http://adage.com/rss-feed.php?section_id=483 en-us 120 http://adage.com/rss-feed.php?section_id=483 http://adage.com/img/adage-logo-sm.gif http://adage.com/mediaworks/article.php?article_id=134897 Long Live the Queen This week, Liz Smith, the doyenne of gossip columnists, was fired after more than 30 years of writing for New York newspapers. Over at The Daily Beast, she dishes with Lloyd Grove, former gossip columnist for the New York Daily News, about why Rupert Murdoch couldn't save her, Gawker doesn't matter, the Post isn't a real New York paper -- and how she was abducted by aliens. ]]> http://adage.com/mediaworks/article.php?article_id=134897 Thu, 26 Feb 2009 12:29:31 -0500 http://adage.com/mediaworks/article.php?article_id=134867 News Corp. Chief Murdoch May Go After 'Los Angeles Times' Too Variety reports that Rupert Murdoch's counterintuitive quest to invest in print media helped drive away longtime lieutenant Peter Chernin. And now that Chernin can't intercede, does Murdoch want to follow News Corp.'s $5 billion buyout of Dow Jones by gobbling up the struggling New York Times Co.? The answer appears to be yes, as impossible as present economic conditions make it for most deals of any kind to get done. What's more, incredulous News Corp. insiders say Murdoch's love of print media is so fervent that he's also been talking about a play for the Los Angeles Times, which could make easier prey for several reasons. ]]> http://adage.com/mediaworks/article.php?article_id=134867 Wed, 25 Feb 2009 12:19:28 -0500 http://adage.com/mediaworks/article.php?article_id=134755 Times Co. Suspends Its Dividend to Raise Cash The New York Times reports on itself about the company's decision to suspend dividend payments to shareholders for the first time in four decades as a publicly traded company, another in a series of concessions because of sharply lower newspaper revenue. The decision by the board pre-empts a dividend payment that, on the usual schedule, would have been paid later this month. "Today's decision provides the company with additional financial flexibility given the current economic environment and the uncertain business outlook," the company chairman, Arthur Sulzberger Jr., said in a statement. The decision has raised questions about whether the move will unsettle extended Sulzberger family members who are the primary beneficiaries of the dividend payments, and if the move will ultimately endanger the family's long legacy of owning the newspaper. ]]> http://adage.com/mediaworks/article.php?article_id=134755 Fri, 20 Feb 2009 10:59:30 -0500 http://adage.com/mediaworks/article.php?article_id=134555 Mandel Disconnects From Nielsen, Research Integration Unit Disbanded Mediapost reports that Jon Mandel, one of the best known media executives on Madison Avenue before taking a top post at Nielsen Co. two years ago, is out as president of NielsenConnect, the unit charged with creating new products based on the integration of Nielsen's array of media and marketing research products and services. "When I joined, I promised them I'd give them two years and develop new products and services. Many of those products have matured and they've moved into ongoing businesses, and I felt it was time for me to move on, and get back into marketing. And I don't want to say anything negative about the Nielsen Company, but I never understood the humor in 'Dilbert' cartoons before, and now I think they're the funniest things I've ever seen." A Nielsen spokesman confirmed that NielsenConnect has fulfilled its role, and is being phased out as the businesses it "jump-started" have become integrated into other parts of the Nielsen organization, and as the principles of integration developed via NielsenConnect have become infused throughout Nielsen's organization. ]]> http://adage.com/mediaworks/article.php?article_id=134555 Wed, 11 Feb 2009 14:14:55 -0500 http://adage.com/mediaworks/article.php?article_id=134214 Cuts Coming Next Week at 'The Wall Street Journal' Portfolio media blogger Jeff Bercovici reports that when Gerard Baker starts his new job as The Wall Street Journal's new deputy editor in chief next Wednesday, he'll have a lot of names to learn. But not quite as many as if he'd started sooner. According to multiple sources within and close to the Journal, the newsroom is due to undergo another round of personnel cuts late next week. It's unclear exactly how many employees will be affected, but two sources put the number of people being targeted at 50. (If, as seems likely, that is the number of people on the list to be offered buyouts, then the actual number of jobs eliminated could be substantially lower.) It's also rumored that there will be parallel cuts at Dow Jones Newswires, and that one or more Journal bureaus may be eliminated as part of the cutbacks. A Dow Jones spokeswoman declined to comment. ]]> http://adage.com/mediaworks/article.php?article_id=134214 Fri, 30 Jan 2009 11:31:15 -0500 http://adage.com/mediaworks/article.php?article_id=134089 Pay For News Online? Really? Yes, Says U.S. News AllThingsD takes a look at the plan for U.S. News & World Report, which used to be a weekly news magazine, then a biweekly one and is now a monthly publication. Now it will try to produce a weekly magazine once again. Online. And it wants to charge readers for it: A year-long subscription to "U.S. News Weekly" will cost $20. Insane? Maybe not. The Economist does a (relatively) healthy business while keeping its weekly magazine behind a subscription paywall. So does the Wall Street Journal's Barron's. And as the online ad business continues to evaporate, charging people for access to stuff they want no longer seems completely insane. ]]> http://adage.com/mediaworks/article.php?article_id=134089 Mon, 26 Jan 2009 11:57:52 -0500 http://adage.com/mediaworks/article.php?article_id=133878 ]]> http://adage.com/mediaworks/article.php?article_id=133878 Mon, 19 Jan 2009 10:08:41 -0500 http://adage.com/mediaworks/article.php?article_id=133838 'Open Here' to Peek at Esquire's Articles and Ad New York Times reports that Hearst's Esquire is offering readers and advertisers a window into its front covers.The February issue of Esquire, on its way now to subscribers and to newsstands, has a window, or flap, in the middle of the cover, next to an invitation to "Open here." Opening the window reveals quotations from articles inside the issue, adjacent to an advertisement for "One Way Out," a new series on the Discovery Channel cable network. Esquire charged Discovery Channel about $250,000 for the ad, which includes production costs as well as a regular ad page for "One Way Out" inside the issue. Esquire is considering another kind of unconventional cover, with a pull tab, for the June issue; it would be accompanied by advertising to be sold to BMW of North America.]]> http://adage.com/mediaworks/article.php?article_id=133838 Fri, 16 Jan 2009 13:25:52 -0500 http://adage.com/mediaworks/article.php?article_id=133790 Major Magazine Wholesaler Wants Millions More in Fees The New York Post reports that magazine publishers, already reeling from a slowdown in advertising and circulation, have gotten slapped with word that a major distribution company is about to jack up the rates it charges to deliver issues to retailers. Anderson News earlier this week informed publishers that it would impose a 7-cent charge for each copy of a magazine that it delivers to stores, and warned that any publisher that refuses to pay the fee could no longer count on Anderson to distribute its magazines. It is believed to handle about 25% of the magazine retail traffic in North America. American Media, which is already on the brink of bankruptcy, could be hit with a bill of up to $12 million, the Post reports, while People, which has one of the best sell-through rates in the business, could be hit with up to $15 million in extra charges.]]> http://adage.com/mediaworks/article.php?article_id=133790 Thu, 15 Jan 2009 12:48:35 -0500 http://adage.com/mediaworks/article.php?article_id=133758 Actors Guild's Strike Vote Remains Unresolved The Wall Street Journal reports that the fate of a strike authorization vote by Hollywood actors remains unresolved after a nearly 30-hour emergency board meeting of the Screen Actors Guild, in which members of the union's national board attempted unsuccessfully to remove the guild's chief negotiator, Doug Allen. The debate over Mr. Allen's future signals the growing divide among SAG's fractious ranks over whether the union should proceed with a strike authorization vote, which was originally scheduled for this month. In the wake of last year's strike by screenwriters and today's volatile economy, it remains unclear whether enough actors in the 120,000-member union would support a strike.]]> http://adage.com/mediaworks/article.php?article_id=133758 Wed, 14 Jan 2009 10:49:35 -0500 http://adage.com/mediaworks/article.php?article_id=133706 The New Journalism: Goosing the Gray Lady New York Magazine sits down with the digital team reinventing The New York Times online. Even as the financial pages write the paper's obit, deep within that fancy Renzo Piano palace across from the Port Authority, something hopeful is going on: a kind of evolution. Each day, peculiar wings and gills poke up on the Times' web site -- video, audio, "drillable" graphics. Beneath Nicholas Kristof's op-ed column, there's a link to his blog, Twitter feed, Facebook page, and YouTube videos. Coverage of Gaza features a time line linking to earlier reporting, video coverage, and an encyclopedic entry on Hamas. Throughout the election, glittering interactive maps let readers plumb voting results. There were 360-degree panoramas of the Democratic convention; audio "back story" with reporters like Adam Nagourney; searchable video of the debates. It was a radical reinvention of the Times voice, shattering the omniscient God-tones in which the paper had always grounded its coverage; the new features tugged the reader closer through comments and interactivity, rendering the relationship between reporter and audience more intimate, immediate, exposed. But will they be able to move fast enough to move the print product to an online model?]]> http://adage.com/mediaworks/article.php?article_id=133706 Mon, 12 Jan 2009 14:31:15 -0500 http://adage.com/mediaworks/article.php?article_id=133697 Let's Invent an iTunes for News In The Media Equation, New York Times' columnist David Carr implores someone to create an iTunes model for news. While last week brought the news that Apple would no longer sell songs with copying restrictions and that they would be available at various prices, the digerati crowed over the collapse of the hated digital rights management (which Apple never liked, either) and record companies kicked up their heels at the thought of leaving behind the tyranny of the 99-cent price point. But lost in the hubbub was the fact that Steve Jobs and Apple had been able to charge for content in the first place. Those of us who are in the newspaper business could not be blamed for hoping that someone like Jobs comes along and pulls the same trick: convincing the millions of interested readers who get their news every day free on newspapers sites that it's time to pay up.]]> http://adage.com/mediaworks/article.php?article_id=133697 Mon, 12 Jan 2009 11:15:16 -0500 http://adage.com/mediaworks/article.php?article_id=133696 CBS Pumps Up TV.com to Create a Destination New York Times reports on CBS's plans for TV.com, one of the domain names it now owns thanks to its deal to acquire CNET last year. Today, the company is expected to announce distribution deals with PBS, Sony, MGM and Endemol that will expand its free advertising-supported online library in an effort to take on Hulu. In the land grab for the online TV audience, CBS hopes to define itself by adding a community layer to the videos and by encouraging user interaction.]]> http://adage.com/mediaworks/article.php?article_id=133696 Mon, 12 Jan 2009 11:04:11 -0500 http://adage.com/mediaworks/article.php?article_id=133668 Why the New York Times Won't Cease Printing Portfolio's blogger Felix Salmon takes issue with The Atlantic's piece on the end of the print edition of the NYT. For him, the article makes very little sense: author Michael Hirschorn seems to think that given a choice between defaulting on debt payments and stopping its print presses, the Sulzbergers might choose the latter. But they wouldn't: for one thing that's not a decision the NYT's lenders would actually want, and for another thing the New York Times Company has any number of assets it could sell off, especially in Boston, before taking such a drastic move. The New Yorker's James Surowiecki takes comfort that someone thinks the print edition will continue. ]]> http://adage.com/mediaworks/article.php?article_id=133668 Fri, 09 Jan 2009 12:31:07 -0500 http://adage.com/mediaworks/article.php?article_id=133606 ]]> http://adage.com/mediaworks/article.php?article_id=133606 Wed, 07 Jan 2009 12:11:56 -0500 http://adage.com/mediaworks/article.php?article_id=133603 EW Loses Its Top Editor The New York Post reports that Time Inc. moved Entertainment Weekly's current managing editor Rick Tetzeli upstairs to work on special projects while moving People Executive Editor Jess Cagle into the top post at EW. EW has already shouldered a portion of the recent 600 person downsizing at Time Inc., losing somewhere close to 30 people from its editorial staff of nearly 120 people. If nothing else, the move to bring in a new editor should quell the rumors fanned by media web sites that the company planned to move the magazine into a web-only platform. Its profits declined from more than $50 million to around $10 million last year. For all of 2008, its ad pages were off by 20.7 percent to 1,223, according to Media Industry Newsletter. ]]> http://adage.com/mediaworks/article.php?article_id=133603 Wed, 07 Jan 2009 12:00:31 -0500 http://adage.com/mediaworks/article.php?article_id=133582 How Newspapers Tried to Invent the Web, But Failed Slate's Jack Shafer asks for a moment of sympathy, please, for newspapers, whose readers and advertisers have been fleeing at a frightening rate. It would be easy to accuse editors and publishers of being clueless about the coming Internet disruption and to insist that the industry's proper reward for decades of haughty attitude, bad planning, and incompetence is bankruptcy. But newspapers have really, really tried to wrap their hands around the future and preserve their franchise, an insight he owes to Pablo J. Boczkowski's 2004 book, "Digitizing the News: Innovation in Online Newspapers." The industry has understood from the advent of AM radio in the 1920s that technology would eventually be its undoing and has always behaved accordingly. After all, as early as 1947, Walter Annenberg's Philadelphia Inquirer and John S. Knight's Miami Herald experimented with fax editions of their papers. Seems visionary enough to Shafer. So what happened? ]]> http://adage.com/mediaworks/article.php?article_id=133582 Tue, 06 Jan 2009 11:25:25 -0500 http://adage.com/mediaworks/article.php?article_id=133560 Prominent Magazines Lose Weight, Shedding Nearly Half Their Ads What You Should Have Read, Jan. 4, 2009 The New York Times does a deep dive into ad page counts at Conde Nast and finds January is not the company's best month. January issues tend to be thin even in good years, and most magazines posted a decline in ad pages. But the average decline across all monthly magazines was only 17%, and most Conde Nast magazines fared much worse, according to analysis of Media Industry Newsletter data. Of the 10 monthlies with the worst declines in January, four were Conde Nast magazines: Wired, Architectural Digest, Vogue and Lucky. It was the only publisher with more than one title in the top 10. ]]> http://adage.com/mediaworks/article.php?article_id=133560 Mon, 05 Jan 2009 12:25:21 -0500 http://adage.com/mediaworks/article.php?article_id=133494 NBC Nixes 'Shared' Super Bowl Ad Adweek reports that NBC said today it would not allow a spot in the upcoming Super Bowl with multiple advertisers. Yesterday, Los Angeles-based ad shop Cesario Migliozzi said it was discussing a plan with the network in which the agency would pool eight advertisers to jointly buy at least one of the remaining Super Bowl spots. But today Seth Winter, senior VP-sports and Olympics sales for the network, said the co-op spot would not be allowed. "We've not given them permission and there is no way we are going to," Mr. Winter said. ]]> http://adage.com/mediaworks/article.php?article_id=133494 Wed, 24 Dec 2008 10:37:58 -0500 http://adage.com/mediaworks/article.php?article_id=133341 ]]> http://adage.com/mediaworks/article.php?article_id=133341 Wed, 17 Dec 2008 11:19:51 -0500 http://adage.com/mediaworks/article.php?article_id=133340 Dykstra Drops the Ball The New York Post checks in with former New York Mets outfielder Lenny Dykstra, and finds he appears to be striking out with his magazine, Players Club. Chris Frankie, the acting editor, resigned Dec. 4 along with two other staffers. Now Loren Feldman, former editor-in-chief of Philadelphia magazine, is said to be ready to join as the new chief editor. The last issue of Players Club was published in October, and the November issue will now be combined into a year-end double issue that has yet to appear. Although the magazine is less than a year old, it has already had four different printers and three different editors. Several vendors have also stopped doing business with the magazine. ]]> http://adage.com/mediaworks/article.php?article_id=133340 Wed, 17 Dec 2008 11:13:18 -0500 http://adage.com/mediaworks/article.php?article_id=133235 ]]> http://adage.com/mediaworks/article.php?article_id=133235 Fri, 12 Dec 2008 16:23:00 -0500 http://adage.com/mediaworks/article.php?article_id=133218 Time Warner Names Bewkes New Chairman Wall Street Journal reports that Time Warner said its CEO, Jeff Bewkes, 56, will also take on the role of chairman at the beginning of next year, succeeding Richard Parsons when he steps down at the end of his contract. Time Warner said Mr. Parsons, 60 years old, will make his exit as chairman on Dec. 31, capping more than five years in the role, during which time he helped steer the company through the aftermath of its disastrous merger with AOL. Mr. Bewkes's appointment as chairman wasn't unexpected. In the new employment contract he signed last year, Mr. Bewkes stipulated that he also wanted to be named chairman by the beginning of 2009 and had the option to resign if he wasn't. In taking on the dual role of chief executive and chairman, Mr. Bewkes has shrugged off increasing pressure on companies to split the role. Mr. Bewkes, 56 years old, has effectively signaled he wants free rein to revamp the media company, which owns the Warner Bros. movie studio, magazines including People and Time and TV channels ranging from HBO to CNN. ]]> http://adage.com/mediaworks/article.php?article_id=133218 Fri, 12 Dec 2008 12:07:52 -0500 http://adage.com/mediaworks/article.php?article_id=133201 ]]> http://adage.com/mediaworks/article.php?article_id=133201 Thu, 11 Dec 2008 16:35:56 -0500 http://adage.com/mediaworks/article.php?article_id=133087 NBC preps major executive shuffle Variety reports that NBC has become -- to paraphrase one of the network's recent flops -- its own worst enemy. The company ousted both Universal Media Studios topper Katherine Pope and NBC Entertainment exec VP Teri Weinberg on Friday in a pre-weekend Peacock bloodbath. Alternative topper Craig Plestis, who's been negotiating his exit for weeks, will also be out by the end of the year. Weinberg is expected to remain at the NBC U in a different role. Pope will exit entirely and is scouting for her next step. (Insiders said Pope was offered a top job at ABC Studios earlier this year, but that NBC would not release her from her contract.) The move comes as NBC U looks to toss out its traditional network-studio structure, particularly in light of its rough fall performance. NBC Entertainment/Universal Media Studios co-chairmen Ben Silverman and Marc Graboff started informing staffers of the changes Friday. ]]> http://adage.com/mediaworks/article.php?article_id=133087 Mon, 08 Dec 2008 11:24:07 -0500 http://adage.com/mediaworks/article.php?article_id=133084 Tribune Co. Could Be Flirting With Bankruptcy The New York Times reports that The Tribune Company, the newspaper chain that owns The Chicago Tribune and The Los Angeles Times, is trying to negotiate new terms with its creditors and has hired advisers for a possible bankruptcy filing, according to people briefed on the matter. Tribune is in danger of falling below the cash flow required under its agreement with its bondholders, but it is not clear how seriously Tribune is thinking about seeking bankruptcy protection. The Tribune Company owns 23 TV stations and 12 newspapers, including two of the eight largest in the country by circulation. As of Sept. 30, The Los Angeles Times had weekday circulation of 739,000 and the Chicago Tribune had 542,000. ]]> http://adage.com/mediaworks/article.php?article_id=133084 Mon, 08 Dec 2008 11:11:14 -0500 http://adage.com/mediaworks/article.php?article_id=133014 The New Media Landscape Gawker Media owner Nick Denton, on his blog NickDenton.com, takes a crack at a definitive ranking of media properties on the web. Nielsen's own news and information rankings include miscellaneous weather and directory sites. Neither includes entertainment sites such as People.com. So he's taken the media research outfit's latest audience numbers for the top 50 online properties -- whether they're brands that began in print (gray), on TV or radio (dark gray) or are native to the internet (red). It's as good a guide as we have to the new media landscape. Extremely illuminating, in that traditional media brands don't fare as poorly as you would think. ]]> http://adage.com/mediaworks/article.php?article_id=133014 Thu, 04 Dec 2008 12:35:05 -0500 http://adage.com/mediaworks/article.php?article_id=132975 Nielsen offers second-by-second viewership data Reuters reports TV audience tracking firm the Nielsen Company has begun offering second-by-second viewership data, with the National Geographic Channel becoming the first to sign up for the service. The data will provide insight into how many viewers watch each commercial, and will help advertisers tell if viewers tune out in the middle of their commercial. Advertisers can then decide if their ad is best placed at the beginning, middle or end of a commercial break.]]> http://adage.com/mediaworks/article.php?article_id=132975 Wed, 03 Dec 2008 12:28:52 -0500 http://adage.com/mediaworks/article.php?article_id=132937 Reunderstanding Rupert Murdoch Slate's press critic Jack Shafer thinks Michael Wolff's new biography, "The Man Who Owns the News: Inside the Secret World of Rupert Murdoch", accepts the mogul on his own sordid terms. Wolff, who writes about media, politics, and power for Vanity Fair, cultivates a cynical and dark image for himself, so Murdoch made a logical bet when he wagered that their shared blackheartedness would produce a flattering biography. But Murdoch bet wrong. By accepting Murdoch on his own terms, Wolff tilts his focus toward the sympathetic, but it's the sort of sympathy John Milton rewards Satan with in "Paradise Lost". Murdoch, like Satan, is simply the most interesting character in the larger story and therefore the most deserving of our understanding.]]> http://adage.com/mediaworks/article.php?article_id=132937 Tue, 02 Dec 2008 11:24:45 -0500 http://adage.com/mediaworks/article.php?article_id=132934 Time Warner seeks approval of reverse-stock split The Associated Press, via Business Week reports that Time Warner is asking its shareholders to approve a reverse-stock split that would reduce the number of outstanding shares and double or triple the share price, according to a securities filing. The company believes the reverse split will improve liquidity in the stock following the planned spinoff early next year of Time Warner Cable, the nation's second largest cable operator, which could cause Time Warner's shares to fall. As of Nov. 20, there were 3.59 billion outstanding common shares in Time Warner.]]> http://adage.com/mediaworks/article.php?article_id=132934 Tue, 02 Dec 2008 11:05:26 -0500