One of the nation's most respected newspapers is folding its daily print edition in favor of online publication, supplemented by a weekly paper edition. The Christian Science Monitor announced Tuesday that it will suspend daily publication this coming April. The daily publication will be replaced by a weekly print format featuring its special brand of analysis and an online operation for daily reporting. The shift to online publication will entail an unspecified number of layoffs. The news comes amid a steep slide in the fortunes of newspaper publishers, which have seen print advertising revenues and circulation undermined by online news, while still relying heavily on print for most of their income. Unlike other newspaper publishers--which are for the most part publicly traded companies--The Christian Science Monitor is privately maintained by the Christian Science Church, meaning that it has more freedom to make bold moves. The Christian Science Monitor is also unusual in that it has a relatively small print circulation of 56,000, but a much larger Web audience, with about 700,000 unique visitors generating 5 million page views per month. That's thanks to its reputation for high-quality journalism, especially in international reporting. Further distinguishing it from other newspapers, CSM doesn't rely on advertising for most of its revenue, with the lion's share coming from circulation in the form of subscriptions.
Verizon's FiOS is now the latest TV distribution service to strike a deal with Disney-ABC in which viewers will not be able to fast-forward through TV shows and commercials during video-on-demand viewing. As part of a test back in February, Disney-ABC struck a similar deal with Cox Communications for its Orange County, Calif. system. Viewers could watch ABC shows, but could not fast-forward through commercials or other content. ABC has been aggressive in this policy in an attempt to assuage TV advertisers that their messages are being seen. Proponents say ABC's plan is no different from how computer users screen Internet streaming episodes of TV shows where fast-forwarding ability is disabled. Disney-ABC says viewer reaction from the Cox Communications test was positive, noting that 93% of consumers find viewing advertising on VOD acceptable in return for seeing ABC shows at any time. Verizon's deal with ABC includes TV series like "Desperate Housewives," "Grey's Anatomy," "Lost," "Samantha Who?" and "Ugly Betty." All are available one day after their broadcast premieres, and can be seen in high definition. Verizon's goal is to offer FiOS TV customers over 1,000 HD video-on-demand titles every month by year-end. Verizon's FiOS TV VOD library now houses more than 11,000 titles per month, 70% of which are free. FiOS TV subscribers can get more than 400 all-digital channels, including up to 100 HD channels available in some markets.
As a secular downturn in the magazine business is aggravated by the broader economic crisis, publishers have been moving aggressively to cut costs with buyouts and layoffs. The last few weeks have seen a series of reports of staff reductions from some of the leading American magazine publishers. Time Inc, the world's largest magazine publishing company, plans a restructuring that could lead to as many as 600 job cuts, or about 6 percent of its work force. "Industry conditions have been challenging due to the financial crisis, which has produced sharp decreases in advertising spending. This is expected to continue through most of 2009," Time Inc Chairman-CEO Ann Moore wrote in a memo sent to Time Inc. employees on Tuesday. McGraw-Hill said during its third-quarter earnings announcement that it would cut 270 positions across the company, including 140 jobs at the Information and Media unit, which produces BusinessWeek, along with other B2B publications. McGraw Hill didn't specify how many of these cuts would affect BusinessWeek. Overall, the Information and Media unit's revenues rose 5.3% in the third quarter, but McGraw-Hill attributed this increase to Platt's, a business information brand covering petroleum and natural gas. At the beginning of October, ad pages at BusinessWeek were down 17% for the year to date, according to MIN Online. Earlier this year, the company scrapped plans to launch regional editions of the magazine, beginning with BusinessWeek Chicago, citing adverse economic conditions. Also this week, Wenner Media, the publisher of Rolling Stone, Us Weekly and Men's Journal, laid off seven people from the editorial and corporate sides of the business, according to the Mediaweek Web site. That's equal to less than 2% of Wenner's total full-time staff of 400. The company's flagship, Rolling Stone, has been hit hard by the downward trend in music magazines; through the first week of October, Rolling Stone's ad pages were down 17.5% to 824, according to MIN Online. Us Weekly was down a more modest 5.4% to 1,420. Last week, Time Inc.'s Southern Progress Corp., which publishes titles like Southern Living and Cooking Light, said it had laid off 30 employees or about 3% of the unit's workforce, with the cuts coming mostly at its ailing print operations. With the exception of one title, ad pages at Southern Progress magazines are down across the board, according to the Publishers Information Bureau. For the year to date, Southern Living is down 11.3% to 875 pages, Cooking Light is down 19.3% to 916, Cottage Living is down 9.1% to 358, Health is down 12% to 722, Coastal Living is down 27.9% to 554, and Sunset is down 23.5% to 568. Only Southern Accents is up, with a 9.9% increase to 459 pages. Altogether, the unit's ad pages fell 15.5% compared to the first nine months of last year, from about 5,260 to 4,450. A week prior to Time Inc.'s announcement, on Oct. 11, Hearst closed CosmoGirl and initiated a cost-cutting campaign that involves an unknown number of layoffs, according to Women's Wear Daily. One of the titles feeling the pinch of President Cathie Black was Harper's Bazaar, which closed sales offices in Los Angeles and San Francisco, hiring an outside firm to handle its West Coast business. On Oct. 13, Mansueto Ventures, the publisher of Fast Company and Inc., announced it was cutting 20 jobs to trim costs. The news came as something of a surprise, as its magazines are among the few business titles to enjoy growth in ad pages despite the secular downturn and financial crisis. Per PIB, Fast Company's ad pages are up 31.1% to 387, while Inc. saw a more modest 3.2% increase to 602. Finally, on Oct. 16, Playboy Enterprises announced that it would cut 55 employees and get rid of 25 unfilled spots, for a total of 80 positions eliminated. Per PIB, Playboy's ad pages are down 6.5% to 322 in the first three quarters of 2008.
Now that The Brand Bubble has spelled out that most brands--and their companies--are greatly overvalued by the financial markets, we find out that those on the inside do not have a clear idea of what their brands are worth, either. More than half (55%) of senior marketing executives lack a quantitative understanding of brand value within their organizations, according to a recent survey by the Association of National Advertisers and global branding consultancy Interbrand. Further, because brand value's effect on corporate value is not clearly quantified, it isn't being incorporated in decision-making: 64% of the 118 marketing officers and senior marketing executives polled said that brands do not influence decisions made at their organizations. "Now more than ever, brands must be examined and evaluated just as closely as any other corporate asset," says Jez Frampton, Global CEO of Interbrand. "It's no coincidence that strong brands, like Apple or Google, often have a strong stock price. Companies need to fully understand what drives demand on a second-by-second basis." Most (80%) of the marketing executives said they are under increasing pressure from top management to prove that branding initiatives improve company profitability. Yet in many companies, "creating and managing brand value still follows an archaic model" in which it is relegated strictly to the marketing department, Frampton stressed. "It is critical for marketers to fully appreciate the value of the brand to have a voice with the C-suite to accomplish overall business growth objectives," adds ANA president and CEO Bob Liodice. "Identifying where this misunderstanding exists is the first step to help marketers develop the tools they need to contribute to financial growth." What gets in the way of leveraging brand value? Among those who said brands don't influence corporate decisions, the underlying causes cited include: incentives that don't support brand importance (51%); inability to prove the brand's financial benefit (49%); existing branding expertise is not widely accepted (40%); metrics do not support the brand's importance (39%); budgets are focused on communications activities (32%); brand is not included in the "sphere of influence" (28%); and branding expertise does not yet exist (15%). At the same time, senior marketers agreed that quantifying how, when and where their brands create corporate value would enable numerous benefits, including: more focused marketing investment (93% agreed); ability to cut under-performing initiatives (82%); producing greater influence for overall alignment and change across the organization (79%); giving marketers more leverage in securing additional investment from boards (69%); generating active data that can be used to hone messaging (60%); and enhancing the ability to evaluate staff performance (40%).
Leading holding companies Interpublic and Publicis Groupe said Tuesday there are signs that clients are starting to tighten the reins on spending as the economic roller coaster continues. But both argued that they are prepared for the path ahead. IPG CEO Michael Roth said it was business as usual over the first nine months of the year, but the last 90 days have brought some spending reticence with the credit desert. "We're seeing it beginning to weigh on marketers' plans for both the fourth quarter and 2009," he said. "This makes the prospects of a slowdown in client spend more of a risk." Roth said some clients have showed "increased caution" of late, but "there is no clear pattern to it." Company-wide, clients have recently canceled marketing initiatives worth perhaps $75 million, he said. Going forward, IPG's services in multiple disciplines and broad global presence should help its performance--regardless of where things are going, he said. Publicis Groupe CEO Maurice Levy sounded a similar tune, saying the company experienced limited impact from the financial crisis in the April-June period, but recently has seen a slowdown. "We have entered the trouble zone, and it is very difficult to predict, as of today, the intensity or the duration of that turbulence," Levy said. "(Clients) are not panicking," he added. "They are managing the situation very cautiously, and so far from what we can see, making reasonable cuts. They are trying to reduce and manage their costs and at the same time, protect their market share." Levy said Publicis has a diverse client base as well as diversified offerings that should help it in the months ahead. Both Roth and Levy spoke as their respective companies released third-quarter results. Meanwhile, Aegis Group, which operates media agency Carat, said in a statement that it is "difficult to forecast accurate levels of client spend for the fourth quarter." Even as client reluctance set in, both IPG (particularly) and Publicis reported solid organic growth in the third quarter--up 7.6% and 3.9%, respectively. Revenues were up 11.5% and 5.1%, respectively. Aegis reported its performance for the first nine months of the year, with organic growth up 7.3% (8.8% for its media operations).
A slow, rainy World Series game did not put up much of a fight for the fast-moving "Dancing with the Stars" on Monday. The ABC show boosted its ratings to a Nielsen Media Research 4.0 rating/10 share in the 8 p.m. hour among 18-49 viewers. Then it picked up the pace to a night-leading 4.4/11. The show's average of 4.2/11 was up over the week before, when it earned a 4.0/10. Fox's game five of the Tampa Bay-Philadelphia game, which has now been postponed to Wednesday night, could only manage a 4.0/10. The World Series event continued to struggle, leaving Fox in fourth place during the 9 p.m. hour behind ABC's "Stars" (4.4/11). After the World Series at 9 p.m. came NBC's "Heroes" (3.9/9) and CBS' "Two and a Half Men" (3.8/9). Fox landed in first place with a 3.7/9, and ABC earned a 3.3/8. Typically, Monday nights are owned by CBS. But the eye network decided to take a break, going into reruns with its comedies. Even then, CBS maintained incredible staying power, grabbing virtually 3+ ratings among the key 18-49 crowd for the entire night. Its best result came from its Monday mothership "Two and a Half Men," with a solid 3.8/9 at 9 p.m. Better still, CBS won the 10 p.m. time period with a repeat of "CSI: Miami"--earning a 2.9/7 against new episodes of ABC's "Boston Legal," at a 2.1/5, and NBC's "My Own Worst Enemy," which earned a 2.3/6. Even its new comedy "Gary Unmarried" at 9:30 p.m. with a rerun--reaching a 2.9/7--had better numbers than an ABC original of "Samantha Who?" which took a 2.8/6. Behind ABC and Fox, CBS earned a 3.1/8 for the night. NBC was next at a 2.9/7. Its "Heroes" rating of 3.9/9 was about the same that it earned a week ago, while "Worst Enemy" dipped to a 2.3/6 from a 2.5/6 the week before. Univision earned a 1.9/4, and CW took a 1.6/4 for the night.
This just in from Vonda LePage, the communications chief at Interpublic's Deutsch shop who has a keen sense of news, and apparently of RW&B fodder too. It's a link to a fascinating YouTube video comprised of interviews with both Republicans/Conservatives planning to vote for Barack Obama, not John McCain. The interviews were conducted some Deutsch Los Angeles staffers, including Chief Creative Officer Eric Hirshberg, but LePage emphasizes that the project is personal and in no way represent the views or political leanings of the agency.To read more of this post, and the rest of today's political media commentary, go to the Red, White & Blog page.
It's almost dawn on the Westside. I make a pit stop at Chevron, looking to gas up and score a cup of Joe before going into the office. But this is no ordinary morning. In a minute, I will bear witness to brand loyalty run amuck. I will see firsthand the consequences of over-marketing in America. And it all starts with a guy making a cup of coffee in the Chevron Food Mart. He's big, this dude, maybe six-two, wearing a soiled gray T-shirt, dark-blue carpenter jeans, white socks and black shoes. His hands are large-knuckled and calloused. His hair is thinning, and he's working on a bald patch. He looks to be in his late thirties. Slowly, carefully, delicately, the guy opens one of those little containers of Coffee Mate and pours it into his 24-oz., Chevron special, dark roast coffee. He opens another in exactly the same way and pours it into his cup in precisely the same manner -- from the left side, steady flow, a little upward flourish at the end, and an elegant sideways toss of the empty container onto the counter. Then another container, exactly the same way. Another. And another. He empties 10 containers into his cup before the ritual is finished, and then looks at the counter -- he's searching for something. He looks behind the coffee machine. Rummages through the few containers of unopened Coffee Mate that survived him. Even sticks his head down into the wastebasket. No luck. He straightens, face mottling red, and turns to the cashier. "Where's your Equal?" the guy demands. "Eez no Equal," she answers, pointing to the sugar packets in the basket on the counter. "Shoogah." The guy's beady little Joe the Plumber eyes bore into the cashier. "You don't have Equal?" he asks again. "Ees no Equal." "Are you kidding?" "No, meesta. You want shoogah?" "How do you not have Equal? Huh? How do you not have Equal?" he barks, then stomps out. His sickly, brownish-white coffee still steams in the cup on the counter. Surrounding it like fallen soldiers are the mangled carcasses of 10 little containers of Coffee Mate. The cashier shrugs, then looks at me, grins, and says, "He no like shoogah." And I can't hold it in anymore. I break out laughing so hard my eyes water and my stomach hurts. Talk about the dark side of brand indoctrination. What if this really is the ultimate outcome of successful modern communications? What if the most dire challenge isn't clutter, Google, digital chaos or an economy in a coma? What if advertisers are just marketing too much and instead of encouraging consumers to listen up and opt in, they're creating a nation of homicidal brand maniacs? I can see the PSA now: "Lack of Equal access afflicts Americans in every age group and income level. Please help. Stock appropriately." Imagine the carnage at the supermarket if the new Pepsi logo doesn't catch on, especially in states with open carry gun laws. Maybe consumers really are having babies for German engineering. Or maybe we should all just lay off the 24-oz. dark roast coffees.