Coffee and the papers. Yes, papers
By Anita Diamant
http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/05/12/opinion/eddiamant.php

Monday, May 12, 2008
For me, the morning begins with the newspapers, which arrive somewhere in the vicinity of my front door, every day of the week. This fact brands me as a bit of an anachronism, and certainly a demographic cliché: middle-aged, middle-class, blahblahblah.

According to a 2006 survey by the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press, only about 4 in 10 Americans get their news this way anymore, down by 18 percent since 1993, a trend that continues. I am not among the 57 percent who watch TV newscasts. And while I am glad to know that between 1993 and 2006 National Public Radio nearly doubled its audience from 9 to 17 percent, I will never quite forgive "All Things Considered" for what I swear was a 20-minute segment about Indian cooking that included a lingering sound-clip of garlic hissing in a frying pan.

I have friends who long ago canceled their hard-copy subscriptions and pick up the news from a laptop. My reluctance to join them has something to do with the fact that I already spend far too many hours staring at a screen. The computer is my work station, a place where I frequently pull at my hair and wish I could be somewhere else. The last thing I need is to start my day there, too.

I know that my morning newspaper is on its way into the museum, along with the model T and the whalebone corset, perhaps within my own lifetime. And while that prospect makes me a bit wistful, I am not convinced that the end of newsprint signals the death of literacy, reporting, language or civilization itself. The daily paper is, after all, only one of many news delivery systems. And some of the new systems are way cool.

Recently, I have taken to reading novels and works of nonfiction from the screen of an ebook - an electronic book - a paperback-sized, 10-ounce wonder that enables me to lightly lug a whole library in my carry-on luggage and to change the font size if I misplace my reading glasses. In the interest of full disclosure, you should know that I acquired this nifty little reading device as payola for taping an endorsement of the herein unnamed product. That said, I do love my new toy, which means I'm never stuck for reading material. Well, almost never.

I get all peevish when a title I want is not available in electronic form; what's the matter with that publisher, that writer? Are they quill-and-parchment Luddites? Get with the program already.

But when I settle into my airplane seat and fire up my ebook, I am one very chill Cheshire cat. The young man who sat beside me on recent flight admired it and asked if I worked in high tech. I glowed, feeling a good 20 years younger than I am, and precisely the sort of person who gets her news online, too.

And yet I cling to my paper. I'm biliterate, and proud. If I lost my ebook, I'd buy another. But cellulose is part of my morning ritual, a song-and-dance that starts when I open the front door to make sure it's been delivered. Will I need to put on shoes to retrieve it? Is an umbrella called for? Generally, I just sneak out in my robe and slippers, regardless of weather, studiously keeping my eyes on the ground, which makes me invisible to the kids walking past on their way to school.

Back at the kitchen table, I inhale the reviving aroma of coffee and open her up. First, I peruse the headlines and check in with the presidential campaign. But after that, it's pure chance what catches my attention. I flip through the sections: city, business, arts, sports. I wander and meander, finishing my grapefruit over a movie review. I pour a second cup and sigh about the situation in Israel, or Zimbabwe, or in a local public school. I glance at the ads and wonder who buys those "Sex for Life" books. I read all of the comics.

My husband wanders in and I say, "You've got to see this."

Anita Diamant's most recent novel is "The Last Days of Dogtown."

Cheapskate Journalism

Cheapskate Journalism
What went wrong at JRC
Posted by Alan Mutter
http://newsosaur.blogspot.com/

Teetering near default on a tower of debt and days from being booted off the Big Board, Journal Register Co. shows how strategic missteps and bad luck can imperil even as good a business as this highly profitable chain of community newspapers.

For all that's wrong with JRC - and there is a quite lot, to be sure - the company's 19.3% operating profit not only compares quite favorably with those of several of the largest Fortune 500 corporations but actually surpasses the margins of such giants as Chevron (18.5%), Wal-Mart (7.5%) and General Motors (3.5%).

The ability of JRC to continue generating rich profits at a time of unprecedented contraction in the newspaper business is the direct legacy of the rigorous expense management enforced by Robert Jelenic, the chief executive who ran the company for two decades until he resigned in November to undergo cancer treatment.

In addition to leaving JRC with some of the leanest-running newspapers in the land, Mr. Jelenic also left the company with the hefty $628.4 million in debt that now threatens to force it into bankruptcy. Most of the debt results from one bold, but less than successful, acquisition he undertook in 2004 in an effort to keep the company's sales, profits and stock price growing.

Not only did the transaction prove over time to be a serious miscalculation, but a steep drop in JRC's sales in the last two years has made it increasingly unlikely that the company can generate enough profits in the future to service its ponderous debt.

Between 2005 and 2007, JRC's sales tumbled 20.2% to $463.2 million, a drop nearly 2½ times greater than the over-all industry decline of 8.2% in the same period. (Some revenue was eliminated in JRC's sale of a few modest operating units, but the volume of the discontinued operations comes nowhere close to accounting for the disparity between the performance of the company and the industry as a whole.)

Caught between high debt and declining sales, the company today finds itself in a world of hurt:

JRC's share price has fallen by 99% from a high of $21.84 in 2004 to $0.265 Friday at the New York Stock Exchange. The Big Board plans to ban the shares from trading this week, because the value of the company is too low to meet the minimum listing standards.

:: The company's debt, which amounts to an untenable seven times its operating earnings for the last 12 months, is now rated at Caa1 by Moody's Investor Services, which means the rating agency believes the company has better than a 1 in 3 chance of default. Moody's is concerned that the company cannot generate enough cash to cover the debt repayments scheduled for 2009.

:The largest portion of the debt that threatens to force JRC into bankruptcy resulted from the acquisition for $415 million in 2004 of a group of community papers concentrated around economically distressed Detroit. To date, the company has been forced to write off $215 million, or nearly 52%, of the value of those assets.

:: An investment banker has been hired to explore the sale of some or all of the company's assets, but few parties are interested in acquiring newspapers these days, given the the unsettled outlook for the industry. Further, it is questionable whether a buyer, if one materializes, would pay much more than the 7x earnings necessary to extinguish the company's debt. This fear has caused investors to hammer the stock to the point it is all but worthless.

Ironically, JRC, which owns 22 daily newspapers and more than 300 non-daily publications in six geographic clusters, got its start as the reincarnation of a newspaper empire that was run off the rails in the 1980s by Ralph Ingersoll II, a buccaneering publisher who built his eponymous empire by overpaying for newspapers and financing them with junk bonds.

When Ingersoll Publications collapsed under its debt in 1990, its investors turned to Bob Jelenic, Mr. Ingersoll's protégé, to restart the company as Journal Register.

The strategy for JRC, which went public in 1997, was essentially the same as that of Ingersoll Publications: Build the company by aggregating neighboring newspapers into ever-larger clusters that would make it possible to sell advertising more efficiently while lowering the costs of producing the publications.

It's a terrific idea, so long as you don't overpay for acquisitions and have a plan to build sales while judiciously cutting costs. But the execution didn't prove to be much better at JRC than it was for Ingersoll Publications.

As JRC pursued its rollup strategy, Mr. Jelenic sought to boost his company's stock by aggressively reducing expenses to increase earnings as much as possible, thus earning the reputation as the most zealous cost cutter in the newspaper industry. "Nobody cinches the belt tighter than . . . Journal Register Co., where cost-cutting has become an art," reported Forbes Magazine in a 2001 article titled "Cheapskate Journalism."

Beyond shrinking staff, benefits and newshole, JRC was known for such practices as printing on ever-thinner newsprint and requiring executives to check the odometers of journalists before reimbursing them for driving to their assignments. A former JRC publisher told the American Journalism Review in 1999 that Mr. Jelenic sometimes demanded the instant firing of an employee, any employee, if his paper missed its weekly revenue target.

JRC produced some of the highest operating profits ever seen in the newspaper industry when its earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA) hit 29.1% in 2001. But it is hard to replicate annually such one-time savings as downsizing a newsroom or consolidating two printing plants into one. In the absence of significant sales growth from 2001 to 2003, JRC's profitability, though still ample, began faltering.

To boost the company's growth and potential for future profitability, Mr. Jelenic in 2004 bought 21st Century Newspapers in what it called "affluent markets" in Michigan for $415 million, paying a generous 11.5x EBITDA. But the domestic auto industry was facing a decline that, if anything, has accelerated since then.

The Michigan acquisition not only failed to produce the hoped-for sales and profits, but also saddled JRC with substantial debt at the same time revenues began falling at its properties and most other newspapers in the United States.

Now, JRC is caught in a squeeze it may not be able to survive. Unlike newspapers owned by other publishers that are trying to tough out the tough times by paring expenses, most JRC newspapers have little left to cut - and limited resources to build sales with new print and online products.

Despite its straitened circumstances, JRC in 2007 did manage to pay Mr. Jelenic more than $6.3 million in salary, severance and other compensation, which represented a fourfold increase over the nearly $1.5 million he received the prior year.

As part of his severance arrangement, Mr. Jelenic got an extra 192,000 shares of JRC to add to the nearly 2.3 million shares he already owns. Unfortunately, his stock, like mine, isn't likely to be worth anything near what it used to be.

Death of Print? Not at News Corp in Britain

Death of Print? Not at News Corp in Britain
News International unveils 'biggest printing plant in the world'
By Patrick Smith
Journalists at News International's four national newspapers will face wide-ranging changes when the company moves all printing from its Wapping headquarters in April.

At a tour of the company's new £187 million Broxbourne plant in north London today, the company's senior management said that the latest in automated printing technology would give journalists later deadlines and editors greater freedom in redesigning pages.

News International claim the plant, just off the M25 near Enfield, is the biggest printing centre in the world. It is part of a £650m initiative including plants in Knowsley, near Liverpool, and Motherwell, near Glasgow.

The "triple-width" printing presses can produce tabloid and broadsheet newsprint simultaneously, meaning that many traditional editorial and printing deadlines could be scrapped.

Clive Milner, News International's group managing director, told Press Gazette: "It affects the process of journalism in a number of ways. It allows the editors to refresh and redesign the product and that's good news for readers.

"Our current products are in some cases constrained by the production, this is changed by Broxbourne."

The Sunday Times, which currently begins printing on Wednesdays, could now be printed entirely on Saturday, he said, putting sections like business into a "live" slot.

The Broxbourne plant is the size of 23 football pitches, it has 12 full-colour printing presses capable of printing 86,000 copies per hour - the equivalent of 330,000 tonnes of newsprint a year. Wapping managed 36,000 copies per hour.

Automated, pre-programmed computer technology - including laser-guided trucks and conveyor belts carrying rolls of paper around the vast factory floor - mean that printing staff are to be cut by two thirds making the company an estimated annual saving of £13m.

James Murdoch, the chairman and chief executive of News Corp's Europe and Asia division, said the investment "should be ample answer to those who believe the business of journalism, in print, is a business for yesterday's readers, not tomorrow's."

He continued: "At News, we believe that print will continue to be a driving force, even as we expand in this connected age."

The Sun is already being printed at Broxbourne. The Daily and Sunday Telegraph will begin printing from Broxbourne late this year.

NI is currently looking for a new home for its editorial staff. A sale document for Wapping has been issued to potential buyers but no potential site has been mentioned by the company so far.

Agents baulk at paper weights

Agents baulk at paper weights Font Size:
By Sally Jackson

THE weightiness of the The West Australian -- in grams, that is, not gravitas -- is one of a long list of issues the Australian Newsagents' Federation wants to discuss with publisher West Australian Newspapers.

ANF chief executive Rayma Creswell said some editions of the paper were so heavy that home-delivering them had become an occupational health and safety hazard.

"Newsagents are not meant to be throwing papers that weigh more than 600g and they're throwing papers weighing 1.2kg," Ms Creswell said. "If we're throwing a very large paper after the population is out of bed, all of us are at risk."

One option may be to split big papers into more sections, she said. "We're not saying create a paper that is specifically designed for us, but we are saying it is an issue."

Last week ANF was given the green light by the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission to collectively bargain on behalf of about 380 newsagents in WA, despite objections from WAN, the Australasian Association of Convenience Stores and the Queensland Newsagents Federation.

The notification is in addition to one put in place in 2004 and lasts for three years. It does not compel WAN to enter into a collective negotiation and chief executive Ken Steinke said the company would not do so.

"We don't have any problem with the ANF contributing ideas, but we're not seeing them as a collective bargaining agent," Mr Steinke said.

"We have individual contracts with individual distributors ... We start from a different premise (than the ANF): what is in the best interests of our customers. We wouldn't do anything that would see costs increase to our customers or our services decrease."

ACCC chairman Graeme Samuel said allowing the newsagents to collectively bargain did not reduce WAN's ability to negotiate individual agreements. "There are a number of features of the arrangement which limit the potential for anti-competitive impact, including the respective bargaining positions of Western Australian newsagents and WAN," Mr Samuel said.

"Additionally, the arrangement is voluntary and does not involve potential boycotts."

The ANF said it "reserves its right to use the collective boycott provision in a further notification should the current collective negotiations fail".

"Collective boycott would be a last resort and it isn't what we seek at all. But if people are walking away from their businesses they have nothing to lose," Ms Creswell said. "This would be an opportune moment to sit down (with WAN) in a positive way, as we currently do with Fairfax and News Limited (publisher of The Australian)."

Ms Creswell said other issues the ANF wanted to discuss included delivery fees, co-ordinating promotional activities and the timeliness of deliveries to newsagents.

Mr Steinke said he would be concerned by any suggestion of a collective boycott. "It would have huge implications for our customers," he said.

Newspapers World's Second Largest Ad Medium

Newspapers World's Second Largest Ad Medium

According to the World Association of Newspapers Newspaper recent release, global newspaper sales were up 2.3 percent in 2006, and had increased 9.48 percent over the past five years. Newspaper sales increased year-on-year in Asia, Europe, Africa, South America, with North America the sole continent to register a decline.
When free dailies are added to the paid newspaper circulation, global circulation increased 4.61 percent last year, and 14.76 percent over the past five years. Free dailies now account for nearly 8 percent of all global newspaper circulation and 31.94 percent in Europe alone. Advertising revenues in paid dailies were up 3.77 percent last year from a year earlier, and up 15.77 percent over five years, WAN said.

Timothy Balding, Chief Executive Officer of the Paris-based WAN, said "Newspapers in developing markets continue to increase circulation... and in mature markets are showing remarkable resilience against... digital media... (while) newspapers are exploiting...the digital distribution channels to increase their audiences... It is remarkable that the press in print continues to be the media of preference for the majority of readers who want to remain informed."

Newspapers share of the world ad market held relatively steady with 29.6 percent, marginally down from 29.8 percent in 2005. Newspapers remain the world's second largest advertising medium, after television, with more revenue that radio, cinema, outdoor, magazines and the internet combined. When newspapers and magazines are combined, print is the world's largest advertising medium, with a 42 percent share, compared to 38 percent for television.

In addition, the 2007 World Press Trends report reveals:

Paid circulation, with free dailies added, daily circulation increased to nearly 556 million, a4.61 percent increase from the total of paid and free dailies in 2005.
The total number of paid-for daily titles was up 3.46 percent in the world in 2006 and up 17.67 percent since 2002 to a record 11,207 titles.
Newspaper advertising revenue increased 3.77 percent in 2006 from a year earlier, and was up 15.77 percent over five years.
Paid daily newspaper circulations were up in 31 percent of the countries surveyed in 2006, stable in half the countries and down in 19 percent.
The circulation of US dailies fell 1.9 percent in 2006 and 5.18 percent over five years. Most of the decline came in evening dailies, which saw a year-on-year circulation decline of 4.62 percent, compared with only 1.48 percent for morning dailies. Over the past five years, evening dailies declined 19.62 percent, compared with a 2.52 percent drop for morning newspapers.
Circulation sales were up 3.61 percent in Asia in 2006 over the previous year, up 4.55 percent in South America, up 0.74 percent in Europe, up +0.65 percent in Africa, up 2.11 percent in Australia and Oceania.
Seven of 10 of the world's 100 best selling dailies are now published in Asia. China, Japan and India account for 60 of them.
The five largest markets for newspapers are: China, with 98.7 million copies sold daily; India, with 88.9 million copies daily; Japan, with 69.1 million copies daily; the United States, with 52.3 million; and Germany, 21.1 million.
Newspapers in 10 European Union countries increased their total circulation in 2006. They were: Austria, Estonia, Ireland, Italy, Lithuania, Malta, Poland, Portugal, Romania, and Slovakia.
The number of paid-for newspaper titles in the EU climbed 0.41 percent in 2006, to 1,482, and was up 3.2 percent over five years. When paid and free titles are combined, the number of titles rose 2.57 percent over one year and 8.44 percent over five years.
Global newspaper advertising revenues have increased for four straight years and were up 3.77 percent in 2006.

Survey: Newsprint is people's preference

Survey: Newsprint is people's preference
A poll commissioned by an industry group shows newspapers still reign.
By DIANA MIDDLETON, The Times-Union


Newspapers are still the reigning source of news, advertising and information, according to a recently released survey conducted by American Opinion Research. Eight in 10 adults read a newspaper per week, and Florida readers are 6 percent more likely to pick up a newspaper on the weekdays and 7 percent more likely to read a Sunday newspaper than the national average, the survey said.

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The survey was commissioned in December by the Florida Press Association, a nonprofit organization for newspapers and journalism-related businesses. It was conducted by American Opinion Research, which is headed by a former pollster from USA Today, which could raise some questions about the ethical foundation of such a survey.

In the 51-page report, findings included:


About 82 percent of Florida adults read a printed newspaper during an average seven-day week.

Print newspapers are the most-used venue for public notices. Two thirds of those surveyed said they would read less public notices if they were moved online.

About 66 percent of adults use the newspaper as their main source of local sales and shopping information.
The study paints a rosy picture of an industry that's recently experienced some turmoil. Circulation has been dropping for newspapers nationwide for years. Statewide, The Orlando Sentinel recently slashed 24 newsroom positions, and The Florida Times-Union implemented a hiring and salary raise freeze in February, citing declining advertising revenue.

But newspapers' monetary woes are a separate issue from the survey's results, said Dean Ridings, president and CEO of the Florida Press Association.

"The real estate downturn has affected a lot of different media but certainly newspapers," he said. "In addition to the Realtors not selling [homes] and not advertising, the title companies, the home big-box stores are slowing advertising - it's all related to real estate as well. Those have had a huge impact on the revenue of newspapers."

The survey also noted that printed newspapers are losing traction to the Internet when it comes to job, automotive, real estate and major appliance advertisement services for readers.

"Newspapers have lost ground," Ridings said. "But we still have the advantage when it comes to credibility."

The survey findings seem to be sound and comparable to those of national studies, said Rick Edmonds, a media business analyst for the Poynter Institute, a nonprofit institute that studies journalism and ethics issues.

"A contributing factor to the statement about Florida readers reading more and in higher numbers than average could be the higher-than-average age of our population," Edmonds said. "It's factual and a good point, but there's a lot of shifting as the years go by with readers who used to be seven days a week readers and now they read two days a week. When you add all that up, that's a contributing factor to the loss of circulation."

And what about the potential ethical quagmire posed by the survey being commissioned by an institution that stands to gain from positive results?

"It is the kind of survey that points to some of the positives, and there's nothing particularly wrong with that," Edmonds said. "The Florida Press Association is a source of information and research but they're also in the business to promote the industry and that's OK, too."

Florida Press Association's Ridings insists that credibility was critical in disseminating the information, and he was shocked by such positive results.

"We get so lost with the problems that we're having that we tend to lose sight of the overwhelming evidence that newspapers are still a source of information," he said. "For us as an association, credibility is more important than hype. Our members are very skeptical."

It all came down to hard boiled-facts, according to Anthony Casale, CEO of American Opinion Research and former USA Today pollster. "We get paid whether the numbers are good or bad."

Newspaper Industry Proclaimed "Vibrant, Growing"

Newspaper Industry Proclaimed "Vibrant, Growing"
http://www.centerformediaresearch.com/cfmr_brief.cfm?fnl=070517

According to recent provisional data from the World Association of Newspapers Paid-for newspaper circulation went up 1.9 percent year-on-year to more than 510 million paid-for copies in 2006, and the number of new paid-for titles grew to more than 11,000 for the first time in history.

Gavin O'Reilly, President of WAN and Chief Operating Officer of Independent News & Media Ltd., said "The prognosis for newspapers is actually quite different to conventional wisdom... Those of us in the newspaper business are very confident in the future... producing relevant and compelling products for our local markets, aggregating growing audiences and showcasing them to advertisers."

Based on preliminary figures from more than 200 countries and territories, to be published next month:

Paid-for circulations grew 1.9 percent over 12 months and 8.7 percent over five years. With free newspapers, global circulation grew 4.3 percent year-on-year.
Free daily newspaper circulation more than doubled over five years, to 40.8 million copies a day

More than 1.4 billion people now read a newspaper daily
Paid-for daily titles surpassed 11,000
Print is the biggest advertising medium in the world, says the report, with a 42 percent share. Newspapers alone are the second largest, with 29.4 percent of global advertising spend.
Advertising revenues rose 4 percent in 12 months and 15.6 percent over the past five years

More than 6 billion US dollars have been invested in newspaper printing and production equipment in the last 18 months
O'Reilly noted that "Hidden in those figures is the fact that newspapers... actually represent more than the combined advertising value of radio, cinema, magazines and the internet."

Murdoch, like Hearst, yearns to tell the world how to think

Citizen Murdoch reaches out
Mogul wants to be man on the Street
http://www.variety.com/article/VR1117964733.html?categoryId=1&cs=1

Rupert Murdoch, a man who has a penchant for buying, is out there doing some selling. Specifically, he's selling the Bancroft family on the idea that he's not William Randolph Hearst.
The Bancrofts are the New England Brahmins who control Dow Jones & Co., and the Wall Street Journal, a media empire that Murdoch covets. He covets it to the tune of a lofty $5 billion bid.

Murdoch has always salivated for the Journal because it's rich, conservative and could be an elegant companion piece to his long-planned Fox Business Channel. But the Bancrofts, who control 64% of the company's voting shares, are resisting Murdoch's entreaties.

They don't explain why (Brahmins never do), but clearly they feel a certain responsibility -- noblesse oblige -- for the health and autonomy of their paper. At the same time, they distrust Murdoch, the media baron, as being, well Hearstian.

Which to some extent is understandable. Murdoch, as he gets older (he's just turned 76), increasingly displays some fascinating ambiguities. Unlike Hearst, his business acumen continues to sharpen with age. But like Hearst, he yearns to tell citizens of the world how to think and what to believe, and like Hearst, his views grow ever more polarizing. Witness his zealous support for a president with a 28% approval rating, according to the recent Newsweek poll.

There are other Hearstian reminders as well. Murdoch, like Hearst, feels drawn to Hollywood. Though he's never built a castle, Murdoch, like Hearst, entertains grandly at his various mansions (and yachts). Like Hearst, Murdoch also loves newspapers, not only for their economic heft but also for their ideological clout.

Hearst didn't hesitate advocating war when it served his purposes, and in his later years seemed drawn more to Hitler than to Roosevelt. He worshipped power for the sake of power.

Murdoch represents himself as a libertarian but is fiercely pro-Bush, pro-Iraq War and pro everything Republican. While many of his newspapers stay above the fray, the Murdochian world view is vividly on display at the New York Post and Fox News. At the recent Milken Conference in Los Angeles, Murdoch vented his opinions before an enclave of business CEOs, as though reminding fellow power players that he understands not only how to build a media empire but also how to run the world.

Given all this, Murdoch's appetite could stir problems on the political front. A cross-ownership waiver obtained by Murdoch will expire next year -- News Corp. needs the waiver because it owns two TV stations in New York as well as the Post. Democrats in Congress could also try to bar Murdoch's acquisition by redefining the Wall Street Journal as a local rather than national newspaper, thus making him more vulnerable to cross-ownership constraints.

To be sure, Murdoch has gone out of his way to stress that he will not impose ideology on the Wall Street Journal, a dubious commitment since the newspaper's editorial pages already proclaim that the Bush Era is golden. The news pages of the Journal, on the other hand, have remained remarkably "pure" -- that is, free of ideological taint. Some of its reporters, nonetheless, are nervous about whether things would stay that way.

Peter Kann, the paper's long-term executive editor and later chairman, dispatched a letter last week praising the Bancroft family for upholding the Journal's independence, while James H. Ottaway, Jr., a former Dow Jones executive and major shareholder, saw fit to remind his confreres that Murdoch's control would imperil the Journal's "news quality and integrity."

As a corporate leader, to be sure, Murdoch has some important achievements to "sell." Just about the entire business community applauds his dealmaking prowess -- witness MySpace. His senior management team at Fox also is vastly admired. Peter Chernin provides brilliant leadership and Tom Rothman and Jim Gianopulos have run the studio with a consistency that's the envy of the rest of Hollywood. Roger Ailes, too, has brought a pizzazz to network news that's left CNN in the dust. Only the Fox Network has failed to build a durable management.

As a result of all this, the media community seems a bit dazzled by the Rupe offensive. The Economist, while criticizing Murdoch for taking the Times of London "downmarket," nonetheless has instructed the Bancrofts to accept his offer. The Economist's parent, Pearson, might regret this recommendation -- Murdoch could emerge as a more important competitor of the Financial Times, which also is part of Pearson.

Writing in the New York Times, Andrew Ross Sorkin also recommends that the Bancrofts give the nod to Murdoch. Having been granted an exclusive and persuasive interview last week, Sorkin concluded the media baron would be "the perfect publisher for the Wall Street Journal."

Sorkin also notes that Murdoch's longtime banker, Goldman Sachs, suddenly is representing Dow Jones, with which it has never had a relationship. John Thornton, a former Goldman president, also is a member of Rupert's board of directors.

In his declining years, William Randolph Hearst found the world to be increasingly disinterested in his power and distrustful of his world view. One senses that, whatever the surface similarities, Rupert Murdoch has no intention of replicating that scenario.

The big question: Will Rupert be defeated by his own appetites? And, more specifically, does the world want to be told what to think by a media mogul whose ideas, like Hearst's, grow ever more doctrinaire?

Global newspaper circulation up

Global newspaper circulation up
11 May, 2007 l 0444 hrs ISTlTIMES NEWS NETWORK
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Business/Intl_Business/Global_newspaper_circulation_up/articleshow/2030538.cms

SMS NEWS to 8888 for latest updates

LONDON: Internet and TV channels may be getting an increasing number of eyeballs, but newspapers are holding out to the competition as their circulation rose last year across the world on booming demand in India and China, World Association of Newspapers (WAN) said.

The paid-for newspaper circulation rose by 1.9% over the 12 months and by 8.7% over five years to more than 510 million copies in 2006. Similarly, the number of new paid-for titles crossed 11,000 mark for the first time in the history, WAN said, quoting preliminary data from its World Press Trends survey.

"Circulations continue to grow globally and not just in China and India,” it said, while asserting that these facts and figures have belied various myths about the newspapers, liek “circulations are falling” and “newspaper as a medium and a business is on decline".

India and China played a major role in the rising circulations. Excluding Asia (including India and China), the global paid-for circulation was up just 0.04%.

Across the various sub-continents, Asia recorded a 2.99% growth, second-biggest after South America’s 4.59%. However, North America recorded a decline of 1.97% in the paid-for circulations in 2006. Asia recorded the biggest rise of 6.13% in the number of paid-for titles, as against 3.22% globally and declines in North and South Americas.
Free daily newspaper circulation more than doubled over the five years to 40.8 million copies a day.

Including free newspapers, the circulation rose by a higher rate of 4.3% in one year and by 14.2% over five years. The number of paid-for newspapers and the combined total of free and paid-for titles rose to 510.4 million and 551.2 million in 2006.

Macy's to Publishers: Engage Audiences

Macy's to Newspapers: Engage Audiences
Tuesday May 8, 1:31 pm ET
By Seth Sutel, AP Business Writer
Macy's Chief Marketing Officer Delivers Tough Love Speech to Newspapers

NEW YORK (AP) -- The chief marketing officer of Macy's department stores delivered tough talk to the newspaper industry Tuesday, telling a publishing conference why her company is moving ad dollars to other media such as TV, magazines and the Internet.
Anne MacDonald, a self-proclaimed newspaper "junkie" who keeps stacks of them around her home and reads several each day, told publishers they need to do more to win back business from Macy's, which is part of Federated Department Stores Inc.

With Macy's now a national brand following Federated's acquisition of May Department Stores, the chain is turning increasingly to media with a national reach such as fashion magazines, television and Web sites, she said.

Newspapers are still effective at delivering local messages, she said, but need to do more to engage Macy's shoppers -- primarily women aged 18-54.

"In order for your newspapers to be winning our advertising dollars, you need to be winning in the marketplace, and that's not currently the case," MacDonald said in a keynote talk at the conference held by the Newspaper Association of America.

Analysts and investors have long been concerned about the decline in ad spending by department stores, and in particular Macy's, as they become national brands and less likely to use local media such as newspapers. Also, newspapers have been struggling with declining circulation and ad dollars as more people get their news online.

Among MacDonald's several suggestions for change was for newspapers to collaborate more effectively across regions and with each other in selling advertising, which would allow national companies such as Macy's to reach a broader audience.

As it is, individual ad buyers for Macy's stores deal with individual newspapers on advertising plans. "That's not productive for either of us," MacDonald said.

She pointed to her own industry, department stores, which had to undergo significant changes over the past several years to adapt to competition from online stores, television shopping channels, big box retailers and discounting clubs.

Macy's, she said, is seeking to establish itself as a more upscale, fashionable brand and drive foot traffic even when there aren't promotions, and is still trying to understand how customers are changing the ways they shop. "Like us, you must change the way you think," she said.

MacDonald pointed to the example of her two favorite sections of her hometown newspaper, The New York Times. Every week she pulls out the science and dining sections and reads them first.

If the Times were to somehow deliver those sections to her wrapped on the outside, she would be impressed that the publisher had learned something about her reading habits, she said.

She also issued a plea to publishers to collaborate with advertisers on research to better understand the rapidly evolving habits of their customers. The idea was immediately embraced by Jack Sweeney, publisher of the Houston Chronicle, who asked MacDonald how to find out what questions they needed answered.

Mark Contreras, senior vice president for newspapers at E.W. Scripps Co., called MacDonald's remarks a "very thoughtful call to action for newspapers to pay very close attention to. ... We have the wherewithal to meet many of their needs."

NAA, ABC Report Newspaper Circ Slide

NAA, ABC Report Newspaper Circ Slide
Wednesday, May 02, 2007
By Chandra Johnson-Greene


According to the Newspaper Association of America’s Fas-Fax analysis of circ data for the six-month period ending March 31, the average daily circ for the 745 newspapers reporting for comparable periods was 44.9 million, a decrease of 2.1 percent over the same period a year ago.

On Sunday, the average circ for the 601 newspapers reporting was 48.1 million, a decrease of 3.1 percent over the same period a year ago.

The New York Times lost daily circ and is down 1.9 percent to 1.1 million, while its Sunday edition fell 3.3 percent to 1.6 million. Both USA Today and The Wall Street Journal, on the other hand, both reported small increases, with +0.2 percent (2.2 million) for the former and +0.6 percent (2 million) for the latter.

“The latest ABC circulation figures are in range with what we expected,” stated NAA president/CEO John F. Sturm.

Sturm says the losses are due to publishers moving away from “short-term circulation sales programs toward longer-term marketing initiatives that deliver the most value and make economic sense.”

Sturn’s statement is confirmed by the NAA’s 2007 “Circulation Facts, Figures & Logic” study of newspaper and circ marketing practices, which was released in conjunction with the Fas-Fax analysis.

The study found that newspapers are retaining subscribers in greater numbers, with subscriber churn down to 36.5 percent in 2006, compared with 42.1 percent in 2004 and 54.5 in 2000.

The only newspapers that seem to be immune to the current circ trends are the New York tabloids.

Weekday circ for the New York Post rose 7.6 percent for the six months ending March 31 while the Daily News saw a 1.4 percent gain, according to ABC.

The Post’s Sunday paper rose 6.2 percent to 439,202 while the News still leads Sunday circ despite a 2.8 percent decline.

From Bad To Worse: Newspapers' Circ Declines

From Bad To Worse: Newspapers' Circ Declines
by Erik Sass, Tuesday, May 1, 2007 8:00 AM ET
http://publications.mediapost.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=Articles.san&s=59553&Nid=29924&p=204904

AMERICA'S FLAGSHIP NEWSPAPERS ARE STILL afloat, but their crews may want to don swimsuits soon. The Audit Bureau of Circulations posted numbers Monday showing that in the six months ending March 2007, total daily circulation fell 2.1% to 44,961,066. Sunday circ fell 3.1% to 48,102,437, compared to the same period last year.


The ABC FAS-FAX numbers follow a litany of bad industry news over the last few weeks, including weak first-quarter earnings from leading newspaper companies, and a decline in the housing market, with ominous implications for newspaper classifieds.

This marks the 17th straight year of decline for both weekday and Sunday circs; this is an industry in distress. Indeed, the latest ABC FAS-FAX numbers look almost identical to previous figures, released biannually in what has become a grim drumbeat of contraction. In the September 2006 report, daily circ fell 2.8% as Sunday circ dropped 3.4%; in March 2006 they fell 2.5% and 3.1%, respectively; September 2005, 2.6% and 3.1%; and March 2005, 1.9% and 2.5%.

As in previous years, big metro dailies took some of the biggest hits, with The New York Times down 1.9%, the Los Angeles Times down 4.2% to 815,723, The Washington Post down 3.5% to 699,130, Chicago Tribune down 2.1% to 566,827, Houston Chronicle down 2% to 504,114, Dallas Morning News down 14.3% to 411,919, the San Francisco Chronicle down 2.9%, Long Island's Newsday down 6.9% to 398,231, and The Boston Globe down 3.7% to 382,503.

These figures actually contain (relatively) good news for some of the big titles, as their percentage rate of decline appears to be slowing. In the September 2006 ABC report, the New York Times' daily circ was down 3.5%, Los Angeles Times 8%, San Francisco Chronicle 5.3% and The Boston Globe 6.7%. On the other hand, losses accelerated slightly at the Chicago Tribune and The Washington Post, increasing by about half a percentage point.

In this gloomy environment, publications that hold their own are success stories: USA Today's circ is up 0.5% and The Wall Street Journal grew 0.6%. The biggest standouts were New York City's two daily tabloids, as the New York Daily News grew 1.4% to 718,174, and the New York Post jumped a remarkable 7.6% to 724,748.

In recent weeks, the nation's biggest newspaper companies have posted weak first-quarter results, citing revenue declines due to Internet competition. In the first quarter of 2007, the New York Times Company saw print ad revenue decline 3.4%, compared to the same period last year, as total profit fell 9.9% to $54.5 million. At the Tribune Company, overall operating revenues slipped 4% to $1.2 billion and operating profit was down 16% to $181 million. Gannett saw total revenues decline slightly from $1.88 billion in 2006 to $1.87 billion in 2007, as net income fell from $235.3 million in first quarter 2006 to $210.6 million in 2007, a roughly 10.5% drop.