech Hub reported that Edward Roussel, The Telegraph's digital editor, described Apple as "co-operative and helpful" during the development of the app.