The 20 Best Magazine Publishing Companies to Work For

The 20 Best Magazine Publishing Companies to Work For
http://www.pubexec.com/

1. McMurry Inc.
2. Wells Publishing Inc.
3. Rodale Inc.
4. Corry Publishing Inc.
5. Meredith Corp.
6. Consumers Union
7. BowTie Inc.
8. Bauer Publishing U.S.
9. Reed Business Information
10. International Data Group (IDG)
11. Scholastic Inc.
12. The Taunton Press
13. Ascend Media
14. Meister Media Worldwide
15. Time Inc./Time Warner
16. F+W Publications Inc.
17. Bonnier Corp.
18. Crain Communications Inc.
19. Advanstar Communications Inc.
20. SourceMedia Inc.

A Closer Look at the Top Companies
http://www.pubexec.com/story/story.bsp?sid=82005&var=story
Most of us have worked for a company that, as one respondent to Publishing Executive's "Best Magazine Publishing Companies to Work For" study put it, "is a god-awful place to work." If you haven't, you can count yourself among the lucky few. Sometimes the cause is simple: Some companies just don't know how to treat employees. But especially today, when "do more with less" is the edict of virtually all publishing departments, burnout and feelings of under-appreciation are rampant. In companies that don't make their employees' happiness a priority, these feelings can spread like a plague. The companies that ranked in the top 20 of Publishing Executive's "Best Magazine Publishing Companies to Work For," however, have rated highly among their employees for overall job satisfaction and can help unhappy job-seekers see where the grass might be greener. The company profiles can also help other companies' management see what employees consider a positive work environment and help them make improvements at their own companies.

Each company that was nominated by its employees was rated based on a number of different factors, such as pride in company performance and reputation; fairness and openness of company management; workload; and respect for employees' personal lives, among others. The profiles below show how each company ranked for certain factors. For example, some companies ranked highest in "respect for employee personal life," but may have ranked lower for "satisfying benefits package."

So, depending on what your priorities are, you might find a company more appealing if it has a lower "benefits" ranking, but a higher ranking for personal-professional-life balance. Or, maybe you want a company with a great benefits package and lots of growth opportunity. The profiles below can help you evaluate each company's performance rating in each area, as well as to see some specific reasons why employees' felt their companies were great companies to work for.

1 McMurry Inc.
Phoenix; Saratoga Springs, N.Y.
www.McMurry.com
A full-service marketing communications company that serves clients such as Amtrak, The Ritz-Carlton Hotel Co., Blue Cross of Idaho, Horizon Blue Cross Blue Shield of New Jersey, MADD and GlaxoSmithKline, among others. Its custom media titles, with 60 million copies produced annually for more than 235 corporate customers, reach across the country and nearly every continent.

➜Overall Rating Score: 95.2

Company size: Medium

Satisfying, High-Performance Company (Overall): 9.7 (out of 10)
Overall Job Satisfaction: 9.5
Company Reputation, Performance & Pride: 9.9
Supportive Employees & Team Spirit: 9.7

Fair & Open Work Environment (Overall): 9.6
Fair, Open Management Style: 9.4
Equal Opportunity to Succeed: 9.6
Personal Initiative, Shared Goals: 9.8

Personal Benefits (Overall): 9.2
Realistic Workload/Supportive Company: 9.1
Respect for Employee Personal Life: 9.3
Satisfying Benefits Package: 9.0

Among Reasons It Was Nominated:
• great teamwork, camaraderie
• strong value-driven system that employees believe in
• management trusts and shares openly with employees
• excellent benefits, hard work is rewarded

2 Wells Publishing Inc.
San Diego (corporate office); Kyle, Texas (national editorial office)
www.WellsPublishing.com
Wells Publishing Inc. is the parent company of Insurance Journal and "Claims Guides" for the insurance industry. Founded in 1923, Insurance Journal (along with InsuranceJournal.com) is the nation's leading source for news and information on property and casualty insurance, according to the company. It has five regional publications offering news coverage nationwide. ClaimsJournal.com is an online property and casualty claims news and data resource center built by the creators of InsuranceJournal.com.

➜Overall Rating Score: 93.3

Company size: Small

Satisfying, High-Performance Company (Overall): 9.7
Overall Job Satisfaction: 9.6
Company Reputation, Performance & Pride: 9.9
Supportive Employees & Team Spirit: 9.6

Fair & Open Work Environment (Overall): 9.3
Fair, Open Management Style: 9.3
Equal Opportunity to Succeed: 9.2
Personal Initiative, Shared Goals: 9.4

Personal Benefits (Overall): 8.8
Realistic Workload/Supportive Company: 7.7
Respect for Employee Personal Life: 9.7
Satisfying Benefits Package: 9.2

Among Reasons It Was Nominated:
• employees are given autonomy to be creative
• flexible environment
• family environment where people are recognized

3 Rodale Inc.
Emmaus, Pa. (headquarters); New York
www.Rodale.com
Rodale publishes content in health, fitness and wellness, reaching more than 70 million people around the world through its media properties, trade books, online subscription properties and integrated marketing solutions. Rodale publishes some of the best-known health and wellness lifestyle magazines, including Men's Health, Prevention, Women's Health, Runner's World, Best Life, Bicycling, Running Times, Organic Gardening and Mountain Bike. It also publishes books on health, fitness, cooking, gardening, spirituality, nature, the environment and more.

➜Overall Rating Score: 93.2

Company size: Large

Satisfying, High-Performance Company (Overall): 9.8
Overall Job Satisfaction: 9.5
Company Reputation, Performance & Pride: 10.0
Supportive Employees & Team Spirit: 9.8

Fair & Open Work Environment (Overall): 9.1
Fair, Open Management Style: 8.6
Equal Opportunity to Succeed: 9.8
Personal Initiative, Shared Goals: 8.8

Personal Benefits (Overall): 9.4
Realistic Workload/Supportive Company: 8.7
Respect for Employee Personal Life: 9.7
Satisfying Benefits Package: 9.8

Among Reasons It Was Nominated:
• great mission, pride in company products
• free gym, flexible work schedule
• good benefits
• family environment where people help each other grow personally and professionally

4 Corry Publishing Inc.
Erie, Pa.
www.CorryPub.com
Launched in May 1980 with three employees, Corry Publishing today has 70+ employees and publishes three national trade magazines for the IT industry: Business Solutions, Integrated Solutions and Integrated Solutions for Retailers. In 2006, the company's gross annual revenue exceeded $12 million.

➜Overall Rating Score: 89.3

Company size: Medium

Satisfying, High-Performance Company (Overall): 9.5
Overall Job Satisfaction: 9.2
Company Reputation, Performance & Pride: 9.5
Supportive Employees & Team Spirit: 9.8

Fair & Open Work Environment (Overall): 9.0
Fair, Open Management Style: 8.4
Equal Opportunity to Succeed: 9.6
Personal Initiative, Shared Goals: 8.9

Personal Benefits (Overall): 8.9
Realistic Workload/Supportive Company: 7.6
Respect for Employee Personal Life: 8.3
Satisfying Benefits Package: 9.3

Among Reasons It Was Nominated:
• talented, hardworking staff
• teamwork environment
• pride in quality of company's products

5 Meredith Corp.
Des Moines, Iowa (headquarters); New York; Chicago; Los Angeles; San Francisco
www.Meredith.com
A media and marketing company with businesses centering on magazine and book publishing, television broadcasting, integrated marketing and interactive media. Meredith publishes magazines such as Better Homes and Gardens, Family Circle and Ladies' Home Journal, and approximately 200 special-interest publications. It has approximately 400 books in print and established marketing relationships with some of America's leading companies, including The Home Depot, DIRECTV and Wal-Mart.

➜Overall Rating Score: 88.9

Company size: Large

Satisfying, High-Performance Company (Overall): 9.5
Overall Job Satisfaction: 8.7
Company Reputation, Performance & Pride: 10.0
Supportive Employees & Team Spirit: 9.8

Fair & Open Work Environment (Overall): 8.2
Fair, Open Management Style: 8.3
Equal Opportunity to Succeed: 7.6
Personal Initiative, Shared Goals: 8.9

Personal Benefits (Overall): 9.1
Realistic Workload/Supportive Company: 8.3
Respect for Employee Personal Life: 9.7
Satisfying Benefits Package: 9.1

Among Reasons It Was Nominated:
• employees are valued
• opportunities for advancement
• supportive environment

6 Consumers Union
Yonkers, N.Y.
www.ConsumersUnion.org
An expert, independent, nonprofit organization whose mission is to work for a fair, just and safe marketplace for all consumers. Consumers Union publishes Consumer Reports and ConsumerReports.org in addition to two newsletters, with combined subscriptions of more than 7 million. It also publishes a number of trade books and consumer guides. The organization generates more than $160 million in revenue.

➜Overall Rating Score: 88.3

Company size: Large

Satisfying, High-Performance Company (Overall): 9.3
Overall Job Satisfaction: 9.3
Company Reputation, Performance & Pride: 9.3
Supportive Employees & Team Spirit: 9.1

Fair & Open Work Environment (Overall): 8.3
Fair, Open Management Style: 8.3
Equal Opportunity to Succeed: 8.0
Personal Initiative, Shared Goals: 8.7

Personal Benefits (Overall): 8.9
Realistic Workload/Supportive Company: 8.3
Respect for Employee Personal Life: 9.0
Satisfying Benefits Package: 9.3

Among Reasons It Was Nominated:
• pride in the company's success, mission and integrity
• 13 paid holidays
• employees can buy test products at significant discounts
• free employee fitness center

7 BowTie Inc.
New York; Chicago; Los Angeles; Irvine, Calif.; Honolulu; Lexington, Ky.
www.BowTieInc.com
BowTie Inc. is the largest publisher of pet magazines such as Cat Fancy and Dog Fancy, as well as the AnimalNetwork.com Web site. Its BowTie Press division publishes Kennel Club Books and animal care books, among many others.

➜Overall Rating Score: 87.7

Company size: Medium/large

Satisfying, High-Performance Company (Overall): 8.9
Overall Job Satisfaction: 9.3
Company Reputation, Performance & Pride: 8.8
Supportive Employees & Team Spirit: 8.7

Fair & Open Work Environment (Overall): 8.7
Fair, Open Management Style: 8.1
Equal Opportunity to Succeed: 9.8
Personal Initiative, Shared Goals: 8.1

Personal Benefits (Overall): 8.5
Realistic Workload/Supportive Company: 8.4
Respect for Employee Personal Life: 9.3
Satisfying Benefits Package: 8.4

Among Reasons It Was Nominated:
• company strives for employees' professional growth, shares knowledge
• opportunity for advancement
• job security

8 Bauer Publishing U.S.
Englewood Cliffs, N.J. (editorial); New York (advertising sales main office)
www.BauerPublishing.com
Headquartered in Hamburg, The Bauer Publishing Group is the largest publisher in Germany with 35 magazines; the company has grown into a worldwide media empire comprising 120 magazines in 13 countries, as well as TV and radio stations. Bauer U.S. consists of magazines in three distinct markets: women's, teen and entertainment, including Woman's World, InTouch Weekly, Life & Style Weekly and First for Women.

➜Overall Rating Score: 86.3

Company size: Medium/large

Satisfying, High-Performance Company (Overall): 8.7
Overall Job Satisfaction: 8.5
Company Reputation, Performance & Pride: 8.5
Supportive Employees & Team Spirit: 9.1

Fair & Open Work Environment (Overall): 8.4
Fair, Open Management Style: 8.2
Equal Opportunity to Succeed: 9.3
Personal Initiative, Shared Goals: 7.6

Personal Benefits (Overall): 9.1
Realistic Workload/Supportive Company: 9.0
Respect for Employee Personal Life: 9.7
Satisfying Benefits Package: 9.3

Among Reasons It Was Nominated:
• pride in company's growth/success
• lack of office politics

9 Reed Business Information
New York (headquarters)
www.ReedBusiness.com
The largest business-to-business publisher in the United States, serving the media, manufacturing, electronics, construction and retail industries with more than 80 b-to-b publications, 55 webzines and Web portals, custom publishing, directories, how-to books, research and direct-marketing lists. Reed Business Information (formerly Cahners Business Information) is a business unit of Reed Business, the b-to-b division of Reed Elsevier.

➜Overall Rating Score: 83.5

Company size: Large

Satisfying, High-Performance Company (Overall): 9.0
Overall Job Satisfaction: 8.8
Company Reputation, Performance & Pride: 9.4
Supportive Employees & Team Spirit: 8.7

Fair & Open Work Environment (Overall): 8.0
Fair, Open Management Style: 7.5
Equal Opportunity to Succeed: 8.3
Personal Initiative, Shared Goals: 8.3

Personal Benefits (Overall): 8.5
Realistic Workload/Supportive Company: 7.0
Respect for Employee Personal Life: 8.4
Satisfying Benefits Package: 9.7

Among Reasons It Was Nominated:
• great benefits package
• encouraging environment
• forward-thinking management
• employees feel their contributions are valued

10 International Data Group (IDG)
Boston (headquarters)
www.IDG.com
A technology, media and event company with a global network of Web sites, publications, events and research services. Founded in 1964, IDG has become a multibillion-dollar company with more than 13,000 employees worldwide. Today, IDG is the largest technology media, event management and research company in the world, reaching more than 140 million technology buyers in 85 countries. In the United States, it publishes Computerworld, CSO Magazine, GamePro, Network World and PC World, among others.

➜Overall Rating Score: 83.3

Company size: Large

Satisfying, High-Performance Company (Overall): 8.5
Overall Job Satisfaction: 8.3
Company Reputation, Performance & Pride: 8.2
Supportive Employees & Team Spirit: 8.9

Fair & Open Work Environment (Overall): 8.3
Fair, Open Management Style: 7.6
Equal Opportunity to Succeed: 8.4
Personal Initiative, Shared Goals: 8.9

Personal Benefits (Overall): 8.6
Realistic Workload/Supportive Company: 8.0
Respect for Employee Personal Life: 8.3
Satisfying Benefits Package: 8.9

Among Reasons It Was Nominated:
• supportive, team environment
• good benefits package

11 Scholastic Inc.
New York (headquarters)
www.Scholastic.com
The world's largest publisher and distributor of products for use in school and at home, including children's books, more than 25 magazines for pre-K through high school-aged children, technology-based products, teacher materials, television programming, film, videos and toys.

➜Overall Rating Score: 82.8

Company size: Large

Satisfying, High-Performance Company (Overall): 8.4
Overall Job Satisfaction: 8.2
Company Reputation, Performance & Pride: 8.7
Supportive Employees & Team Spirit: 8.2

Fair & Open Work Environment (Overall): 8.4
Fair, Open Management Style: 7.8
Equal Opportunity to Succeed: 10.0
Personal Initiative, Shared Goals: 7.3

Personal Benefits (Overall): 8.4
Realistic Workload/Supportive Company: 7.6
Respect for Employee Personal Life: 9.7
Satisfying Benefits Package: 9.3

Among Reasons It Was Nominated:
• learning and advancement opportunities
• staff committed to and proud of mission of helping children read and learn
• flexible to employees' needs and schedules

12 The Taunton Press
Newtown, Conn. (headquarters)
www.Taunton.com
A privately held, family-run publishing company that provides information and inspiration on the house and home, including home building and design, gardening, woodworking, fiber arts and cooking. Publishes books (such as "The Face of Home" and "Organizing Idea Book"), magazines (such as Fine Woodworking, Fine Cooking and Fine Gardening), DVDs and Web sites.

➜Overall Rating Score: 82.6

Company size: Medium/large

Satisfying, High-Performance Company (Overall): 8.8
Overall Job Satisfaction: 8.4
Company Reputation, Performance & Pride: 9.5
Supportive Employees & Team Spirit: 8.6

Fair & Open Work Environment (Overall): 7.9
Fair, Open Management Style: 7.3
Equal Opportunity to Succeed: 8.8
Personal Initiative, Shared Goals: 7.7

Personal Benefits (Overall): 8.0
Realistic Workload/Supportive Company: 7.8
Respect for Employee Personal Life: 8.7
Satisfying Benefits Package: 7.6

Among Reasons It Was Nominated:
• pride in company products
• job experiences, growth opportunities
• team environment

13 Ascend Media
Overland Park, Kan. (headquarters)
www.AscendMedia.com
A business-to-business media company that produces magazines, journals, conferences, educational resources, event media, medical marketing and more. Its publications include Cardiology Review, Physician's Money Digest, Internal Medicine World Report and Contemporary Oral Hygiene, among others.

➜Overall Rating Score: 80.8

Company size: Medium/large

Satisfying, High-Performance Company (Overall): 8.2
Overall Job Satisfaction: 8.2
Company Reputation, Performance & Pride: 8.3
Supportive Employees & Team Spirit: 8.2

Fair & Open Work Environment (Overall): 8.0
Fair, Open Management Style: 7.6
Equal Opportunity to Succeed: 8.7
Personal Initiative, Shared Goals: 7.7

Personal Benefits (Overall): 8.3
Realistic Workload/Supportive Company: 7.9
Respect for Employee Personal Life: 8.3
Satisfying Benefits Package: 8.7

Among Reasons It Was Nominated:
• Pride and belief in the company's vision for the future
• Management cares about employees
• Management supports its employees in professional growth
• Management is very open and communicates company goals

14 Meister Media Worldwide
Willoughby, Ohio
www.MeisterMedia.com
A communication and information center for worldwide specialized agriculture that provides how-to information through multimedia services, including magazines, Web tools, special events/seminars, awards programs and sponsorships, CDs and DVDs, books/manuals, custom publishing, e-newsletters and more.

➜Overall Rating Score: 80.0

Company size: Medium/large

Satisfying, High-Performance Company (Overall): 8.2
Overall Job Satisfaction: 8.2
Company Reputation, Performance & Pride: 8.3
Supportive Employees & Team Spirit: 8.0

Fair & Open Work Environment (Overall): 8.1
Fair, Open Management Style: 8.2
Equal Opportunity to Succeed: 8.4
Personal Initiative, Shared Goals: 7.7

Personal Benefits (Overall): 7.4
Realistic Workload/Supportive Company: 7.0
Respect for Employee Personal Life: 8.7
Satisfying Benefits Package: 7.1

Among Reasons It Was Nominated:
• nice building and work environment
• flexible work hours
• clear focus on goals and strategies for achieving them
• respect for employees

15 Time Inc./Time Warner
New York
www.TimeWarner.com
One of the largest content companies in the world, and the largest magazine publisher in the United States, Time Inc. has a portfolio of approximately 130 titles, including Time, People, Sports Illustrated, This Old House, Fortune, Money, Entertainment Weekly and Real Simple, among others. Its brands and franchises extend to online, television, cable video on demand, satellite radio, mobile devices, events and branded products.

➜Overall Rating Score: 79.0

Company size: Large

Satisfying, High-Performance Company (Overall): 8.2
Overall Job Satisfaction: 7.7
Company Reputation, Performance & Pride: 8.5
Supportive Employees & Team Spirit: 8.3

Fair & Open Work Environment (Overall): 7.5
Fair, Open Management Style: 6.3
Equal Opportunity to Succeed: 8.8
Personal Initiative, Shared Goals: 7.5

Personal Benefits (Overall): 8.5
Realistic Workload/Supportive Company: 8.1
Respect for Employee Personal Life: 8.7
Satisfying Benefits Package: 9.1

Among Reasons It Was Nominated:
• talented staff, challenging environment where hard work is rewarded fairly
• attractive benefits package
• supports professional development and provides growth opportunities
• pride in company brand and products

16 F+W Publications Inc.
Cincinnati (corporate office)
www.FWPublications.com
Founded in the early 1900s, F+W is a publisher of special-interest magazines and books in a variety of consumer enthusiast categories. It also operates related book clubs, conferences, trade shows, Web sites and education programs. Its magazines include Antique Journal, Sports Collectors Digest, Old Cars Weekly, Writer's Digest, Popular Woodworking and Horticulture Magazine, among others. It is the parent company of Krause Publications, David & Charles Ltd. and Adams Media.

➜Overall Rating Score: 79.0*

Company size: Large

Satisfying, High-Performance Company (Overall): 8.2
Overall Job Satisfaction: 8.1
Company Reputation, Performance & Pride: 7.7
Supportive Employees & Team Spirit: 8.7

Fair & Open Work Environment (Overall): 8.2
Fair, Open Management Style: 7.2
Equal Opportunity to Succeed: 9.2
Personal Initiative, Shared Goals: 8.1

Personal Benefits (Overall): 8.0
Realistic Workload/Supportive Company: 6.9
Respect for Employee Personal Life: 7.2
Satisfying Benefits Package: 8.5

Among Reasons It Was Nominated:
• friendly, talented staff in a team environment
• flexible work schedules
• company's customer-focused entrepreneurial spirit
*F&W's score was a few hundredths of a point behind Time Inc., so when rounded to the nearest tenth, both companies' rankings are 79.0.

17 Bonnier Corp.
Winter Park, Fla.
www.BonnierCorp.com
One of the largest consumer-publishing groups in America, with 40+ special-interest magazines, such as Outdoor Life, Parenting, Popular Science and Field & Stream, and related multimedia projects and events. The company was formed in March when Sweden's Bonnier Group purchased 18 magazines from Time Inc. and combined those assets with its U.S. magazine partner, World Publications, creating a new company. Bonnier Corp.'s parent company, the Bonnier Group, is a 200-year-old media company based in Stockholm.

➜Overall Rating Score: 76.6

Company size: Large

Satisfying, High-Performance Company (Overall): 8.3
Overall Job Satisfaction: 8.7
Company Reputation, Performance & Pride: 8.0
Supportive Employees & Team Spirit: 8.1

Fair & Open Work Environment (Overall): 7.2
Fair, Open Management Style: 6.8
Equal Opportunity to Succeed: 7.9
Personal Initiative, Shared Goals: 6.9

Personal Benefits (Overall): 7.6
Realistic Workload/Supportive Company: 6.7
Respect for Employee Personal Life: 7.6
Satisfying Benefits Package: 8.1

Among Reasons It Was Nominated:
• entrepreneurial spirit
• casual, happy, optimistic environment
• pride in company products

18 Crain Communications Inc.
Detroit (headquarters)
www.Crain.com
Founded in 1916, Crain is a privately held company with 30+ titles in b-to-b and consumer markets, including AdvertisingAge, AutoWeek, Business Insurance, Financial Week, InvestmentNews and Laundry News, among others. Beginning in 1943, Crain implemented an employee profit-sharing plan, and was among the first companies to establish life and medical insurance plans for workers, and installed a comprehensive pension plan in the late 1950s.

➜Overall Rating Score: 76.3

Company size: Large

Satisfying, High-Performance Company (Overall): 8.3
Overall Job Satisfaction: 8.0
Company Reputation, Performance & Pride: 9.0
Supportive Employees & Team Spirit: 7.8

Fair & Open Work Environment (Overall): 7.4
Fair, Open Management Style: 6.8
Equal Opportunity to Succeed: 8.4
Personal Initiative, Shared Goals: 6.9

Personal Benefits (Overall): 7.6
Realistic Workload/Supportive Company: 6.7
Respect for Employee Personal Life: 7.7
Satisfying Benefits Package: 8.2

Among Reasons It Was Nominated:
• generous profit-sharing program and other benefits
• pride in company's reputation
• family-run environment where employees are "placed first"

19 Advanstar Communications Inc.
New York
www.Advanstar.com
A worldwide media company providing integrated marketing solutions for the fashion, life sciences and powersports industries. Advanstar serves business professionals and consumers with its portfolio of 91 events, 67 publications and directories, 150 electronic publications and Web sites, as well as educational and direct marketing products and services. The company has approximately 1,000 employees and currently operates from multiple offices in North America and Europe.

➜Overall Rating Score: 76.1

Company size: Large

Satisfying, High-Performance Company (Overall): 8.6
Overall Job Satisfaction: 8.3
Company Reputation, Performance & Pride: 8.6
Supportive Employees & Team Spirit: 8.8

Fair & Open Work Environment (Overall): 6.4
Fair, Open Management Style: 5.9
Equal Opportunity to Succeed: 6.7
Personal Initiative, Shared Goals: 6.7

Personal Benefits (Overall): 8.6
Realistic Workload/Supportive Company: 7.6
Respect for Employee Personal Life: 7.3
Satisfying Benefits Package: 9.5

Among Reasons It Was Nominated:
• great benefits package
• company supports professional development
• company's focus on growth provides opportunities for advancement

20 SourceMedia Inc.
New York (corporate office)
www.SourceMedia.com
An Investcorp company, SourceMedia provides market information to the financial services and related industries through its publications, industry-standard data applications, seminars and conferences. Its flagship publications include American Banker, National Mortgage News, The Bond Buyer and Accounting Today. It also provides consulting services, software and data through its two divisions, National Regulatory Services and Accuity.

➜Overall Rating Score: 74.8

Company size: Large

Satisfying, High-Performance Company (Overall): 7.8
Overall Job Satisfaction: 7.7
Company Reputation, Performance & Pride: 8.3
Supportive Employees & Team Spirit: 7.3

Fair & Open Work Environment (Overall): 7.7
Fair, Open Management Style: 6.4
Equal Opportunity to Succeed: 9.6
Personal Initiative, Shared Goals: 7.2

Personal Benefits (Overall): 7.8
Realistic Workload/Supportive Company: 6.5
Respect for Employee Personal Life: 7.3
Satisfying Benefits Package: 9.4

Among Reasons It Was Nominated:
• senior management is open and accessible to employees
• pride in company and its brands
• diversity is respected

Bewkes: Media Business Models May Change

Bewkes: Media Business Models May Change
By Georg Szalai
http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/hr/content_display/news/e3i7ca2ef6b7899d1d4b11c67d2a75f2aca

NEW YORK -- Time Warner must focus on being "the most profitable, not the biggest" entertainment company, and his team must concentrate on boosting the stock "now," CEO designate Jeffrey Bewkes said here Wednesday in his first public appearance since being tapped for the promotion.

That seemed in line with expectations that he will cut corporate costs and sell off slow-growing properties.

In an appearance at the Media and Money conference, organized by Dow Jones and Hollywood Reporter parent The Nielsen Company, Bewkes wouldn't show his cards on rumored possible asset sales and spin-offs of TW Cable, AOL and Time Inc., but signaled there could indeed be reasons for such moves down the line.

He declined to comment on the possible timing of such moves, saying TW wants to "sneak up" on its competitors more than in the past with strategic moves.

Asked about the current writers strike, Bewkes said it won't have "any material adverse financial impact on us this year." He added he expects to have the labor issue resolved before it can start hurting TW's finances next year.

"We all have respect for them," he said about the writers before calling for a "fair and seasonable solution."


Bewkes also signaled that entertainment business models may change amid technological and international growth.

For example, he said that instead of charging movie-goers $8 or more, companies could charge less in return for a bigger audience. "What if you got only $1 per ticket, but 6 billion (people) see (the film)" for no major extra cost, he said.

Bewkes once famously said that talk of corporate synergies is "bullshit."

On Wednesday, he said there is some synergy, but it's not always so much about money but also talent and other relationships. "Writers and producers come to us first" because TW owns industry-leading TV networks and film operations, he argued.

Bewkes went on to argue that the primary reason to own certain businesses is not synergy, but to run them well and position them as industry leaders.

In his clearest signal to date that he will likely sell or spin off some units, Bewkes also acknowledged that some benefits of having various operations under one conglomerate umbrella "doesn't mean you have to have it the way you have it now.

Asked if he ever considered turning down the CEO position as such jobs seem short-lived and less fun these days, Bewkes replied: "I think it actually is (fun.)" Asked about activist shareholders and other people mingling with his affairs, Bewkes replied those are "just people with more advice."
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U.S. no place for private media
By Mimi Turner
http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/hr/content_display/business/news/e3ic62850cbeffe3295f387129a1bd7c6af

NEW YORK -- Private-equity expansion in traditional media will be focused on high-growth and high-risk developing markets rather than the U.S., senior executives said Wednesday.

"Media is what we do, and in the last two years we have not invested in newspapers or radio or cable in the U.S.," said Julie Richardson, managing director of Providence Equity Partners, which was a partner in the acquisition of MGM.

Speaking at the Dow Jones/Nielsen Media and Money conference, Richardson said emerging markets offered higher potential returns.

"One of the things we've found that worked really well is traditional media deals in emerging markets. We are seeing real opportunities in high-risk economies, but ones which also promise high growth," she said, noting Providence's recent investment in Turkish pay TV platform Digiturk.

That investment was going "gangbusters," she said. Providence also has made substantial cable investments in emerging markets in Europe.

Media and Entertainment Holdings chairman and CEO Herbert Granath said the changing economic demographics in territories like Eastern Europe made them promising investment targets.

"The economics of these countries that are either part of the European Union or are going to be part of the EU are on the up," he said, noting that ad spending and per-capita income were attracting global investment.

Granath is vice chairman of Central European media venture CME, which owns commercial-free TV stations in the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Slovenia, Romania and the Ukraine.

Carlyle Group managing director James Attwood said that investment models could translate from country to country.

"It's not just about looking at developing markets; it's taking an understanding of the evolution of business models from one market to another."

Attwood said that in the aftermath of the credit crunch -- which has left several hundred billion dollars of unsyndicated loans on the balance sheets of major investment banks -- private equity deals would be on a more modest scale.

"We will probably see markets come back in the first or second quarter of 2008, but we will see smaller deals priced at lower values," he said.

Attwood added that even when deals came back onto the market, the valuations would more likely be what they had been in 2003-05 than in 2006-07.

"The last two years have really been unique," he said. "Credit costs have been low, and with the banks saying don't worry about covenants, a lot of risk was mispriced and there was a lot of risk-taking that was untraditional in our market.

"That said, media is still a wonderful arena for private equity to invest in," Attwood added.

Going Postal: Arguing for Media Diversity, Debate & Democracy

Going Postal: Arguing for Media Diversity, Debate & Democracy
BY John Nichols
http://www.thenation.com/blogs/thebeat?bid=1&pid=247107

Those of us at The Nation have been banging on for some months about the issue of postage rates. In particular, we've been expressing deep concern about the radical restructuring of those rates in a manner that favors magazines with large circulations and transfers costs to small- and mid-circulation publications.

On the rack of journals of opinion, The Nation is indeed a large publication. Along with its ideological opposite, the conservative National Review, The Nation's circulation makes it one of the major jousters in the current clash of ideas. But against consumer magazines that are less engaged with the political and policy fights of the day than with the pursuit of mass circulation and the advertising dollars that follow it, The Nation definitely falls into that "mid-circulation" range of publications that is taking a huge hit as big media companies flex their muscles in the regulatory sphere.

This fight is about more than one magazine, and more than one ideology. Representatives of journals of opinion from across the ideological spectrum are united in their loud objection to the stacking of the distribution deck against publications that explore the issues from libertarian, old-right, new-right, centrist, liberal and progressive perspectives.

The message delivered at today hearing of the US House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform's subcommittee that deals with the postage service was a fundamental one: The sort of publications that the founders imagined as the essential documenters and arbiters of our democratic discourse are being threatened by federal policy making that favors size over content, that favors bigness over quality.

Scott McConnell of The American Conservative magazine explained in testimony submitted to the Federal Workforce, Postal Service and District of Columbia Subcommittee of the House Committee "the postage increases we are facing under the new provisions are little less than catastrophic.

Christopher L. Walton, editor of UU World, the terrific quarterly magazine of the Unitarian Universalist Association of Congregations explained that, "It is disturbing to learn that the new rates abandon the long-standing American tradition of supporting a diverse marketplace of ideas with a fair and uniform postage rate for periodicals. Historically, the periodicals rate allowed small journals of opinion to reach a national audience. But the new rates reward high-circulation periodicals with discounts that smaller-circulation periodicals simply cannot qualify for. Instead, we face a steep and unfair increase in mailing costs.

In These Times editor Joel Bleifuss, with his usual laser focus on the core issues involved, informed the committee that, "In August 2007, In These Times, an independent magazine based in Chicago, was hit hard by a 23 percent postal rate increase. This complex new rate structure, designed by and for the benefit of the largest publishing companies, has severely impacted our small magazine's ability to do business. We face an immediate threat to our financial health. These reckless postal rate increases are aimed at the heart of our nation's independent press. I urge you to ask the spokespeople of the media conglomerates whether they would support these increases if their mailing costs had risen 23 percent. This is a democracy issue. The founding fathers, in their infinite wisdom, created a system that made it cheaper for smaller publications, irrespective of viewpoint, to launch and survive. In 1792 the United States Congress converted the free press clause in the First Amendment from an abstract principle into a living reality for Americans by providing newspapers with low postal rates. These low rates were crucial for the growth and spread of the abolitionist movement, the progressive movement and, later, the civil rights movement. More broadly, they have been central to the development of participatory democracy in general. Today, low postal rates remain crucial to the survival of independent American publications like In These Times."

Not all testimony was submitted in written form. Some of it was delivered personally. Among those appearing before the committee was Nation Publisher Emeritus Victor Navasky, who now serves as director of the Delacorte Center for Magazines and Delacorte Professor of Magazine Journalism at Columbia University's Graduate School of Journalism and director of the Columbia Journalism Review.

Navasky told the committee that he hoped to speak "not only on behalf of CJR and The Nation, and on behalf of small-circulation political journals, but also on behalf of the highly influential readers of these periodicals -- journals in general, editorial writers, legislators and their staffs, non-profit executives, corporate public affairs officers, the academic community, students and teachers, among others. In other words, all of those engaged in, and informed by, the public discourse these magazines exemplify."

Navasky explained to the committee in prepared remarks that, "I have never understood why of all the services government provides--defense, education, environmental protection, health, housing, highways and the rest--only the mails are required to break even or make a profit. The founders, who saw the mails as the circulatory system of our democracy, made no such presumption. George Washington himself was in favor of the free delivery of newspapers (which, by the way, in those days were often weekly and usually partisan, and as such the equivalent of today's journals of political opinion). These journals, whose core franchise is public discourse about public affairs, are, like water, national defense, public highways and public education, a public good and as such it would seem to me ought to be paid for out of public funds (i.e. general tax revenues)."

The author of A Matter of Opinion admitted "this view is generally regarded as quaint and unrealistic--utopian, as it were--and so the rest of what I have to say does not depend on it, but I thought in the interests of full disclosure, and the hope that it might set some of you to thinking, that I ought to share it."

With that, Navasky outlined a number of practical steps the committee, Congress and the United States Postal Service could make to right the imbalance created by a wrongheaded rate restructuring. Among other things, he proposed reviving a very good proposal by former Arizona Congressman Mo Udall- a liberal Democrat who was supported in the initiative by conservative Arizona Senator Barry Goldwater --to allow the first 250,000 copies of all publications to be mailed at reduced rates. Or, Navasky suggested, why not embrace legislation proposed in 2002 by Bernie Sanders, then the congressman from Vermont and now the senator, that proposed a moratorium on postal increases for magazines with a low percentage of advertising content, low circulation or non-profit status?

Ultimately, however, Navasky proposed a practical and necessary fix for an immediate crisis: Noting that the postal service has the flexibility, working in tandem with Congress, to roll back and/or redistribute rates in the short term, he proposed that Congress ask the USPS to extend non-profit rates to small-circulation political magazines.

That's not a final fix. But is an appropriate move in a moment of crisis by a postal rate increase that will, if it is not addressed, hinder the free flow of ideas and opinions in America.

"It is no accident that the president of The Nation and the publisher of National Review, two periodicals on the opposite sides of the political spectrum, recently teamed up to write an Op Ed essay sounding the alarm," concluded Navasky. "Such small political journals -- which, by the way, carry the most discourse -- bear the heaviest rate increases. The unpopular ideas and opinions that these journals propagate and circulate today often turn out to be tomorrow's wisdom. They act as intellectual and political gadflies, they prod their larger and staider colleagues, they question conformity and complacency. By helping them recover from the grievous wound inflicted upon by the recent rate increase, this Committee will have deepened and strengthened our democracy."

Get The Nation at home (and online!) for 75 cents a week!

Taking a page out of the e-book

Taking a page out of the e-book
Ink on cellulose is so last century - at least according to those working to make e-paper a reality.
By Chris Morrison, Business 2.0 Magazine
http://money.cnn.com/magazines/business2/business2_archive/2007/10/01/100434030/

(Business 2.0 Magazine) -- Back in 2000, the handheld electronic book was thought to be as much a part of the future as MP3s, broadband video, and ad-supported websites. That year, Forrester Research predicted $251 million in sales of e-book content by 2005. It seemed a modest goal, but today the market is so small that Forrester doesn't even track it. Held back by a lack of available titles and stifling copy protection, the e-book reader gathered dust while other dotcom-era innovations flourished.

But one part of the stalled e-book industry could yet surprise us: electronic paper. At the forefront of the technology is E-Ink, a company spun off from MIT in 1997. E-Ink's thin film display functions as a screen and looks much more natural than its LCD counterparts. Instead of using standard pixels, e-paper contains millions of microcapsules that change color when an electric charge is sent through them - mimicking the look of real ink on real paper, without any backlight to hurt your eyes. The power required is negligible.

Right now e-paper is still married to bulky devices like the Sony Reader and the Motorola MotoFone, which use e-paper in their displays. But in the next three years, according to E-Ink, e-paper will become untethered. E-Ink customers like Samsung and LG Philips have already created 14-inch color displays nearly as thin as a piece of paper.

E-paper's success, says Lawrence Gasman, principal analyst at tech research firm NanoMarkets, "depends not so much on the technology as on designers coming up with cool stuff." In 2008, for example, U.K.-based Polymer Vision will launch the Readius, a mobile device with a flexible 5-inch e-paper display that unfurls like a scroll.

By 2010, look for stand-alone e-paper that plugs into your laptop to update its content. Eventually e-paper could display video and contain tiny Wi-Fi chips to update itself on the go. (E-Ink has demonstrated paper with limited Internet connectivity.)

If that makes you think of the moving, self-updating newspaper featured in the movie Minority Report, you're on the right track, says Kenneth Bronfin, president of interactive media for Hearst and chairman of E-Ink's board of directors. "The dollar you pay for your newspaper doesn't even pay the printing costs," he says. "If there was a device that newspapers could give consumers to eliminate the printing cost, the economics could really work." Sign up for a two-year subscription to an e-paper, he suggests, and you might get the device for free. E-Ink's profit in such a venture would be more than paper-thin.

Book Piracy: Overrated Problem?

Just An Online Minute... Book Piracy: Overrated Problem?
by Wendy Davis

WHILE THE MUSIC and movie industries have long been concerned that Web piracy cuts into their profits, file-sharing hasn't appeared to present as significant a problem for book publishers. After all, the general public hasn't yet taken to e-book readers the way it has to iPods or digital music.
But that reality has done little to assuage the fears of the book publishing world. Witness the lawsuit against Google for its library project, in which publishers are complaining about Google's move to digitize books in public libraries.

In the latest example, reported this morning in The New York Times, Penguin Audio has pulled out of an eMusic initiative to sell audiobooks because eMusic, unlike Apple's iTunes, sells digital content without the restrictions that limit consumers' ability to make copies.

While anxiety about Web piracy isn't totally irrational, it seems misplaced here. Consider, people who purchase books, or audiobooks, have long had the option to take them out of libraries instead. In fact, many libraries now offer digital downloads of audiobooks.

Yet pirated audiobooks have never emerged as a big problem. In fact, a monitoring firm used by Random House Audio hasn't yet found any unauthorized copies of the company's audiobooks on file-sharing sites, according to the Times.

What's more, sales were robust at 500 audiobooks a day, even though eMusic doesn't plan to advertise the offering until December, the Times reports.

The music industry appears to be figuring out that consumers want to download tracks free of digital rights management restrictions, if for no other reason than to freely make copies for their own use. Book publishers, who don't appear to face the same threat from file-sharing, also need to realize that consumers will be more likely to purchase their product, not less, when it comes in a format they want.

Could Samir Husni have finally converted to realism???

Could Samir Husni have finally converted to realism???
http://www.muinc.com/magfuture/index.html

In Samir Husni's post of October 17th, The Media Changing Landscape according to Kevin McKean, VP and Editorial Director of Consumer Reports, Husni agrees with McKean 5 points for " what we must know of to succeed in the industry' of magazines:

1) There is an historic shift in media habits (towards digital delivery).
2) Advertisers chase their audience (who are migrang online).
3) As a result of this shift, traditional media are experiencing a squeeze (most dramatic in print).
4) Online media is growing.
5) We have been witnessing the rise of the citizen-journalist.


I agree with all these points and surprisingly, so does Husni. Amazing, in one felt swoop he has managed to contradict every one of the points he so confidently defends about the immutable nature of print in his blog, his presentations and his debates with Bosacks.

Economist to put archive online

Economist to put archive online
By Stephen Brook, press correspondent
Thursday October 18, 2007
MediaGuardian.co.uk


Economist: its archive will contain more than 600,000 pages

More than 160 years of articles from the Economist are set to become available online with the launch of The Economist Historical Archive 1843-2003.
The archive will contain more than 600,000 pages of the weekly magazine's reporting and analysis.

It is a joint project between Gale - part of Cengage Learning - and the Economist.

"The Economist Historical Archive is more than a database - it is a remarkable record of the most significant world events over the past 160 years through the unbiased, probing eyes of the Economist," said John Micklethwait, the magazine's editor-in-chief.

The magazine, which has a worldwide print circulation of more than 1.2m, hopes to target educational institutions, public libraries, government organisations, corporations and financial institutions.

Users can search or browse by issue and date, or use more advanced search options such as sections of the paper, article type or article title.

Mark Holland, publishing director at Cengage Learning, said: "The Economist Historical Archive 1843-2003 is set to revolutionise the way institutions and educationalists conduct research.

"As mediums such as the internet become ever more advanced, it is imperative that the media evolves through digitisation to support 21st Century learning."

Preview trials of the archive are available and the full archive will be available via subscription in December.

Its website, Economist.com offers readers free access to content under one year old.

The Guardian and Observer newspapers recently announced they would make every edition available via a newly launched online digital archive. The first phase of the Guardian News & Media archive, containing the Guardian from 1821 to 1975 and the Observer from 1900 to 1975, will launch on November 3.

Annual subscriptions for the archive, which is not being offered to individuals, start from £1,500 for small academic institutions but prices vary depending on the type and size of the organisation.

Time Inc. Can't Force Reporters Write for Web

Time Inc. Can't Force Reporters Write for Web
http://www.wwd.com/memopad/article/119351?page=1

SEPARATE TASKS: Does The Newspaper Guild's proposed new contract with Time Inc. run counter to the new world order where journalists have to write for both print and the Web? It appears it might. The two parties last week reached a tentative agreement for a three-year contract that includes guaranteed annual pay raises, and changes to severance packages and other benefits to Guild-protected employees. One of the additions is a stipulation that prevents management from demanding that print reporters must write for the Web. The magazines under Guild protection include People, Time, Fortune, Fortune Small Business, Sports Illustrated and Money.

The contract clause comes after Fortune managing editor Andy Serwer and Time managing editor Richard Stengel sent memos to their staffs this summer that said print reporters were required to write for the Web; Stengel wrote at the time that performance evaluations of every Time writer, correspondent and reporter would include Web contributions. Though most reporters these days write for both print and online, The Guild, which does not protect dot-com employees, took issue with Serwer and Stengel's demands.

As part of a settlement between Time Inc. and The Guild on the issue, the new contract says Time Inc. will ensure Web site work will be voluntary for Guild-covered employees, and "there will no negative impact on any employee for not volunteering to do Web site work." It also says the company will "grant Guild coverage to any Web site employee who 'routinely or regularly' performs 'any work or services for any entity covered by the contract,'" and will cover magazine employees who are transferred to the Web sites. Finally, the contract says, "Time Inc. will issue a new memo that supersedes the previous two memos."

Meaning that, if the contract is approved — which The Guild has recommended the latest version to be — Serwer and Stengel's earlier demands would be moot, while reporters should be checking their in-boxes for updated letters from management. — Stephanie D. Smith

Photoshopping Mag Covers: How Much is Too Much?

Photoshopping Mag Covers: How Much is Too Much?
By Dylan Stableford

For its October issue—the “First Annual Figure Flattery” issue—Glamour put America Ferrera, star of ABC’s Ugly Betty, on its cover. For Jezebel, Gawker Media’s “girlie blog,” it was bit too much “figure flattery.” The site ran a post under the headline “Photoshop of Horrors” juxtaposing Glamour’s cover with a photo of Ferrera at the Emmy Awards the same week the magazine hit newsstands. (The apparent slimming recalled a similar incident in which CBS’s in-house magazine trimmed Katie Couric by about three sizes.)

A Glamour spokesperson denies any such trimming. “America was shot for the cover in June, and as she says in the article, she's a size 6/8. There was no slimming done to the cover.”

Photoshop manipulation on magazine covers is nothing new. George Karabotsos, design director at Men’s Health, points to a 1952 National Geographic cover, which moved the Pyramids closer together for the sake of the cover. But recently the practice has teetered into dangerous territory, with Glamour’s Ferrera and Men’s Fitness’ blatant enlargement of Andy Roddick’s biceps—which Roddick himself exposed as fake on his blog (“little did I know I have 22 inch guns and a disappearing birth mark on my right arm ... whoever did this has mad skills”) and led to the resignation of the magazine’s designer—as the most egregious examples.

Roddick isn’t the only victim to cry foul. Kate Winslet, after seeing herself on the cover of a British GQ: “I don’t look like that, nor do I desire to look like that.”

Sometimes it’s not the body that is manipulated. In May, In Touch touched up Angelina Jolie’s veiny arm for its cover. Editor Richard Spencer was unapologetic: "You're right, we softened those veins. The arm was very, very veiny ... I think they can forgive it for the cover — unless it is a story specifically about their body. This was about her plans to expand her family."

But what about making your cover photo fit the story? In June, Star magazine used a photo of Jennifer Aniston carrying what appeared to be a manuscript for a cover story on the actress’ alleged “$5 Million Tell-All!” One problem: the manuscript was actually an art catalog.

Indeed, the practice has become so widespread, says Karabotsos, that some magazines even include a budget line for retouching.




How Much is Too Much?

“Retouching should be like wearing light makeup, not to the point where you can’t recognize the girl anymore,” says Self art director Petra Kobayashi. “We retouch to make the models look bigger, healthier.”

Karabotsos agrees. “We look for the ideal celeb or model for our magazine—a regular guy to have a beer with. He can’t be too perfect, too retouched,” says Karabotsos. “A reader could think, ‘If the cover’s not real, maybe the info in the magazine isn’t that real.”

This is especially true with news magazines, says Karabatsis. Both Newsweek—which plopped Martha Stewart’s head on a different body for its “Martha’s Last Laugh” cover—and Time—which caused a literal outcry after placing a tear on Ronald Reagan in March—faced criticism for publishing manipulated covers.

The National Press Photographers Association called Newsweek’s treatment of Martha a “major ethical breach.”

“You’re a news organization,” says Karabotsos, noting that Newsweek has since changed their approach by noting manipulations like Martha’s on the cover.

But even transparency doesn’t translate to trust, says Karabotsos. “We go to magazines to bring us the world. They’re bringing us a modified world that doesn’t exist? Can we trust them?”

“You have to think,” adds Kobayashi, “Where does reality start?”

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.

The Next EmailWhy Twitter will change the way business communicates (again).

The Next EmailWhy Twitter will change the way business communicates (again).

From: Issue 118 | September 2007 | Page 72 | By: Robert Scoble André Metzger and Andrio Abero
Hard to believe that only 10 or 15 years ago we interacted with coworkers and colleagues with memos and phone calls. Email and instant messaging changed all that. Now there's a new communications revolution coming. These services mix contacts, instant messaging, blogging, and texting, and they're poised to make email feel as antiquated as the mimeograph.

The best known of the new services is Twitter. Since its debut last spring, it has been one of the fastest-growing apps in the history of the Internet. The best way to describe it is as a microblog service in which you tell people what you're doing or thinking at any given moment. The hook is that you're limited to 140 characters. "It's strangely addictive," says NBC videographer Jim Long. "Evidently, people are interested in what I'm doing, and I genuinely care about what they're doing."

Twitter's basic idea has proven so popular that others have copied its premise and added features. Jaiku lets me include blog posts, my link blog, and more along with my mini posts. Pownce users can send files to one another, as well as calendar events. At Facebook, I can add such information as my favorite music and the syndicated Web feeds I've shared in Google Reader.

All this adds up to a new way to share information about yourself. Although the content of the messages can vary wildly from voyeuristically interesting to terribly dull, a frequent stream of updates can strengthen your brand. My 4,000-plus Twitter "followers" can get my blasts online or via text message, and each one is also its own Web page, which means that Google can see it and let people search for it. When you're traveling frequently and working from coffeehouses or the backseat of a cab, these services are great to keep in touch with coworkers back at the office and with customers nearby. "I post where I travel and arrange user meetups," says Betsy Weber, an evangelist with software firm TechSmith.

The professional intimacy these services create--hey, if you know someone's whereabouts and musical tastes, you're halfway home--can also win you clients. "People won't do business with you until they like you or have a sense of trust," says Cathryn Hrudicka, a consultant who uses Facebook, Jaiku, and Twitter. She has already gotten referrals from people she has met online because she has shown she'll be available when clients need her.

Sales and marketing are lagging in seeing the potential here. When I used all these services to tell the world that my wife and I were expecting a child in September, I anticipated hearing from the world's largest consumer-products companies begging me to try their latest diapers, food, car seats, and financial instruments. What came back? Nothing. Where was Procter & Gamble? Given what it and other companies spend acquiring new customers, there's an untapped gold mine in Twitter and Facebook because we're volunteering so much information about what we're doing right now, whether it's working on a project or eating a chicken-salad sandwich. Learning how to tap it correctly--both to sell to me directly and in seeing major trends in the millions of daily public posts--will be the next major challenge for these companies.

If we revisit this conversation again in three years, I suspect that we'll have found all sorts of little uses for these services, and they'll simply become what email is today: something we must do just to participate in the heartbeat of business.

Robert Scoble is an influential video podcast pioneer and blogger following the tech industry. Watch him at Podtech.net and read him at Scobleizer.com. For a video podcast of this column and daily "Best of the Tech Web," go to fastcompany.com/scoble.

Feedback: scoble@fastcompany.com

Mag Bag: 'Inc.' Site Expands List Of Savvy Companies

Mag Bag: 'Inc.' Site Expands List Of Savvy Companies
by Erik Sass, Friday, Aug 31, 2007 7:15 AM ET
Inc. Site Expands List Of Savvy Companies


Inc. magazine's Web site is expanding its traditional print list of 500 tenfold online, with its first publication of the "Inc. 5,000." Leveraging the unlimited publishing capabilities of the Internet, Inc. Online is highlighting a slew of companies that wouldn't make it onto the print list--but still deserve recognition for innovative strategies or eye-catching products.


The magazine's Web site is also set to launch a social-network-type exchange for private businesses, called IncBiz.net.com, due out in October.

The Inc. initiative follows the announcement in May by McGraw Hill's BusinessWeek that it is partnering with Capital IQ, a division of Standard & Poor's, to launch a Company Insight Center hosted on the magazine's Web site. The new online content area will triple the size of the BusinessWeek site. Information and analysis will cover companies, industries, markets and leaders.

Other business publications are moving to more digital content as well--a shift signaled, for example, by the promotion of Vivek Shah to president of Time Inc.'s Business and Finance network, which includes Fortune, Money, Business 2.0 and Fortune Small Business. Shah was previously head of digital publishing for the network.

Deloitte & Touche Debuts Deloitte Review

Deloitte & Touche is preparing to launch a new high-end business periodical for senior executives, called the Deloitte Review. The twice-yearly Review will feature "unique" business information and commentary, including articles on strategic trends and best practices. It will also offer business insights from Deloitte's partners, principals, and directors. Stephen Wagner, Partner, Deloitte & Touche USA LLP and executive editor of Deloitte Review, says each issue will offer "guidance and reference points that a C-suite executive can put to use today, and still use years from now." The magazine has an online presence at deloittereview.com.

Bonnier To Relaunch Resorts & Great Hotels

Bonnier Corp. says it will relaunch Resorts & Great Hotels, an aspirational magazine covering high-end luxury travel, as a quarterly. The relaunched publication should have a distribution of 100,000, with a newsstand price of $6.99 and a subscription price of $15.99. The first issue should hit the stands on January 15.

Guilfoyle Moves From Rachael Ray to Women's Wear Daily

Christine Guilfoyle, the founding publisher of Every Day with Rachael Ray, is leaving the Reader's Digest Association to take up the role of publisher at Conde Nast's Women's Wear Daily. Guilfoyle's departure is the latest personnel shake-up at RDA, which has seen several execs exit since its acquisition by Ripplewood Holdings, a private equity firm. Mary Berner was named the new president and CEO of RDA this spring.

BusinessWeek Publisher Dodge Exits

Geoff Dodge is leaving his role as senior vice president and publisher of BusinessWeek for a new position at Salesforce.com, which specializes in customer-relationship management.

Media Week sued by mag giant

Media Week sued by mag giant
31 August 2007

By Sarah Limbrick

Magazine publisher Hachette Filipacchi (UK) and chief executive Kevin Hand are suing Haymarket Media for libel damages.

The legal battle centres around a story in Media Week magazine in April, headed “Hachette faces an uncertain future”.

Hachette and Hand claim the story was defamatory, and are seeking unlimited damages, as well as aggravated damages, from its publishers - Haymarket. They are also suing over the website version of the story.

And they are seeking an injunction banning repetition of the allegations made in the story.

The story, which has now been taken down, was about the departure of the general manager of the company's women's division, Julie Harris.

Audit Bureau Will Include Online 'Audience Engagement' In Newspaper Circ Reports

Audit Bureau Will Include Online 'Audience Engagement' In Newspaper Circ Reports
Staci D. Kramer

Newspaper publishers may get a little ammunition this fall when, for the first time, the Audit Bureau of Circulation (ABC) includes online audience estimates.

The move was approved during a weekend board meeting and announced today. Dubbed “Audience-FAX,” the new voluntary initiative will collect newspaper-provided data from in-market print, online and and combined readership from Scarborough Research and unique site visitors from Nielsen/Netratings, comScore Media Metrix and server-based analytic tools.

The information will be independently audited by ABC and included in ABC publisher’s statements, audit reports and FAS-FAX. It also will be compiled in a Scarborough-maintained database available to ABC members. It’s slated to launch Nov. 5 and will cover the Sept. 2007 six-month ABC reporting period. For more details, see the release, the prototype publisher’s statement (pdf) and the FAQ.

With declining print readers, the combined look becomes even more important as publishers struggle to present a clearer view of their reach. As Reuters notes, the NAA and its publishers have been pushing for advertisers consider the total.

NAA CMO John Kimball says this should make a difference: ‘“There is a sense on the part of advertisers that, with their gold seal of approval, the data is [from] a credible source.”

But, as analyst Ken Doctor told the wire service, it’s just a start: “They have to let people know how often people are visiting what kinds of Web sites for what kinds of content. Combining print and online… may be a milestone, but it’s only a first step in what they need to do.”

Audit Bureau Will Include Online 'Audience Engagement' In Newspaper Circ Reports

Audit Bureau Will Include Online 'Audience Engagement' In Newspaper Circ Reports
By Staci D. Kramer - Tue 17 Jul 2007 12:40 PM PST


Newspaper publishers may get a little ammunition this fall when, for the first time, the Audit Bureau of Circulation (ABC) includes online audience estimates. The move was approved during a weekend board meeting and announced today. Dubbed "Audience-FAX," the new voluntary initiative will collect newspaper-provided data from in-market print, online and and combined readership from Scarborough Research and unique site visitors from Nielsen/Netratings, comScore Media Metrix and server-based analytic tools.

The information will be independently audited by ABC and included in ABC publisher's statements, audit reports and FAS-FAX. It also will be compiled in a Scarborough-maintained database available to ABC members. It's slated to launch Nov. 5 and will cover the Sept. 2007 six-month ABC reporting period. For more details, see the release, the prototype publisher's statement (pdf) and the FAQ.

With declining print readers, the combined look becomes even more important as publishers struggle to present a clearer view of their reach. As Reuters notes, the NAA and its publishers have been pushing for advertisers consider the total. NAA CMO John Kimball says this should make a difference: '"There is a sense on the part of advertisers that, with their gold seal of approval, the data is [from] a credible source." But, as analyst Ken Doctor told the wire service, it's just a start: "They have to let people know how often people are visiting what kinds of Web sites for what kinds of content. Combining print and online… may be a milestone, but it's only a first step in what they need to do."

Audit Bureau Will Include Online ‘Audience Engagement’ In Newspaper Circ Reports

Audit Bureau Will Include Online ‘Audience Engagement’ In Newspaper Circ Reports
By Staci D. Kramer - Tue 17 Jul 2007 12:40 PM PST

Newspaper publishers may get a little ammunition this fall when, for the first time, the Audit Bureau of Circulation (ABC) includes online audience estimates. The move was approved during a weekend board meeting and announced today. Dubbed “Audience-FAX,” the new voluntary initiative will collect newspaper-provided data from in-market print, online and and combined readership from Scarborough Research and unique site visitors from Nielsen/Netratings, comScore Media Metrix and server-based analytic tools.

The information will be independently audited by ABC and included in ABC publisher’s statements, audit reports and FAS-FAX. It also will be compiled in a Scarborough-maintained database available to ABC members. It’s slated to launch Nov. 5 and will cover the Sept. 2007 six-month ABC reporting period. For more details, see the release, the prototype publisher’s statement (pdf) and the FAQ.

With declining print readers, the combined look becomes even more important as publishers struggle to present a clearer view of their reach. As Reuters notes, the NAA and its publishers have been pushing for advertisers consider the total. NAA CMO John Kimball says this should make a difference: ‘“There is a sense on the part of advertisers that, with their gold seal of approval, the data is [from] a credible source.” But, as analyst Ken Doctor told the wire service, it’s just a start: “They have to let people know how often people are visiting what kinds of Web sites for what kinds of content. Combining print and online… may be a milestone, but it’s only a first step in what they need to do.”

Page One ads for Newsday, other Tribune papers

Page One ads for Newsday, other Tribune papers

By KEIKO MORRIS


Many of Tribune Co.'s largest daily newspapers are planning to sell ads on their front pages, following a strategy that may break with tradition but, experts say, is fast becoming a trend in the industry.

The Chicago Tribune this week began talking to "key advertising clients" about buying the 1.5-inch strip of space along the bottom of the newspaper, said Michael Dizon, Chicago Tribune communications manager. Friday, Los Angeles Times Publisher David Hiller said that selling front-page advertising space was in the planning stages. And Newsday Publisher Tim Knight said Tuesday that the newspaper will be selling front-page ads to national advertisers. The paper began selling small sticker ads on Page One earlier this year.

Facing heated advertising competition from other media, including Web sites, and a declining readership, newspapers have been grasping for new strategies to boost falling revenue. Representatives from several Tribune Co. newspapers said that this is one way to do that.

"The Chicago Tribune is constantly exploring ways to provide value to our customers but also grow revenue," Dizon said. "One way to accomplish both is to provide section front advertizing."

Front-page ads are now commonplace in The Wall Street Journal and USA Today. The New York Post and the New York Observer also have taken up the practice. But the decision to sell such space still raises concerns about keeping advertising separate from the news among some in the newsroom.

Representatives of the Chicago Tribune and Newsday said that clearly defining advertising from news content is a priority.

"For Newsday, the concern in the newsroom and beyond the newsroom is to make sure we clearly delineate between advertising material and our stories," said Newsday Editor John Mancini. "That discussion has been part of this process, as it always is."

Chicago Tribune Editor Ann Marie Lipinski said that editors debated the issue for over a month and the editors' recommendationto the publisher was not to proceed.

"I didn't think it was in the best interest of the readers," Lipinski said. "I just think their interests are better served on page one in other ways through stories."

Some experts share Lipinski's views but say that such change is inevitable.

Putting ads on Page One "says that there's nothing in our newspaper that's not for sale, even though it's clearly an ad you've sold," said John Morton, of Morton Research, a media consulting firm in Silver Spring, Md. "To me, it breaches the separation of what the newspaper presents and what it sells."

But others say that if the distinction between an advertisement and news content is clear, there should be no ethical problem.

"There are absolutely no cons and absolutely all pros," said Paul Levinson, professor and chairman of Fordham University's communication and media studies department. "It's not as if newspapers are non-commercial, as if they don't have ads throughout the paper." He later added, "My advice to newsrooms is to concentrate on writing the best stories and presenting them in ethical ways with appropriate headlines -- and you should be happy your newspaper has ads."

Other Tribune Co. papers have already begun to sell front-page advertising. The South Florida Sun-Sentinel began offering the advertising space - a small square or a strip at the bottom of the front page - in June and the fist ads started appearing at the end of last month, said the paper's spokesman Kevin Courtney. The Morning Call, based in Allentown, Pa., will debut advertising on both its front page and the front of its B section this Sunday.

Courtney said that advertisers "have reported a great response" and the newspaper isn't aware of any complaints from readers. The ads appear at the bottom of the pages with an emphasis on a brand message to maintain a "clean advertizing look," he said.

"It's a challenging time for advertising and this is a way to help drive revenue . . . and give advertisers different opportunities," Courtney said.
Copyright 2007 Newsday Inc.

Why Print Really Could Die

Why Print Really Could Die
BY Rob Yoegel


For years now I’ve argued during conversations and at conferences that print magazines will never die and that as long as there’s good, compelling, original content, magazines will live happily every after alongside Web 2.0, 3.0, 4.8, etc. Now I’m not so sure.

The more I sit in on our annual publication meetings that involve most of our publishing teams, the more worried I’m getting. As citizen journalists/bloggers tout that they can get their content to more people and faster, traditional media counters with their accuracy, integrity and proper grammar. But what are we doing about the time it takes to publish in print today?

Editorial Calendars
It’s alarming to me that editorial calendars are still a significant part of a trade magazine’s plans. Yes, I know advertising reps need to be able to go on calls and point out certain issues that will cover topics of interest to a potential advertiser, but I’m perplexed as to why the goal wouldn’t be to get that advertiser into each and every issue?

Today is July 13, 2007. An editor-in-chief is busy crafting an editorial calendar to impress a publisher that details stories and special sections up to 16 months away (of course, he could be blogging instead)! Technology has brought on rapid changes that are not affecting just certain markets. I propose the end of a 12-month editorial calendar and recommend that editorial calendars be scrapped altogether, be done seasonally, or — at most — six months in advance.

Circulation Audits
Ripe for my next criticism are circulation audits. I’m only familiar with BPA and admitedly what I know is based only on what I’m told by collegues or read and hear about. That said, I’m still unaware of any initiative to help print publishers obtain and “qualify” a subscriber within one week or, better yet, days of someone saying, “Yes, I want your magazine!”

One publisher recently rolled her eyes during a meeting when a similar topic was discussed saying, “We all know how long it takes,” referring to BPA audit periods. It’s nuts that trade magazines that apparently rely so heavily on an audit to sell advertising deal with folks like BPA that make it expensive, difficult or impossible to be more productive and likely more successful.

Production & Printing
Monthly print production and ad closing schedules remain absurd. Let’s take, for example an October issue of your magazine. How is a deadline to know all of the advertising and editorial that will be included six weeks in advance acceptable? Paper layouts and impositions should not be used, art directors should not need a week to lay out a magazine, and magazine printers that are consolidating and going out of business must work harder to get issues to the postal service.

And how could I finish without mentioning the USPS, which more and more seems to me that it doesn’t want business. When my son or daughter ask me why it costs the same to mail a birthday invitation to the kid down the street as it does to send a letter to Uncle Howie in California, I change the subject to the “birds and the bees.” At least I understand that better.

"That was then but this is now. What are you going to do about it?"

David Sullivan: "That was then but this is now. What are you going to do about it?"
Posted by Sniffer dog at 7/3/2007 7:58 AM and is filed under Innovation,Weaknesses,NEWSPAPERS,Online newspapers,US journalism,journalists,Journalism,Convergence,Trends
SnifferDog writes: This is a column by David Sullivan, a journalist in Philadelphia, written especially for Inksniffer. It's a passionate plea for newspaper people, management and staff, to stop destroying their own business and work out what we need to do to survive and thrive. Please leave comments and throw your ideas for what newspapers might do into the pot. You can call it brainstorming. You can call it open-source innovation. You can call it thinking out loud. But our first steps will be fueled by our own ideas and the things we do with them.

===============================

We need to form a new trade organization: Journalists Who Believe in Printed Newspapers.
JBPN isn’t much as an acronym, so someone else can do better. But it’s become clear that blogs, discussions and articles on the (nearly always hopeless) future of the printed newspaper are not merely composed of those looking on with disinterested analysis. There are People Who Honestly Are Platform Agnostic, and then there are People Who Are Internet Triumphalists, and People Who Just Hate Print, and People Who Hate Print Because They’re All Damn Liberals Over There.
And they get a lot of mileage out of their ideas.

Sure, let a thousand schools of thought contend. But The Next Big Thing always gets more press than the Currently Existing Thing. So those of us who believe that the Currently Existing Thing has a future – here at The Inksniffer, Juan Antonio Giner with Innovation in Newspapers, Alan Mutter with Reflections of a Newsosaur, Samir Husni at Ole Miss, and many many more - need to speak louder.

Yes, the Internet is a wonderful medium and tool for us to learn with and from and develop many journalistic uses for. It’s tres cool. But as was noted on this blog recently – the Internet is part of our future, it is not the future.
Think of cities. At one time Le Corbusier’s Cité Radieuse or Wright’s Broadacre City were the utopian future. Crumbling cities would be torn down and replaced by World’s Fair visions of towers in the garden for the uplifting of mankind. Then Escape From New York and Blade Runner became the future and 1970s-style urban dystopia was inevitable.
In Philadelphia in 2007, I walk on the same streets Washington and Jefferson did and pass some of the buildings they saw. I also pass high-rise towers surrounded by gardens. We have bombed-out districts and vital neighborhoods. Most of what was predicted happened – but only to some extent. None of the predictions became the single, unavoidable answer.

Some of this is the persistence of infrastructure and culture. But also, people who believed in historic buildings acted not just to save them, but to give them new uses so they would be economically viable to save. People who believed in downtowns saw that while the 1950s Main Street was gone, downtowns could prosper with the right mix of residences, culture and businesses.

At the same time, it took downtowns a long time to begin to recover because people had to get over wanting to “bring it back the way it was.” The world we operated in even 10 years ago is gone for good. It’s up to us to position print for the 21st century. Doing so doesn’t mean we didn’t do our jobs in the 20th as well as we could.

So the Internet is not the single, historic, inevitable answer to our future. It's not the single thing that we need to devote all of our time to at the expense of letting the printed paper go to its inevitable death. Because there never is a single answer.

But, of course, we’re scared. And newspaper owners are even more scared. And so as an industry we try to cover every bet. It’s all about search! It’s all about video! It’s all about podcasts! It’s all about blogs! It’s all about social networking! It’s all about citizens’ band radio! It’s all about Betamax! Whoops…

Take just one of those categories, video. TV stations snoozed a long time, but they are getting more serious about the Internet. They have 60 years of experience doing video. We don’t. Their staffs’ only purpose is producing video. We have a few people who can do it and have to parse or pirate resources to get more.

And the Internet for TV is mostly a change in method of transmission. Video on a computer by broadband is pretty much like video on a TV screen. Sure, you can add links and the like, but they're still in the same field.
For newspapers, video is an effective tool – for some stories. And we can make good use of it as an adjunct. But video isn’t our primary business. And we have to watch over the manufacturing and distribution business as well. Video is their entire business.

So who’s my money on to ultimately dominate video on the Web? Hint: They’re not listed in the E&P Year Book.

We like to think of ourselves as in the news business or the media business, following Theodore Levitt’s Harvard Business Review article, “Marketing Myopia,” in 1960:

“The railroads did not stop growing because the need for passenger and freight transportation declined. That grew. The railroads are in trouble today not because that need was filled by others (cars, trucks, airplanes, and even telephones) but because it was not filled by the railroads themselves. They let others take customers away from them because they assumed themselves to be in the railroad business rather than in the transportation business. The reason they defined their industry incorrectly was that they were railroad oriented instead of transportation oriented; they were product oriented instead of customer oriented....”

And from that many would draw the conclusion that we are wrong to see ourselves in the newspaper business and whether there is a print product is irrelevant and thus comes the inevitable triumph of all things Internet, because the railroads should just have junked all their trains and gotten out of that 19th century vestige known as the railroad business.

But less known is that later in the article Levitt said:

“As transporters, the railroads still have a good chance for very considerable growth. They are not limited to the railroad business as such (though in my opinion rail transportation is potentially a much stronger transportation medium than is generally believed). What the railroads lack is not opportunity, but some of the same managerial imaginativeness and audacity that made them great.”

In other words, there was nothing inherently wrong with the railroad business as long as you saw it as a part of the transportation business. Once there was more than one way to get to Bugletown, saying “We have one train to Bugletown that leaves at 3:13 a.m., and you’re welcome to buy a ticket on it between 4 and 6 p.m. the previous day” no longer worked. But saying “close down the trains and put everything on trucks” wouldn’t work either, because the railroads knew little about the trucking business. The point was to see how you could serve the customer’s needs, and as a railroad, your strong point in doing so was the railroad business. You just could not offer “this is how we do it” as your only answer to the problem. But someone else could do a better job of putting it on a truck.

Delivering breaking news on the Internet is a good thing and fun and a service to democracy and we should do it because someone is going to anyway. Using the Internet to expand and enhance the reach and influence of the newspaper and let you see things you can’t see in print is a good thing. That is seeing the newspaper business as part of the media business.

But thinking the newspaper business can somehow “transition” to being a primarily or exclusively Internet business runs into the fact that for some years, many years, decades – the time differs, but even those who want to yell “Stop the Presses” for the last time most fervently acknowledge it – most of our cash flow, most of our business, is going to be print-based.

So a newspaper company that is having to draw most of its money from its “legacy” business, and pay a huge amount of attention to the logistics and production of that business, and that has prospered and survived because it is successful in that business, is somehow going to completely change its core competency and have the funds and resources and staff to produce the Next Big Thing in the Internet business that is going to replace all that cash flow, restore profitability, bring down manna from heaven? It defies rationality. Companies whose primary business from the get-go is the Internet are going to do that.

Probably most of us know that in our hearts, but then are faced with the fact that our leaders then have to go before investors and say, “Um, well, yeah, actually, the print-newspaper business will still be a good business, but it will be a smaller business and will never have 45-percent margin cash cows again.”
Sell! Fire the board! Fire the CEO!

So we say that it’s all about the Internet and just give us time, give us time, and we’ll get there. And then there’s not as much money to improve the core business, and then the Internet Triumphalists say: "You’re dead meat, and you just haven’t noticed that your legs have turned green."

Which is very tempting to say if you have found in the Internet a wonderful place where people will flock to listen to you unedited, and get into immediate arguments with you, and create other blogs to discuss or praise or disparage you, and link to you, and you have infinite space to express fully your youness, and not chafe at the restrictions of editors and space, and when all of us can be there, we will say to ourselves, what a wonderful world.

And that world will exist, and money will be made in it; and I’m not knocking it, because this very post is part of that world; but it's just another part of the media business. It’s not the newspaper business and it’s not going to kill it.

Another false analogy often used is the buggy whip business. The buggy whip business didn’t die because people started using Star Trek transporters to get from place to place. It died because people replaced the horse with an engine. But the buggy is still there – four wheels, seats, cargo space, paint, dashboard, steering and brake mechanisms. The buggy business became the auto business, in many cases literally, because it was the same business, with a motor. The buggy business didn’t become the airplane business, even though both transport things. Now, the buggy whip business is more like the syndicated-bridge-column business. That little subset of business may indeed die. But we’re not in the buggy whip business.

We who believe that the printed newspaper 1) has a firm place in the 21st century and 2) anchors the brand under which whatever we may want to do on the Internet or anything else can stand out, have got to change our thinking. We have to put the dustbin-of-history panic out of our heads and, more importantly, others’. We have to stop assuming that any blogger who writes “I will never use a printed newspaper again” somehow stands for uncounted millions in an inevitable dialectic.

Fine, let him never read a printed newspaper again. Find the ones who want to read newspapers, and give them a Newspaper They Want. "They Want" meaning, they’re not going to just eat their vegetables because daddy journalist says it's good for them. "A Newspaper" meaning, there are still some vegetables on the plate. It’s printed and it’s got stories next to ads and it’s got a lead and someone runs it off on a press and it winds up at your home or office or corner store.

If we’re honest, we’ve known for 30 years what we need to do to make a better newspaper business. We just don’t want to do it and hoped we wouldn’t have to.

Short-sighted management is doing its part to commit newspaper suicide. (Laying off too many people is one way. Lousy reproduction on flimsy paper is another. Throwing newspapers on the street in the snow and expecting readers in 2007 to want to walk out in their slippers and pick them up at the curb is the worst.)
Journalists need to stop aiding and abetting them with our own self-destructive urges.

Students in marketing are told: You are not the customer. The fact that you want to go into marketing means you are different than the customer. Journalists go into the profession with the belief that the reader really is, or wants to be, or should be, like them.

Journalists have to overcome their contempt for readers who have less than noble motivations or interests, and work to put out a product people will want to buy. (Actually, journalists don’t have contempt for The Readers. They are proud to serve The Readers. But they have contempt for individual readers. It’s kind of like the communists distinguishing between the People and the people.)

As one colleague of mine put it in 1984: "Wouldn’t it be great if we could lose 9/10ths of our circulation, so that we could write just for people who understand what we’re doing?" Well, we’re on our way. And it would have been great, except losing 9/10ths of the staff wasn’t part of that bargain, I’m sure.

Readers have said for years that they don’t like jumps. Al Neuharth took them at their word and said one jump per section, and it is hard to believe that is not one reason that USA Today became the largest paper in America. Journalists looked at USA Today and said, well, we wouldn’t want to read that. USA Today isn’t written for journalists. It’s just written by journalists.

Readers have said for decades that they want local news – about events in their communities, about new businesses, happenings in the schools. Our responses in many cases:
1) We don’t care about that, so why should you? We didn’t go to college so we could write about bagel shops. Stupid reader.
2) We have things we care more about, like “Rationing of fuel roils Iranians.” Sorry, no bagel space.
3) OK, we might cover things like that, but only by using our college-educated journalists to write stories about whether the growth in bagel shops means that urban Jewish culture is more acceptable in the heartland. Maybe then we could run a list. Maybe, if we can find a clerk to compile it.
4) Whoops, we can’t afford to do that anymore, so, we’re going to stop doing that. We will still run “Rationing of fuel roils Iranians,” though. Some day you’ll thank us.
5) Oh, hey, but if you want to post that stuff that you seem to care about for free on our Web site, go ahead! We’ll even tell some people in the newsroom it’s their job to watch over it. But don’t expect most of them to get promoted. That will happen to the guy interviewing roiled Iranian motorists.

Readers have for decades loved comics. Every time we have to shrink the page size, we shrink the comics rather than eat into that “vital newshole,” and then say to the readers: We had no choice.

Readers have said for years that they want standing elements to be in the same place every day. Sometimes advertising wants to sell an ad there, but sometimes we just get bored with doing the baseball standings the same way, so, we change it. Readers call and complain. Stupid readers.

Readers have told us for years that they don’t have time to read the whole paper. A sorry excuse, we respond; look at all we do for you? If we could, we’d give you even more to read, and you darn well better be grateful. After all, everyone we know reads the New York Times. Does anyone we know ever say the New York Times should be smaller?

Readers have told us for years that our newspapers are dull. Journalists have told each other for years that they don’t read most of their own newspapers. Wonder why?

Readers have said for years that the paper looks crappy. Maybe when the Times has a front page that looks like the Virginian-Pilot’s it will be OK to be different. Until then most of our examples come from overseas. Take a look at Giner’s redesign of Eleftheros Typos. Take a look at the new business newspaper Mint, designed by Mario Garcia. These are products designed with readers in mind first, not with upholding journalistic tradition. What, you wonder what we can learn from Greece or India? Reminds me of Ronald Reagan flying over Sao Paulo. He looks at this modern city of skyscrapers and saying, "Gee, I didn’t know you had things like this down here".

Readers have more recently been telling us that one product doesn’t fit all needs. I am always amazed in our few remaining two-newspaper cities to see journalists occasionally advocate merging the papers on the basis of: instead of sending two reporters to cover the same meeting, one of those reporters could be doing something really, really substantive, like spending six months on a takeout project about Abyssinian wolves. State it here again: The reader is not us.


Note as well that the question is not: "What are you going to do in print to get it back up to 550,000 paid circulation and a newsroom staff of 675."

The newspaper business will never be what it was before the Internet. It is not what it was before cable news. It is not what it was before TV. It is not what it was before radio.

But then theater is not what it was before movies. Painting is not what it was before photography. Concerts are not what they were before recordings. They’re all still there, though they’re different. People enjoy them. They buy tickets and go to galleries.

And printed newspapers – different, yet still the same - will be there too, unless we really, truly wish them to go away.
Start the presses.

Digital Dramatics: Staff Changes Reflect Magazines' New Direction

Digital Dramatics: Staff Changes Reflect Magazines' New Direction
by Erik Sass, Monday, Jul 2, 2007 7:00 AM ET


Big things are afoot in the top ranks of the leading magazine publishers. Personnel changes indicate the growing importance of digital operations to traditionally print-focused companies.


Vivek Shah -- formerly head of digital publishing for Time Inc.'s Finance and Business Network -- was bumped up to president of the division on Friday, replacing Chris Poleway. Last week, Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia named former Yahoo sales chief Wenda Harris Millard its new president of media.


Millard's move to MSLO from Yahoo was part of a larger game of musical (and disappearing) chairs at both companies. At Yahoo, the display ad sales division headed by Millard is merging with the company's search ad business. Meanwhile At MSLO, president and publisher Lauren Stanich is stepping into an advisory role.


As the new president of media, Millard will oversee MSLO's publishing, Internet, and broadcast concerns. Brand matriarch Stewart predicted: "Under Wenda, I expect many new and beneficial developments, including an intensified focus on our Web site, more cross-platform content initiatives and international expansion."


Her new role actually marks Millard's return to the publishing world. Most recently, from 2000-2001, she was chief Internet officer for tech and gaming publisher Ziff Davis Media, as well as president of Ziff Davis Internet. In that role, Millard helped launch the smaller publisher's move to digital distribution. The business disruptions caused by the Internet affected Ziff Davis earlier than other publishers, due to its Web-savvy readership and tech-focused editorial mission. After a prolonged rough patch, the company returned to profitability in the last year.


While MSLO is doing well on both its print and digital sides, things aren't quite so rosy at Time Inc.'s Finance and Business Network, where its name-brand business mags have been struggling. Shah, seen as a rising star in the company, has a challenging mission. Can he bring his online success to the network's struggling print operations?



2006 was a hard year for the individual titles -- Fortune, Money, Business 2.0 and Fortune Small Business -- and 2007 is shaping up to be even worse, according to figures from the Publisher's Information Bureau. In the first quarter, Fortune's ad pages were down 12.9%, compared to the same period last year, Money's tumbled 33.2%, Business 2.0 dropped 21.8%, and Fortune Small Business sagged 6.4%.


Shah's online credentials are impressive. He led CNNMoney.com to a triumphant 2006, when Nielsen//NetRatings declared it the top business Web site in terms of unique visitors, page views and time spent. (It also received the award for best business and financial Web site from OMMA, owned by MediaPost.) But it remains to be seen whether Shah's magic will translate from online to print.



One possibility: Shah isn't expected to restore the print operations to their former glory, but rather to slim them down -- perhaps even transform them into useful adjuncts to a Web-centered distribution strategy. Over the last couple years, Time Inc. has shown itself more than willing to slash magazines' guaranteed rate base -- as it did with flagship Time magazine in September 2006 -- or dump print operations entirely.



Teen People got the axe in July 2006, and Life magazine folded in March of this year. The Teen People brand was supposed to live on with its Web site, but the online presence was nixed earlier this year.

Media conglomerates in the past, panel says

Media conglomerates in the past, panel says
By Georg Szalai

June 27, 2007

NEW YORK -- Is the heyday of media and entertainment conglomerates behind us?

A panel of industry analysts and bankers discussed this and other deal making questions as part of a PricewaterhouseCoopers event here Tuesday, with several of them arguing that conglomeratization has no real benefits, especially in the digital age.

"Consolidation in the old media world destroys value," said Laura Martin, founder and CEO of Media Metrics LLC. "They are buying stuff (and audiences) because they don't know what else to do."

She argued that online and digital deals with a monetization rather than a traffic focus are key, citing Google as a firm that has made smart acquisition decisions, while signaling that media giants are often otherwise inclined.

Martin also said that the young technology entrepreneurs that make a difference in today's world want cool and hip work environments. "That's not the big media companies," she said.


Former Morgan Stanley entertainment and media analyst Richard Bilotti said that consolidation can at times create scale advantages, such as when News Corp. expanded its TV station group in recent years to reach duopolies and what he called "superb margins."

But he argued that the Walt Disney Co.'s acquisition of Pixar -- while strategically positive -- may have taken a form that didn't benefit Disney shareholders much. Bilotti argued the price paid was fairly high for the CG-animation studio. "CG looks like it is in the seventh inning," he said on a bearish note, suggesting Disney could have instead sold Pixar its own studio operation and then taken a stake in it.

Gamco Investors portfolio manager Lawrence Haverty said the Internet and cable and satellite TV spaces are all sectors where consolidation makes sense due to "natural economies of scale."

PwC is predicting continued merger, acquisition and alliance activity in the media and entertainment space.

"With content now distributed on multiple platforms, content producers/providers, distributors and technology companies are looking to expand their presence among the proliferating channels, resulting in an increase in merger and acquisition activity," PwC's latest "Global Entertainment and Media Outlook: 2007-2011," which was formally launched at Tuesday's event, states.

Last year, media and entertainment deal volume exceeded $70 billion, according to PwC.

And 2007 is "on track to be the greatest year in volume since 2001," when the AOL-Time Warner merger happened, Thomas Rooney, partner, transaction services at PwC, told attendees Tuesday. PwC expects more than 1,000 sector deals with about $167 billion in deal volume across various sub-sectors pending already.

However, Tuesday's panelists were also largely bearish on the value of partnerships, arguing that they limit companies' flexibility and create the risk of dysfunctional marriages.

The experts, however, differed in their takes on the increased role of private equity groups in recent media industry deals.

Haverty predicted that "we're heading for a train wreck" given the rise in leveraged buyouts that boost debt levels for the acquired firms and recent upticks in deal prices. "We've seen this movie before."

Bilotti though said he prefers such deals over ones that see publicly traded companies dilute their earnings by issuing a lot of stock to finance deals.

The PwC report simply highlights today's importance of PE players for the sector.

"Private equity is having a significant impact on the entertainment and media industry," Rooney said. Of deals announced year-to-date, 74, or 13%, involve PE firms, while they have a 54% share in deal volume where announced, he told event attendees Tuesday.



Links referenced within this article

Find this article at:
http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/hr/content_display/business/news/e3ifb6d40236328714d3f3bb0967ad1642b

Study: Internet 2nd Most Essential Medium, But #1 in Coolness

Study: Internet 2nd Most Essential Medium, But #1 in Coolness
by Les Luchter, Wednesday, Jun 27, 2007 6:00 AM ET

THE INTERNET HAS PASSED RADIO to become Americans' second "most essential" medium and swapped places with TV as the "most cool and exciting medium" since the subjects were last studied five years ago, reported Edison Media Research.


Edison's "Internet and Multimedia 2007" study, conducted this past winter with Arbitron, reported that 36% of consumers age 12 and over chose TV as the "most essential" medium in their lives, followed by 33% choosing the Internet, 17% radio, and 10% newspapers.

In 2002, TV was also ranked "most essential" by 39% of respondents, followed by 26% for radio and 20% for the Internet.

Interestingly, the Internet also placed second when this year's respondents were asked to name the "least essential" medium, this time placing behind newspapers.

Here, 35% found newspapers "least essential," followed by 24% for the Internet, and 18% for both TV and radio. In 2002, the Internet had topped the "least essential" list, at 33%.

Finally, the Internet and TV swapped places in the category of "most cool and exciting medium," with the Internet getting this designation from 38% of respondents in 2007 versus 25% in 2002, and TV from 35%, down from 48% just five years ago.

Study: Internet 2nd Most Essential Medium, But #1 in Coolness

Study: Internet 2nd Most Essential Medium, But #1 in Coolness
by Les Luchter, Wednesday, Jun 27, 2007 6:00 AM ET

THE INTERNET HAS PASSED RADIO to become Americans' second "most essential" medium and swapped places with TV as the "most cool and exciting medium" since the subjects were last studied five years ago, reported Edison Media Research.


Edison's "Internet and Multimedia 2007" study, conducted this past winter with Arbitron, reported that 36% of consumers age 12 and over chose TV as the "most essential" medium in their lives, followed by 33% choosing the Internet, 17% radio, and 10% newspapers.

In 2002, TV was also ranked "most essential" by 39% of respondents, followed by 26% for radio and 20% for the Internet.

Interestingly, the Internet also placed second when this year's respondents were asked to name the "least essential" medium, this time placing behind newspapers.

Here, 35% found newspapers "least essential," followed by 24% for the Internet, and 18% for both TV and radio. In 2002, the Internet had topped the "least essential" list, at 33%.

Finally, the Internet and TV swapped places in the category of "most cool and exciting medium," with the Internet getting this designation from 38% of respondents in 2007 versus 25% in 2002, and TV from 35%, down from 48% just five years ago.

On the Record: They Aren't Just Like Us

On the Record: They Aren't Just Like Us
by Mike Bloxham
http://publications.mediapost.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=Articles.san&s=61095&Nid=31735&p=204904

The very fact you are reading this article and this magazine is evidence that you are - in the nicest possible way - a freak of nature. That is not to impugn either you or the goodly publishers of Media magazine or my fellow contributors (all of whom are worthy, wonderful and intelligent people).

Rather, it is a fact based on the sheer amount of time we spend contemplating and working in the world of media in all its forms (and for those of you bridling at the very notion of being a freak for reading this, console yourselves with the contemplation of what that makes me, the author of this piece). In short, this single-mindedness makes us so unlike the people we dedicate ourselves to reaching, moving, engaging, motivating, persuading and influencing that we are - in comparison - decidedly abnormal (freakish).

Consider for example, your average work day (probably at least eight hours and generally more). For all of that time you will be rigorously focused on planning, executing and evaluating campaigns. You'll be buying or selling media. You'll be pitching new business or being on the receiving end of pitches. The list goes on, and all the while you will be dipping in and out of the stream of online articles dropping into your inbox to inform your ever-evolving perspective of the fast-moving media landscape and all that takes place within it.

Your Media Day is very much made up of the business of media itself (as well as whatever content you consume via your channels of choice). For your consumers, however, the Media Day almost certainly involves a great deal of media, but they are all about content, not the business end of things. They care more about last night's ball game, the reality show of choice and the day's morning news. They also care about their kids' education, their prospects at work, their retirement and what the family holiday will be this year.

In short, they don't really care about media itself - just what it does for them. We, on the other hand, care a lot. And that's how it should be. It's the willingness to focus so much effort and time on the business of media that makes you good at what you do. The catch, though, is that it also helps to create a divide between practitioners and consumers that can be almost impossible to bridge.

Too often one hears statements from the media community that suggest an implicit belief that consumers are "just like us" - as well-informed and equally motivated to engage with media as those of us that are paid to. How many times have you heard that "everyone" is using a Blackberry incessantly, watching videos on their iPods, blogging, spending half their lives in virtual worlds, etc? If these kind of statements had been true, then the on-demand world would already be all-encompassing, every household would have a DVR, TV would be interactive from top to bottom and most retail outlets would have become a thing of the past.

Those with a vested interest in these things happening want to find evidence for them doing so. But we have to avoid the mass delusion of the dot-com bubble. As so many more platforms and capabilities emerge and reach a potential audience, we must strive to avoid falling into the trap of believing that the simple fact of availability will lead to inevitable and habitual large-scale use.

A case in point is the video-capable iPod. In a story in this magazine a few months ago, various commentators expressed surprise that a piece of Nielsen research found only 2 percent of a sample of 400 iPod users watched video on their device. Doubt was cast on the methodology, partly because the number of video downloads from iTunes would logically indicate iPod-based viewing. But consumers are inconvenient in their habits and as research will show, many of the movies downloaded from iTunes never make it off the pc or Mac, where they are viewed without the need for a further file transfer. To many users, this is a convenient route to what they want (the movie), while the iPod still performs perfectly well as an audio device.

Though there's unprecedented change happening in the media world now, it's not all happening at the same rate. While new devices and capabilities seem to come through almost every week and companies rush to commercialize, consumers don't always follow at the desired pace. Sometimes they even adopt unexpected patterns of use that leave companies playing catch-up. It's our ability to empathize with consumers that will enable us to turn expertise to practical advantage rather than be bogged down by our own perceptions.

Mike Bloxham is director of insight and research at the Center for Media Design, Ball State University. (mbloxham@bsu.edu)

Are You Getting Any? Ad Spending From Billions To Trillions

Are You Getting Any? Ad Spending From Billions To Trillions


PricewaterhouseCoopers recently published a report entitled “Global Entertainment and Media Outlook: 2007-2011.” It anticipates the growth rate annually to be 6.4% resulting in $2 trillion dollars to be spent in 2011.

Internet advertising dollars are projected to surpass spending on newspaper publishing by 2009. PwC expects Internet ad spending to grow from $177 billion in 2006 to $332 billion in 2011, which predicts a 13.5% annual growth rate.

Although the United States has the largest industry, it is also the slowest growing market with a 5.3% AGR tapping $754 billion in 2011. Asia-Pacific is marked as the fastest growing currently holding a 13.5% AGR.

Over the next five years, the majority of the growth in the industry is to come from online and wireless digital media. Global advertising will increase at a 5.4% annual growth rate from an estimated $407 billion in 2006 to $530 billion in 2011. Five year projections show online/digital and mobile fields worldwide to increase to $153 billion. Broadband households will grow from 240 million to 540 million and wireless subscribers are predicted to increase from 2.3 billion to 3.4 billion globally.

PwC has said that in terms of regions, economic and media/entertainment growth will continue to foster the importance of India, China(BRIC), Brazil and Russia. “Content, distribution and technology companies need to aggressively seek out new relationships to accommodate the shift towards convergence,” said Jim O’Shaughnessy, global chairman of PwC’s entertainment and media practice

Asia-Pacific spending on distribution of TV programming on mobile handsets is expected to increase from $26 million in 2006 to $6.5 billion in 2011. At 14.7%this is three times the 5.5% growth rate projected for the rest of the world.

For papers, online's still a world apart

For papers, online's still a world apart

Media buyers want to see integrated ad packages

By Lisa Snedeker
Jun 25, 2007


For the longest time, newspapers were confused by the web, and frankly annoyed, irked that they were having to post stories for free that print subscribers were having to pay for.

But most publishers have moved a long way in understanding the longer-term strategic value of their web sites.

While they're still not sure how or whether internet advertising will ever make up for losses of print revenue, they know they must invest. They need to build up their online offerings, and they must also integrate them with their print editions, making them that much more attractive to advertisers.

Yet very few papers have yet to pull it off, just a handful. And the fear now is that time is running out.

A new JupiterResearch study on media consumption shows that people are spending more time online but they are doing so at the expense of newspapers. They are going elsewhere. The worry is that advertisers will follow.

The value of integrating print and web is in being able to offer advertisers combo deals that tie them into the paper. That means deals that are flexible, easy to understand, and priced in a way that makes them that much more attractive than anything the competition can come up with.

It's doable. The devil seems to be in the transition. All but a few papers continue to sell print and online separately, through different departments, each with its own rate card.

“I don’t know that newspapers have it 100 percent right yet. They are still trying to figure out structure and price to make those multimedia buys," says Randy Bennett, vice president of audience and new business development for the Newspaper Association of America.

And Bennett allows that there's a real need for it. “From the advertisers’ side, there’s particular interest in trying to change the media mix and moving money online,” he says.

A recent survey by the Newspaper National Network found that 74 percent of their customers felt newspapers should offer integrated packages. NNN sells advertising for more than 1,500 newspapers across the country.

A similar Media Life survey a year ago found much the same thing. Media buyers regarded them a top priority, and a far bigger story, way ahead of the circulation issues that dominate so much of the coverage of newspapers.

The absence of integrated ad deals was a major source of frustration for media buyers.

Little seems to have changed in a year.

“We are not being approached with combo packages as of now,” says Mike Monroe, vice president of media and advertising operations at Macy’s, which advertises in four dozen newspapers and is one of the Los Angeles' largest advertisers. “Frankly, more times than not, we are the ones pushing bundling a print campaign with their (newspapers) online property.”

There are exceptions, of course: The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal and The Tampa Tribune are among those cited for offering integrated advertising packages across print and online platforms.

Most newspapers continue to see online as value-added, something to tack onto a print buy. Print is where the big dollars are, and there's where the interest is too.

As Bennett suggests, the problem is working out the details of a truly integrated buy, in which media buyers could move and choose from column A and column B and shift dollars back and forth as plans changed.

That's a lot harder to create than a bundled package with a single price and no flexibility, which is exactly what buyers do not want, says Jason Klein, president and chief executive officer of the Newspaper National Network.

“The print and the online package should not be stapled together but rather built using elastic bands for flexibility," Klein says.

“There is pressure from consumers and the market that newspapers have to be integrated to build that, even if it means they have to retrain their work force,” Klein says. “Change is never easy, but it clearly needs to be done.”

But one buyer at a top agency believes things have improved. She's Jouette Travis, executive vice president and managing director of Dallas-based Carat USA.

“Newspapers are getting better about selling combined print/online packages, and we are responding by having our internal newspaper and online teams make joint evaluations,” she says. "This has resulted in some new programs and begins to pave the way for a migration to the future of newspapers. It's very exciting to see publishers getting into this marketplace."