Newspapers & Technology
If you can't beat 'em, join 'em. That appears to be the thinking of more and more newspaper executives, some of whom are willingly--even eagerly--embracing features and products that are made possible through the magic of the World Wide Web. The latest to catch on is YourHub.com, a grassroots site that has produced a print companion which a number of U.S. newspapers are folding into their regular editions. Since a Denver outfit began syndicating the material early this year, YourHub.com has signed up more than a dozen newspapers. Jack Lail, managing editor for multimedia at The News-Sentinel in Knoxville, …
NY Post (free registration required)
Keith Kelly, who reports for the New York Post on the city's publishing industry, says this week that America Media Inc. president David Pecker is under renewed pressure to produce profits. With the addition of two new members to the company's board of directors--both from equity investors in AMI--Pecker's high-profile management style will come under greater scrutiny, as will his company's financials. Kelly lays out a series of problems that confront AMI at this time: Celebrity Living, its newest weekly, is not exactly kicking butt; The Star, the company's flagship publication, has produced a disappointing string of "embarrassing" covers; …
L.A. Times
Just weeks following the splashy, successful debut of the Chinese-language edition of Rolling Stone magazine in China, local authorities have shut it down. They say the publication violated too many regulations, that it failed to ask for certain approvals where approvals were required. Analysts, however, say RS's greatest transgression was that it leaped into the China market with too much flair. Instead of starting small, or perhaps linking with a low-profile local publishing partner, as other U.S. magazines have done, it produced a fat, controversial inaugural issue and then promoted it heavily. Although RS' staff in China insists the …
Mediaweek
Although critics had a mixed reaction to "Conversations With Michael Eisner," which debuted this week on CNBC, viewers mostly ignored the program. According to Nielsen Media Research, 95,000 people tuned in-- only 39,000 in the 25-54 demo. CNBC's position is that the numbers do not reflect the quality of the audience--thought to be a media-savvy, highly educated group--and that is probably true. Still, the numbers indicate that, once again, NBC Universal's cable channel is unable to launch a successful talker. It's tried before, with Tina Brown, Dennis Miller, and John McEnroe. Eisner's first guests were Martha Stewart and Sony's Howard …
Mr. Magazine
Samir Husni, the University of Mississipi journalism professor who has adapted the handle Mr. Magazine, has launched an eponymous blog in which he shares his thoughts about happenings in the world of mags. This week he interviews Justin B. Smith, president of Dennis Publishing's The Week magazine, which Husni loves. "I asked him whether four years ago he expected The Week to be where it is now. 'I guess in the beginning we didn't really know,' said Smith. 'We just knew that this was a very compelling editorial idea that really connected with readers and, when it got in …
WSJ (paid subscription required)
With ad pages down at Time magazine, its flagship title, and evidence everywhere that more and more of its younger readers are migrating to the Web, Time Inc. is trying once again to remake itself as a serious, effective player on the Internet. The Wall Street Journal accurately recounts some of the company's earlier failed attempts at putting its valuable content on the Web (anyone remember Pathfinder?), efforts that proved embarrassing as small upstarts all across the globe bested the media giant in the new arena. Now, says the Journal, senior Time Inc. executives are working feverishly to dismantle …
Ad Age
Six newspapers have been selected to participate in a wide-ranging experiment sponsored by the Newspaper Next project, which is charged with helping to invigorate the industry. Objective: Find better ways of doing ... well, practically everything. With newspapers getting battered from all sides, but particularly from the Web, the Newspaper Next initiative was unveiled earlier this year in an effort to stop the downward slide. This week the American Press Institute-sponsored project selected six papers (from among 18 candidates) to spend several months concentrating on fresh, previously untried methodologies on both the print and business sides. For example: The …
Mercury News
While newspapers large and small find themselves working overtime just to keep up with fast-changing shifts in reader preferences--and while some have simply failed altogether-- papers that concentrate on ethnic minorities are thriving. The Mercury News, based in the San Francisco Bay Area, has a good piece about the influx of papers that serve the local Vietnamese community. "The proliferation of Vietnamese and other ethnic publications is in stark contrast to the challenges facing mainstream newspapers: declining readership and advertising," says the Mercury News. "The landscape of the ethnic press is dramatically different. About a dozen Vietnamese publications now …
BBC News
Worry not: There isn't a shred of evidence that conventional print books are going away. At the same time, some very big players are continuing to refine the technology for e-books, making them more appealing as a sometime alternative to bound books as we now know and love them. Especially cool are the interactive features that can be built into e-books, bringing a new dimension to the reading experience. All of this is detailed in a piece in the British edition of BBC News. The story is loosely pegged to the upcoming release of new products from Sony, which …
Ad Age
Viacom's TV Land cable channel, eager to tell its ad-opportunity story to buyers, this week pitched the virtue of reaching older, not younger, viewers. The message is counterintuitive to the prevailing wisdom on Madison Street, but it has merit. To make the point, TV Land had well-known demographer Ken Dychtwald speak to a roomful of media buyers, and Ad Age was there to cover. Instead of the in-demand demo of 18- to 34-year-olds, marketers should target the 40-to-60 set, Dychtwald said. That group represents $2.1 trillion in spending power and they are leading spenders in categories such as movie …