• Advertising Age, Wednesday, December 10, 2008 9:15 AM

Cablevision laid off 100 employees at Newsday last week and Tom Rutledge, Cablevision cCOO, has a new strategy to reinvent the paper's coverage and distribution model. The focus is to "abandon trying to be everything to everyone," he says. The new goal is to provide solid news coverage to local communities in a "professional way."

Rutledge notes the Cablevision-owned newspaper, cable, phone and Internet service currently serve 80% of Long Island residents, so there is potential for Newsday to do something across the entire Cablevision footprint. In particular, he suggests that the paper could combine print and cable TV to distribute local news to Cablevision customers. Such a move could create a new cost-per-thousand-viewer model to reach highly targeted consumers, he says.

Among Cablevision's holdings is Rainbow Media, parent of cable channels AMC and Sundance Channel. Rainbow saw a 13.6% increase in revenue in third-quarter 2008.

Read the whole story at Advertising Age »