A Beloved Mag's Painful Lessons

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ "Heard on the Web" Media Intelligence: Courtesy of BoSacks and The Precision Media Group America's Oldest e-newsletter est.1993 BoSacks on the Web The BoSacks Blog Spot Click here to forward this email ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"We want only loyal workers who are grateful from the bottom of their hearts for the bread which we let them earn" Gustav Krupp A Beloved Mag's Painful Lessons What media companies can learn from the rise and fall of the much-beloved teen mag Sassy http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/07_2 0/b4034031.htm Not every magazine that rarely made a buck and died young gets a wet kiss of a book written about it, so tip your hat to Sassy (1988-96), the teen title whose story is recounted and memorialized in Kara Jesella and Marisa Meltzer's new How Sassy Changed My Life. During Sassy's brief, underfunded existence, it shot to a circulation of 800,000 pretty quickly, but didn't score ads as easily (and went through three owners). Sassy came and went while a subset of young America remade media via indie music labels and photocopied 'zines. Despite its glossy-mag garb, Sassy resonated with this culture, which gave the mag a similar secret-handshake signifier of status among its acolytes. There is something heartbreakingly familiar, something very "After School Special," in Sassy's saga. Smart young outsiders start something, do a bang-up job-and remain marginalized by the mainstream. Sassy taught a difficult lesson that remains valid: What's culturally significant can be lousy business, and often requires a pivot from a property's founding vision to be successful. For those who bonded most intensely with Sassy, this lesson was all the more painful because that bond was so deeply felt. PLAINLY GEARED TO OUTSIDER TEENS, Sassy was born in a pre-Web world, when there were no fancy interactive ways to find like-minded souls, back when such teens needed a campfire like Sassy's to encircle. These teens found each other with a giddy relief, and also shared a grievance against those not in their club. Both qualities were never far from Sassy's surface. These traits, and being simpatico with the indie movement, endeared it to twenty- and thirtysomething white urban hipsters, too. This ensured geek-chic status, but even some Sassy-ites wondered how hipster cred helped a magazine intended for a mass-market audience of teen girls. "I don't think it's the only factor, but one could argue that Sassy cooled itself to death," says Kim France, a former staff writer who now edits shopping magazine Lucky. There are media properties that mark cultural moments and ones that go on to become good businesses, but one cold reality about mass media is that what draws purists and early adopters is often not what equals boffo box office. Histories of other zeitgeisty magazines confirm this. Wired, which I admire, is today far removed from the utopianism and outré layouts of its early issues. Now, much of it is about business and tech toys. Today's Rolling Stone is light-years away from its overtly underground beginnings. (Its debut issue was packaged with a roach clip.) Sassy's turn toward more mainstream mores was clumsy and late, courtesy of an owner that in essence (foolishly) fired all veteran staffers. Sassy's founding editor, Jane Pratt, who now hosts a talk show on Sirius (SIRI ) Satellite Radio, tweaked her formula when she started young-women's title Jane. "I made a conscious decision to do a different kind of magazine-one that was an alternative to what was out there, but in such a way to be appealing to advertisers," she says today. A rare recent teen-mag hit, CosmoGirl!, hit it big by wrapping Sassy's geek- friendly vibe in a more mainstream sheen. Today, an autumnal chill has descended on teen magazines as readers flock to the Web. Two of Sassy's three main rivals, Teen and YM, are gone, as are Teen People and Elle Girl, two titles that followed Sassy. But nothing, then or since, looked or sounded like Sassy. (Perhaps they learned from Sassy's failure to expand a tightly proscribed niche.) Pratt recalls conversations with Sassy-ites in which everyone agreed it's better to be a fondly remembered, defunct magazine than "an O.K. magazine that sticks around for a long time." In the end, Sassy was a band, not a brand. A moment, not a media business. And what cultural moment is more keenly remembered than one that's irretrievably lost-one you can pine for forever, like a lovesick teen alone in the night? For Jon Fine's blog on media and advertising, go to www.businessweek.com/innovate/FineOnMedia Original Source Link

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Circulation figures don't tell whole story

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"Luck is not chance - It's Toil - Fortune's expensive smile Is earned" Emily Dickinson (American Poet who has been called the New England mystic, 1830-1886) Circulation figures don't tell whole story by Earl Maucker Editor http://www.sun- sentinel.com/news/opinion/columnists/sfl- emcol06may06,0,1139889,print.column Back in the 1960s when I was a paperboy for the Alton Telegraph, I used to groan each time I received a new subscription order. One more paper to deliver, I thought, more weight in the bag, more time on the route -- less time for play. Ah, for the good old days of circulation growth. Fast forward to 2007 and once again we're reminded in stories this week that circulation of newspapers across the U.S. is in decline. Pretty dismal stuff, it would seem. But wait. Let's take a deeper look at the facts before we start writing off the future of newspapers. Yes, circulation figures are dropping in most regions of the United States. That's hardly surprising in today's environment, with so much media fragmentation, so many ways to get news and information. In reality, some of the circulation declines are deliberate, as publishers seek value from papers they do distribute. More and more newspaper companies are limiting or eliminating entirely the newspapers they give away for free or at a major discount because, generally, those newspapers are not well read. But beyond the number of newspapers in the market, experts and analysts in the business say newspaper advertisers care more about readership, which measures whether people are actually reading the paper instead of tossing it into the recycle bin without so much as a glance. Our focus here at the Sun-Sentinel has been on home delivery or single copy sales, areas where we believe there is substantial value. The agency that monitors circulation of newspapers is the Audit Bureau of Circulation, which, in my opinion, is still back in the 1960s in the way they count and report numbers. Sure, they break it down even to the zip code level. They calculate circulation in the primary region and secondary regions of the newspaper's market, individually paid subscriptions, bulk sales, third-party sales and a host of other metrics including total readers of the daily newspaper. But what they don't report is the total audience a media company like the Sun-Sentinel reaches through its various publications and electronic channels. Even with fewer copies on the street, our readership is up from what it was two years ago. The published audits do not take into account the impact of the Internet or subsidiary publications. We, like most major newspaper companies, are major players in this relatively new, still-evolving medium. For us, it's Sun-Sentinel.com Which, by the way, has grown in audience traffic every year it's been in operation. "We're seeing good audience growth online. So far this year, our Sun-Sentinel.com page views -- one way we measure our audience -- are up more than 12 percent over the same time in 2006," said Kathy Skipper, vice president & general manager for Sun- Sentinel Interactive. "We believe several things are contributing to this growth -- regular news updates, more video and more databases that are focused on helping consumers. Combined with millions of page views per month on our Internet site and the distribution of our main newspaper, plus niche products like the Jewish Journal, City & Shore magazine, City Link, Teen Link and other products, our total audience reach has grown tremendously over the past few years. "We recognize that in order to reach our audience effectively we must serve our customers on multiple platforms," said our General Manager Howard Greenberg. "Through Forum Publishing we have the largest family of weekly community publications in South Florida as well as the largest Spanish language audience in the Broward-Palm Beach market through el Sentinel, our Spanish language weekly." No one is denying that newspapers are dealing with enormous challenges in today's world of fragmented media and the influence of the Internet. But newspapers and the journalists that work on them have a healthy future ahead, as we transform our business to the new world of multiple media. The good news is that the appetite for news has never been more robust. We intend to serve our customers the way they like it. Original Source Link

Responses to all Articles and Bo-Rants are greatly encouraged and may be included in " BoSacks Readers Speak Out" "Heard on the Web" Media Intelligence: Courtesy of The Precision Media Group. Print, Publishing and Media Consultants Contact - Robert M. Sacks 518-329-7994 PO Box 53, Copake NY 12516

Publishing Links and News ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ BoSacks Blog The New BoSacks Archives Publishing Executive Magazine The Official Site of Samir "Mr. Magazine" Husni The New Single Copy Who Is BoSacks? PIB REVENUE & Pages

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Marketers to Mags: Give Guarantees or We'll Walk

Marketers to Mags: Give Guarantees or We'll Walk
Exclusive: MediaVest Wields $900 Million to Land Issue-By-Issue Circ Promises
By Nat Ives
http://adage.com/mediaworks/article?article_id=116544

NEW YORK (AdAge.com) -- Kraft, Wal-Mart and Coca-Cola are among the marketers that are prepared to stop spending in magazines if they don't get issue-by-issue circulation guarantees.
Robin Steinberg, senior VP-director of print investment and activation at MediaVest, insists that magazines should make issue-by-issue circulation guarantees to marketers.

Media buyers long have been frustrated with many magazines' insistence on guaranteeing only average paid circulation -- instead of guaranteeing the paid circulation of specific issues in which ads actually appear. But now MediaVest USA has gathered support from heavyweight clients to make issue-specific guarantees a reality.

"Let me be clear that I am a print champion," said Robin Steinberg, senior VP-director of print investment and activation at MediaVest. "However, we believe that all publishers should make this guarantee, and we will walk away from business for those who don't." MediaVest spent about $900 million in consumer magazines on behalf of its clients last year.

New leverage
The new power play reflects the growing demand for precision metrics in the media business, a drive fueled by an internet model that seems to promise instant accountability. It is also, though, part of a broader regime change in the industry, one that has delivered dominance to advertisers from media owners. Marketers now have too many options and have found too many ways to sell themselves, beyond traditional advertising, for publishers or broadcasters to keep setting the agenda. There's a reason commercial ratings on TV have arrived at last: Advertisers seem to finally have enough leverage to force the issue.

"As somebody who's ultimately paying the bills, what I'm looking for is accountability and transparency," said Donna Campanella, executive director for global media at Avon, a MediaVest client. "We want to make sure that the impressions we were hoping to get for a particular issue have been delivered. Because what we advertise is coordinated with what's in our brochures, timeliness is important."

"In this age when there are so many choices out there, particularly in the digital arena, traditional media needs to step up and really prove their value, good or bad," Ms. Campanella added.

But change still doesn't come easily or instantly. Time Inc., the country's biggest magazine publisher, guarantees most advertisers an average paid circulation across the issues in which they buy space; if you buy into five issues, the company promises those five issues will achieve a certain average paid circulation.

Pressure
Anything else would only hike costs for everyone, said John Squires, senior exec VP at Time Inc., because publishers would pump up print runs to make sure not one issue falls even a percentage point shy of its rate base. "They want all guarantees and all protections at all times," he said of marketers and media buyers. "That just kind of forces a completely unrealistic expectation on our business. We do have to concentrate on some efficiencies."

Publishers don't get any reward when magazines sell more copies than guaranteed, Mr. Squires noted. And swings of 50,000 copies in newsstand sales at magazines that consistently sell millions can't be the top challenge in marketing right now. "In these times, in this world, with the kind of competitive pressure that there is on publishers already and the intense pressure on rates, is this really a big issue?" he asked.

Ms. Steinberg said advertisers need protection against tactics publishers can use to meet average guarantees. A few titles have made up for shortfalls early in the standard six-month reporting periods by drastically increasing their use of copies -- called "verified" by auditors -- that are distributed in hair salons, doctors' offices and so on. "Verified circulation was put forth with the notion that publishers would use and place these copies strategically and with transparency," she said. "However, we believe the proper use is not taking place, and the current use is to make up for rate base underdelivery from newsstand decline."

A challenge from Hachette
Hachette Filipacchi Media U.S., publisher of magazines such as Elle and Car and Driver, already has started selling its men's enthusiast titles against issue-specific guarantees and is considering doing the same across its portfolio next year. But if Jack Kliger, president-CEO, is going to meet the buyers' challenge, he has one of his own for them.

"Issue-specific circulation-based pricing, to me, is an interim step to issue-specific audience-circulation guarantees," he said. That is to say, once the industry can better measure how many people see an issue, whether they borrow it from a friend or read a public-place copy, media buyers should drop this obsession with refining paid-circulation metrics. "It's like trying to make the kerosene lamp produce more light because that's what we're familiar with," Mr. Kliger said, "and don't trust this newfangled electricity thing."

Circulation figures don't tell whole story

Circulation figures don't tell whole story
Earl Maucker
Editor
http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/opinion/columnists/sfl-emcol06may06,0,1139889,print.column

Back in the 1960s when I was a paperboy for the Alton Telegraph, I used to groan each time I received a new subscription order. One more paper to deliver, I thought, more weight in the bag, more time on the route -- less time for play.

Ah, for the good old days of circulation growth.

Fast forward to 2007 and once again we're reminded in stories this week that circulation of newspapers across the U.S. is in decline.

Pretty dismal stuff, it would seem.

But wait. Let's take a deeper look at the facts before we start writing off the future of newspapers.

Yes, circulation figures are dropping in most regions of the United States. That's hardly surprising in today's environment, with so much media fragmentation, so many ways to get news and information.

In reality, some of the circulation declines are deliberate, as publishers seek value from papers they do distribute.

More and more newspaper companies are limiting or eliminating entirely the newspapers they give away for free or at a major discount because, generally, those newspapers are not well read.

But beyond the number of newspapers in the market, experts and analysts in the business say newspaper advertisers care more about readership, which measures whether people are actually reading the paper instead of tossing it into the recycle bin without so much as a glance.

Our focus here at the Sun-Sentinel has been on home delivery or single copy sales, areas where we believe there is substantial value.

The agency that monitors circulation of newspapers is the Audit Bureau of Circulation, which, in my opinion, is still back in the 1960s in the way they count and report numbers.

Sure, they break it down even to the zip code level. They calculate circulation in the primary region and secondary regions of the newspaper's market, individually paid subscriptions, bulk sales, third-party sales and a host of other metrics including total readers of the daily newspaper.

But what they don't report is the total audience a media company like the Sun-Sentinel reaches through its various publications and electronic channels.

Even with fewer copies on the street, our readership is up from what it was two years ago.

The published audits do not take into account the impact of the Internet or subsidiary publications.

We, like most major newspaper companies, are major players in this relatively new, still-evolving medium.

For us, it's Sun-Sentinel.com

Which, by the way, has grown in audience traffic every year it's been in operation.

"We're seeing good audience growth online. So far this year, our Sun-Sentinel.com page views -- one way we measure our audience -- are up more than 12 percent over the same time in 2006," said Kathy Skipper, vice president & general manager for Sun-Sentinel Interactive. "We believe several things are contributing to this growth -- regular news updates, more video and more databases that are focused on helping consumers.

Combined with millions of page views per month on our Internet site and the distribution of our main newspaper, plus niche products like the Jewish Journal, City & Shore magazine, City Link, Teen Link and other products, our total audience reach has grown tremendously over the past few years.

"We recognize that in order to reach our audience effectively we must serve our customers on multiple platforms," said our General Manager Howard Greenberg. "Through Forum Publishing we have the largest family of weekly community publications in South Florida as well as the largest Spanish language audience in the Broward-Palm Beach market through el Sentinel, our Spanish language weekly."

No one is denying that newspapers are dealing with enormous challenges in today's world of fragmented media and the influence of the Internet.

But newspapers and the journalists that work on them have a healthy future ahead, as we transform our business to the new world of multiple media.

The good news is that the appetite for news has never been more robust.

We intend to serve our customers the way they like it.

Publishers Hear Digital Fingerprinting Pitch

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ "Heard on the Web" Media Intelligence: Courtesy of BoSacks and The Precision Media Group America's Oldest e-newsletter est.1993 BoSacks on the Web The BoSacks Blog Spot Click here to forward this email ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"The man who acquires the ability to take full possession of his own mind may take possession of anything else to which he is justly entitled." Andrew Carnegie (Scottish born American Industrialist and Philanthropist. 1835-1919) Publishers Hear Digital Fingerprinting Pitch by Karlene Lukovitz http://publications.mediapost.com/index.cfm? fuseaction=Articles.san&s=59820&Nid=30069&p=204 904 WATCHING GOOGLE AND VIACOM DUKE it out in court is interesting, but in the real world, publishers and other site owners are more interested in finding a practical way to monitor who's using their content and either get some reimbursement or get it off the Web. As the business world read about Google/YouTube filing for a dismissal of Viacom's $1 billion copyright infringement suit earlier this week, a group of publishing executives gathered at a Magazine Publishers of America "Meet the Innovators" session to hear a pitch for one potential answer. Attributor Corp., a privately held Redwood City, CA company started by Silicon Valley executives, is testing technology that scans and captures digital "fingerprints"--or identifying characteristics--of text, images and audiovisual content and then continuously scans its index of the Web to pick up matches. The company claims that the system can spot content reuse within just about any Web area/format, including RSS feeds, self-published sites, social networks, advertising networks, search engines and aggregators, based on a few text sentences, bits of an image, or seconds of an audio/video clip. Attributor doesn't claim to know exactly what is and is not "fair use" under the evolving legal precedents surrounding the Digital Millennium Copyright Act; rather, the system employs a site owner's own specified criteria to generate automatic responses to identified instances of reuse, explained CEO Jim Brock, a former Yahoo copyright counsel who co- founded Attributor in 2005 with Silicon Valley entrepreneur Jim Pitkow. Depending on the scenario (the percentage of content used, whether it's being used for commercial purposes, etc.), a content reuser might, for instance, receive a request to remove content, or a proposal to allow continuing reuse of the content in return for giving the originator a portion of advertising revenue or licensing fees. A single console provides the site owner with ongoing monitoring of each issue's status until there is some kind of resolution. Site owners can also employ a searchable public registry that allows anyone wishing to republish content to identify the owner and seek a licensing agreement. In short, Attributor may present a more streamlined and wide-ranging solution than existing content monitoring systems like Indigo Stream Technologies' Copyscape, which relies on Google's search engine to seek out unauthorized uses. Attributor is now in beta with several "large, international publishers," and is taking requests to generate free trial reports for interested publishers while the development phase continues, Brock said. Between 40 and 45 million Web pages per day are being added to the system through RSS feeds and periodic content scanning/conversions, he added. In December, the company announced that it had received $10 million in funding to date from investors including Sigma Partners, Draper Richards LP, First Round Capital, Amicus and Selby Venture Partners. Where does Brock think digital fair use definitions are headed? "At this point, nobody can say that a certain percentage of an article equates or does not equate to fair use," he says. "It's still subjective under the law. But once we have the systems in place for transparency, we believe those standards will evolve." Meanwhile, he says, "if from a business standpoint, it's not fair use by your standards, you can address that, negotiate, respond as you see fit." For example, if no attribution is provided, a significant portion of a given piece of content is being used, and it's being used for commercial purposes, "then you've got three indicators that might set off a 'ding, ding, ding,'" Brock notes. Original Source Link

Responses to all Articles and Bo-Rants are greatly encouraged and may be included in " BoSacks Readers Speak Out" "Heard on the Web" Media Intelligence: Courtesy of The Precision Media Group. Print, Publishing and Media Consultants Contact - Robert M. Sacks 518-329-7994 PO Box 53, Copake NY 12516

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E-Media, Postal Rates on the Minds of Western Publishers

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ "Heard on the Web" Media Intelligence: Courtesy of BoSacks and The Precision Media Group America's Oldest e-newsletter est.1993 BoSacks on the Web The BoSacks Blog Spot Click here to forward this email ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"It is easy when we are in prosperity to give advice to the afflicted." Aeschylus (Ancient Greek Dramatist and Playwright known as the founder of Greek tragedy, 525 BC-456 BC) E-Media, Postal Rates on the Minds of Western Publishers By Tony Silber http://www.foliomag.com/viewmedia.asp? prmMID=7662 Is the postal-rate hike scheduled for July really as bad as it seems? Not according to several of the participants in a Western Publications Association seminar held last week for executive-level magazine managers. In the session, which was part of the association's annual Two-Day Publishing Conference, the topic of postal rates came up as part of a wide-ranging discussion that included sales compensation, flex- time, partnerships and, of course, e-media. Although it was brief, the postal-rate discussion was telling: With rates for b-to-b especially likely to increase by as much as 15 percent to 18 percent, many of the publishers in the room saw it only as an unpleasant cost of doing business. "It's an increase of 15 percent in a cost that is usually less than 3 percent of your total cost structure," said Joe Hanson, CEO of Professional Media Group and one of the speakers. Other speakers spent some time debating whether the cost savings provided by such techniques as co- mailing and co-palletization were offset by the fees charged by the supplier to do them. Overall. this year's WPA conference, the key regional event for publishers on the West Coast, was focused mostly on e-media, at least in the general sessions. For example, 1105 Media CEO Neal Vitale and BPA Worldwide CEO Glenn Hansen gave powerful presentations at the annual VIP panel. Vitale offered an eight-point framework for a successful e-media strategy. · Make sure the sale is integrated. "It's better to have one person talking about our products than having separate sales teams that potentially compete," Vitale said. He did make an exception for live events, noting that the sell is fundamentally different. · Have an in-house e-media guru. "You need a chief catalyst within the organization," he said. This also helps to cross-pollenate ideas within the organization from division to division." · Experimentation is a good thing. "Things like mashups and other online applications-you have to be talking about these things," Vitale said. "You may not succeed with some of them, but you should be part of it-and you also have marketers that want to try new things." · Be wary of the quality of back-end support. "A lot of this looks easy," Vitale said. "It's not. It's not easy to be up to speed on content-management systems and technology capabilities and needs, while also running a publishing company. It's also an interesting question whether you can build a CMS and other capabilities in house and also provide value to the marketplace. The jury is out." · Band-Aids don't work. You'll be doing makegoods galore, Vitale said. · Online is NOT a value-add. "It is a fundamentally important part of the marketing program," Vitale said. · Markets and industries develop at different paces. "You really need to keep pace with the markets you serve and act accordingly," Vitale said. · The business has not changed. "This is still the same old business," he said. E-media is a new medium, but it's the same song." For his part, Hansen stressed two things: Integration and developing analytic skill with all the new database information being collected through online channels. "No one is taking the time to think about how we are going to integrate the back ends of these things and develop intelligence about who's seeing what," he said. Beyond that, he said, traditional media metrics are eroding, underscoring how the whole media landscape is changing. "You're not a print product competing with another print product in the same SRDS category," Hansen said. "You're competing against all sorts of media you never thought about." In terms of tracking media, even the seemingly highly measurable world of online is not infallible. "You're seeing conjecture posing as fact," Hansen said, quoting a media director he'd heard recently. What's more, he said, the younger generation does not look with the same perspective as you do regarding your "near-and-dear" brand. "Your key to success is getting the old guard up to the level of the new guard, and the new guard down to the old." Many of the WPA attendees seemed to be somewhat early on in their e-media strategies, something conference chairman Peter Çraig acknowledged. "My sense was that they are as concerned as anybody else about e-media, but I guess they're not early adopters for the most part. And at the same time, some of the panelists [who focused on e-media] were representative of the industry, but they're not representative of the whole industry," Craig said. "The point is, you have to get into the game. The biggest mistake is not playing." That said, Craig added, publishers need to be wary about their revenue mix as they move online. "If you take 20 percent of your readers add move them online, do you take 20 percent of your revenue with you? I don't think so. If you get on the digital train, it may not be going where you think it's going. You'll end up in Poughkeepsie." The WPA conference traditionally ends with the Maggie Awards for design and editorial excellence. And one of the staples of that ceremony is the opening speech by Craig, usually a highly political commentary that is one of the unique moments in the magazine industry. This year, he toned it down, exhorting the audience to get involved in e-media, but also asking whether the rise of e-media and citizen journalism is symptomatic of the decline of traditional journalism. "It seems like journalism has lost its real purpose and sacrificed its sacred trust," Craig said. " Fair and balanced journalism in this country is suffering from loss of its real purpose in exchange for entertainment value and slanted reporting. It is no wonder that public confidence in traditional news sources has eroded and the public has a perception of bias and partisanship in the press." Original Source Link

Responses to all Articles and Bo-Rants are greatly encouraged and may be included in " BoSacks Readers Speak Out" "Heard on the Web" Media Intelligence: Courtesy of The Precision Media Group. Print, Publishing and Media Consultants Contact - Robert M. Sacks 518-329-7994 PO Box 53, Copake NY 12516

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Where The Book Business Is Humming

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"The oldest books are only just out to those who have not read them." Samuel Butler (English novelist, essayist and critic, 1835-1902) Where The Book Business Is Humming Bertelsmann is making a bundle off Old Media in former Soviet bloc countries http://www.businessweek.com/print/magazine/content/ 07_20/b4034065.htm?chan=gl You wouldn't typically expect to find a high-profile executive of a major media company in drab Kharkiv. The gritty city of 1.5 million is the kind of place where local leaders haven't yet gotten around to tearing down statues of Lenin, and outside Ukraine it's best known (if it's known at all) for the Red Army tanks it used to make. But on a sunny April afternoon, Ewald Walgenbach, a member of the executive board of Germany's Bertelsmann, smiles as he watches a battered steam shovel ladle bricks onto a dump truck at a dilapidated factory that's being converted into a distribution center for the company's Family Leisure book club. Above the din, Oleg Shpilman, CEO of the Ukrainian unit, shouts that the new facility will be able to ship 20 million books a year. "What will happen next year when you have 21 million?" Walgenbach replies with a laugh. Optimism about the printed word is pretty rare these days. In fast-modernizing Ukraine, though, Bertelsmann is enjoying dot-com-like expansion for its book club, a category that's a slow- or no-growth proposition in the U.S. and Western Europe. Family Leisure moved 12 million books last year-everything from cookbooks to local potboilers to Stephen King thrillers-while sales grew 55%, to $50 million. Today, Bertelsmann is Ukraine's biggest bookseller, with 12% of the market. And the operation enjoys profit margins that are triple the 4% global average for similar Bertelsmann units, which include the Book-of- the-Month Club and Literary Guild in the U.S. Ukraine is the most spectacular example of Bertelsmann's success with book clubs in the former Soviet bloc. And it's proving that with the right mix of marketing and merchandise, there's money to be made even with low-cost goods. The region has well- educated populations hungry for a good read but relatively few bookstores where they can indulge their passion. As a result, Bertelsmann has also become the biggest book publisher in the Czech Republic and has scored big successes in Poland, Russia, and elsewhere. The book clubs are part of a broader trend of booming print media in the developing world. In India, newspapers are thriving, with Mumbai alone boasting a half-dozen major dailies. Swiss magazine giant Ringier saw 18% sales growth last year from its lifestyle publications in Vietnam. In Argentina, the number of books published has more than doubled since 2002. And emerging markets are also proving lucrative for another Bertelsmann unit, Gruner + Jahr, which is the second-largest magazine publisher in China via a joint venture. TEXTING THE ORDERS Bertelsmann's allegiance to Old Media in newer markets is paying off in other ways. In the U.S., its book clubs tend to serve older customers. By contrast, nearly half the Family Leisure Club's 2 million members (in a nation of 47 million) are under 30. The secret: The Bertelsmann club recruits hot young Ukrainian authors and serves as their exclusive distributor, a smart strategy in a country with only about 300 bookstores. "They're very effective, much more than other publishers," says Ljubko Deresch, an intense 23-year-old who has published five novels- the latest with Bertelsmann-dealing with youthful disenchantment and pop culture. Keeping prices low is crucial. The average Ukrainian makes less than $8,000 per year, and in Kharkiv, Bertelsmann's main competition is an open-air book market. Dozens of merchants in corrugated metal stalls sell everything from textbooks to science fiction. Family Leisure titles typically go for under $5, competitive with the outdoor market. Then to keep costs down, the club delivers shipments to post offices, where customers claim their books. No doubt Bertelsmann would like to bottle its Ukraine formula for export to other countries. Although few offer such a favorable mix of book-hungry citizens, cooperative postal authorities, and energetic local management, some innovations from Ukraine can travel. Customers there, for instance, are world leaders in ordering via mobile-phone text messages, a promising e-commerce strategy in poorer countries where few can afford Internet access. Says Shpilman: "Our goal is not to be a book club, but an integrated bookseller." Original Source Link

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What to Do When Rupert Calls?

What to Do When Rupert Calls?
ANDREW ROSS SORKIN
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/06/business/yourmoney/06deal.html?_r=1&adxnnl=1&oref=slogin&ref=yourmoney&adxnnlx=1178403919-NiDbnjLQqY6pQzLHofJHrQ

I DON’T regularly watch the Fox News Channel, but when I do, I hardly think it is “fair and balanced.” I confess to reading The New York Post, but more as a delicious treat than a trusted news source. When I lived in London, I picked up The Times of London on my way to work every morning, but felt that the once-august publication had moved a bit down-market.

As we all know, Rupert Murdoch is the owner and steward of each of those media enterprises. And the Bancrofts, the family that is the controlling shareholder of Dow Jones, last week found themselves in a difficult position — forced to consider selling the family’s beloved journalistic jewels to Mr. Murdoch, and not just because his offer of $60 a share is so extraordinarily large.

With some hesitation, given Dow Jones’s storied place in American journalism, let me explore a contrarian view: Mr. Murdoch may be the perfect publisher of The Wall Street Journal.

First, a couple of stipulations: Dow Jones, like the entire newspaper industry, is struggling. It is suffering a slow decline by a thousand cutbacks, notably abroad, where the company has retreated from building its European and Asian editions of The Journal. The company’s staff, like the physical dimensions of the daily newspaper, has been reduced.

Many Journal reporters and editors have bridled at the prospect of a takeover. Jesse Drucker, a Journal reporter and representative of the paper’s union, sounded the alarm in an e-mail message to his colleagues courting them to protest the deal. In his message, he suggested that the Bancrofts’ opposition so far to a deal “indicates that they are committed to maintaining the quality of The Wall Street Journal and all of Dow Jones’ publications and products.”

But an uncomfortable truth remains. The current state of financial affairs — caused by the continuing withering of print advertising revenues, shifting reader demographics and the seismic upheaval of the Internet — has made it extremely hard to continue “maintaining the quality” of The Journal (despite its clutch of Pulitzers) because sources of fresh investment funds are drying up. Dow Jones’s cash reserves have been further strained by the hefty dividends the Bancrofts have pushed for over the years. (Big dividends are in vogue in some newspaper quarters; The New York Times Company, for example, recently raised its dividend.)

So along comes Mr. Murdoch, who says he plans to invest more money in Dow Jones than anyone else imaginable. During an interview in his office on Thursday afternoon, he had this to say of the $5 billion price tag he had just attached to Dow Jones: “We don’t see that as the total investment at all.” In other words, even more money is on the way.

Mr. Murdoch spoke enthusiastically about opening new bureaus and expanding others. He wants to reverse The Journal’s diminished international strategy by investing heavily in the paper in Europe and Asia. He says he is spoiling for a fight with The Financial Times, in much the same way that he took the left-for-dead Times of London and made it a real competitor to The Telegraph. He talked about spending money on marketing and on greatly expanding The Journal’s brand online, leveraging the many media businesses he owns around the world.

The Bancrofts — like the Grahams, who own The Washington Post, and the Sulzbergers, who own this newspaper — are part of an important, even noble, tradition: family ownership of media enterprises dedicated to probing, sophisticated coverage of the world around them. Mr. Murdoch, for the most part, is part of a different journalistic tradition: sensationalism. So the Bancrofts, on journalistic grounds, have good reason to be wary of Mr. Murdoch.

Mr. Murdoch is also part of another tradition: farsighted, creative and risky business gambits. He has made piles of money by thinking ahead of many of his competitors. The Bancrofts have presided over a company that once held a dominant position in business journalism, and they let that lead, and the financial gains that came with it, slip through their hands.

As they confront their continuing financial challenges, the Bancrofts can sit around and pray that a deep-pocketed white knight emerges — Warren E. Buffett, Bill Gates or The Washington Post are said by insiders to be favored choices — but it’s hard to think that even if such potential suitors did buy it they would seriously invest in the business the way Mr. Murdoch claims he would. It could result in just another holding pattern.

The Bancroft family certainly faces a difficult choice, in no small part because Mr. Murdoch, despite promising to insulate The Journal by giving the paper a separate board, may still turn The Journal into the kind of media circus we otherwise know as Fox News and The New York Post. Still, it’s curious that the Dow Jones board has not pushed the Bancrofts harder to at least engage in discussions — because it’s so clear that if the board had considered Mr. Murdoch’s offer in a vacuum, it would have accepted it faster than you can say “Introducing the New Fox Journal Channel.”

Having said that, the Dow Jones board — which is being advised by Arthur Fleischer Jr. of Fried Frank Harris Shriver & Jacobson, Richard I. Beattie of Simpson Thacher & Bartlett, and Goldman Sachs — has no duty to consider the bid unless the family were to acquiesce first. (An aside: Has anyone on Wall Street found it odd that Goldman Sachs, which has been a longtime banker to Mr. Murdoch’s company, the News Corporation — John Thornton, a former Goldman president, is a News Corporation director — is now representing Dow Jones, with which it has never had a relationship before? How hard do you really think Goldman is going to push the News Corporation, considering that if a deal is ever struck, Goldman will want to make Mr. Murdoch’s company a client again?)

Dow Jones’s chief executive, Richard F. Zannino, appears to be a clear advocate of a sale to Mr. Murdoch, describing the benefits of a deal to the board this week, according to people at the meeting. A week before Mr. Murdoch made his bid, the two men had breakfast in Mr. Murdoch’s office. Mr. Zannino has been flirting with Mr. Murdoch for years — often over meetings put together by bankers like Mr. Murdoch’s longtime adviser James B. Lee Jr. of JPMorgan Chase. The News Corporation is also being advised by Nancy Peretsman of Allen & Company and Blair W. Effron of Centerview Partners.

Mr. Zannino stands to make a handsome personal profit if Dow Jones is sold, of course, but when the chief executive thinks that it is better to sell the company than to keep it, shareholders should consider that a clear sign that some sort of financial impasse has been reached.

The Bancrofts have clearly reached such an impasse — some of it of their own making and some of it attributable to revolutionary business shifts beyond their control. If the family cares about preserving the Dow Jones legacy and seeing the company continue to flourish, it’s time to be financially creative. Rupert Murdoch is knocking on their door.

Time Warner's Parsons: I Won't Sell Magazine Biz

CNBC's Maria Bartiromo interviews TWX's Dick Parsons
by Jon Ogg
Filed under: Television, Time Warner (TWX), Interviews, News Corp'B' (NWS), Dow Jones and Co (DJ)
http://www.bloggingstocks.com/2007/05/03/cnbcs-maria-bartiromo-interviews-twxs-dick-parsons/

CNBC's Maria Bartiromo has interviewed Time Warner Inc's (NYSE: TWX) Dick Parsons about a myriad of issues, and more of this will be showed later.

She asked Parsons about selling the magazine business: He noted that it has acquired magazines and that it has been pruning that back to what it thinks works inside the company. Parsons said he likes magazines and publishing and will stay in the field, which he has maintained before.

Bartiromo also asked him about the integration of print to online via AOL, People.com, Time.Com and the like: Parsons said letting AOL integrate all the properties didn't work from the start. AOL is a broad portal and the company wants to make its content available across many platforms and many formats. It wants to distribute as much content as it can. As far as keeping AOL, Parsons said it is increasing performance and once Wall Street understands that this is a sustainable model enabling it to grow faster than the industry as a whole, there will be more support of this strategy.

Bartiromo also asked "How do you drive revenues into new products at AOL?" Parsons noted that AOL needs users rather than subscribers. It wants to bring back people who left AOL (or those who were never there), and monetize the visits to keep revenues growing. AOL is in a growth mode again, he said. Bartiromo noted that the cash flows are something to be jealous of and asked about private equity. Parsons said they (private equity) are looking at committing capital to everything. The current construction of AOL is the horse to ride, and that's the plan.

Bartiromo's interview was pre-recorded and Parsons' message about his opinion on the News Corp (NYSE: NWS) offer to buy Dow Jones (NYSE: DJ) will be a topic. Stay tuned......

Publishers Hear Digital Fingerprinting Pitch

Publishers Hear Digital Fingerprinting Pitch
by Karlene Lukovitz
http://publications.mediapost.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=Articles.san&s=59820&Nid=30069&p=204904

WATCHING GOOGLE AND VIACOM DUKE it out in court is interesting, but in the real world, publishers and other site owners are more interested in finding a practical way to monitor who's using their content and either get some reimbursement or get it off the Web.


As the business world read about Google/YouTube filing for a dismissal of Viacom's $1 billion copyright infringement suit earlier this week, a group of publishing executives gathered at a Magazine Publishers of America "Meet the Innovators" session to hear a pitch for one potential answer.

Attributor Corp., a privately held Redwood City, CA company started by Silicon Valley executives, is testing technology that scans and captures digital "fingerprints"--or identifying characteristics--of text, images and audiovisual content and then continuously scans its index of the Web to pick up matches.

The company claims that the system can spot content reuse within just about any Web area/format, including RSS feeds, self-published sites, social networks, advertising networks, search engines and aggregators, based on a few text sentences, bits of an image, or seconds of an audio/video clip.

Attributor doesn't claim to know exactly what is and is not "fair use" under the evolving legal precedents surrounding the Digital Millennium Copyright Act; rather, the system employs a site owner's own specified criteria to generate automatic responses to identified instances of reuse, explained CEO Jim Brock, a former Yahoo copyright counsel who co-founded Attributor in 2005 with Silicon Valley entrepreneur Jim Pitkow.

Depending on the scenario (the percentage of content used, whether it's being used for commercial purposes, etc.), a content reuser might, for instance, receive a request to remove content, or a proposal to allow continuing reuse of the content in return for giving the originator a portion of advertising revenue or licensing fees. A single console provides the site owner with ongoing monitoring of each issue's status until there is some kind of resolution.

Site owners can also employ a searchable public registry that allows anyone wishing to republish content to identify the owner and seek a licensing agreement.

In short, Attributor may present a more streamlined and wide-ranging solution than existing content monitoring systems like Indigo Stream Technologies' Copyscape, which relies on Google's search engine to seek out unauthorized uses.

Attributor is now in beta with several "large, international publishers," and is taking requests to generate free trial reports for interested publishers while the development phase continues, Brock said. Between 40 and 45 million Web pages per day are being added to the system through RSS feeds and periodic content scanning/conversions, he added.

In December, the company announced that it had received $10 million in funding to date from investors including Sigma Partners, Draper Richards LP, First Round Capital, Amicus and Selby Venture Partners.

Where does Brock think digital fair use definitions are headed? "At this point, nobody can say that a certain percentage of an article equates or does not equate to fair use," he says. "It's still subjective under the law. But once we have the systems in place for transparency, we believe those standards will evolve."

Meanwhile, he says, "if from a business standpoint, it's not fair use by your standards, you can address that, negotiate, respond as you see fit." For example, if no attribution is provided, a significant portion of a given piece of content is being used, and it's being used for commercial purposes, "then you've got three indicators that might set off a 'ding, ding, ding,'" Brock notes.

Mag Bag: At Discover, Children Art the Future

Mag Bag: At Discover, Children Art the Future
by Erik Sass
http://publications.mediapost.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=Articles.san&s=59808&Nid=30071&p=204904

At Discover, Children Art the Future
Discover is putting the cover design for its October issue on the future of science in the ink-stained hands of some lucky elementary or middle school student. The mag is holding a national design contest open to students from the third through eighth grades. While it sounds dicey, given their Photoshop skills, today's students might just put some graphic designers out of a job.


According to the magazine, "the winning entry, to be selected by Discover's editorial team, will be the design that best captures the wonderment and possibilities of science." The submission deadline is Wednesday, June 20, 2007. The winning artist and six finalists will be profiled in the magazine and online. Contest details are available on the Discover Web site.

The contest is designed in part to spread awareness of the magazine among a new generation of potential readers, following a wide-ranging revamp of the magazine by publisher Bob Guccione Jr. He acquired Discover in October 2005 from the Walt Disney Co., then spent much of the past 18 months revitalizing its readership and ad base, discarding the "junk" circulation it inherited to make it more appealing to Madison Avenue.

"Taking this unprecedented step--given the importance of a magazine's cover--underscores our commitment to raising this discussion," said Guccione. "There's no better snapshot of the future of science in America than what a child sees and perceives science to mean today."

Guccione Jr. is also in talks with his father, Bob Guccione Sr., to acquire Omni, the seminal science and science fiction magazine that spawned a new category of consumer magazines, including Discover. Time Inc. launched Discover in 1980, partly in response to the success of Omni, and Guccione Jr. recently told MediaDailyNews he would like to revive it as a "high-gloss science fiction quarterly" early next year. Omni ceased publication as a monthly print magazine in 1996, and a Web version of the magazine was disbanded in 1998. Time Inc. sold Discover to Disney in 1991.

Hearst Launches 3 Mobile Ventures


Three of Hearst Magazines' titles delivering home and lifestyle advice to women--Good Housekeeping, House Beautiful and Redbook--are launching mobile-content services targeting women 35+ in partnership with Crisp Wireless. The sites, specially designed for mobile format, include interactive features like calculators, quizzes, downloadable wallpapers, search and user-generated content.

Stacy Morrison, editor in chief of Redbook, explained: "Cell phones are how a woman stays connected to friends and family, keeps herself organized, and now, with our new mobile sites, she'll be able to use her phone to actually make her life easier."

Content areas at Redbook and Good Housekeeping include recipe libraries with related grocery lists and nutrition facts, diet and exercise tips, and an array of lifestyle advice. Redbook also features "Mommy Strategies," where user suggestions team with interactive features. Good Housekeeping's content includes a searchable list of every product with the mag's seal of approval and an exercise calculator. House Beautiful offers a "Design Dictionary" and paint calculator.

This news follows the recent announcement that CosmoGirl and Popular Mechanics, both published by Hearst Magazines, will be creating digital content, including video, in partnership with Fox Television Studios. The first video content for CosmoGirl is a drama about three female best friends during their junior year of high school.

Source Magazine Files for Bankruptcy

The bad business practices of former management have left a cloud hanging over the Source--at one time widely regarded as "the hip-hop Bible"--according to the magazine's current publisher, Jeremy Miller, who was forced to file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in a Manhattan court Friday of last week.

The court papers allege that the misuse of magazine funds by founder David Mays and president Raymond "Benzino" Scott caused the magazine's advertisers to jump ship. The two men were fired in 2006 amid revelations of corruption and falling newsstand sales. In addition to dipping into the magazine's funds, they allegedly issued bad checks, put people unrelated to the magazine on the payroll and failed to deliver issues to 140,000 subscribers. Industry insiders also buzzed about rumored fraud in the millions of dollars, including unreported travel and jewelry purchases.

The Source has been in court a lot lately. In October 2006, a former editor in chief won $15.5 million in damages from the magazine in her lawsuit for wrongful termination. The case also suggested widespread sexual harassment at the company. Kimberly Osorio was fired in March 2005 after filing a gender discrimination complaint against the founders. Although the federal jury decided in Osorio's favor on the wrongful termination charge, they dismissed a related sexual harassment charge. Michelle Joyce, a former marketing executive, had joined Osorio in alleging sexual harassment.

AARP Set To Host First Hispanic Event In Puerto Rico

AARP is about to host the first national Hispanic-themed event in its history, the Feria de la Segunda Juventud or "Festival of the Second Youth," May 5-6 at the Puerto Rico Convention Center in San Juan, Puerto Rico. The festival--sponsored by UnitedHealth Group, Banco Popular, Walgreens, Kimberly Clark, Pfizer, Univision and Rums of Puerto Rico--is expected to attract over 9,000 attendees, with an array of celebrity speakers and performers including Gloria Estefan and Jose Feliciano. AARP President Erik Olsen remarked: "This two-day festival celebrates much more than the boomer and 50+ community--it's about family, intergenerational relationships and helping our members live a full, healthy life." AARP has over 1.2 million Hispanic members, according to Olsen.

PBS Picks Up "Wired Science"

PBS announced it will pick up "Wired Science," a production of KCET/Los Angeles that's co-branded with Wired, with the first episode set to air nationally on October 3, 2007. The one-hour episodes will air once a week for 10 weeks, covering new developments in science and technology with the magazine's trademark attitude and forward-thinking aesthetic. The series will also have a substantial Web presence hosted on the PBS site, including streaming video, articles and audience interaction features.

Home Refocuses With May Issue

Home is refocusing its editorial content on remodeling and home makeovers beginning with its May issue, publisher Hachette Filipacchi announced this week. The revamp includes the introduction of new front-of-book sections like "Your Home" and "Mini Makeover." Donna Sapolin, Home's editor in chief, says: "The remodeling market has almost doubled in size over the past decade, and our readers are at the forefront of this upward trend." Also in the redesign are more prominent referrals to the Web site; new font; new logo; a "What We'd Do" section from the editors; and a "Make It Green" feature.

Ladies' Home Journal Issues Commemorative Stamps

To celebrate its 125th anniversary in 2008, Ladies' Home Journal is offering a collection of 12 first-class postage stamps with famous vintage covers from 1903-1951. The covers were designed by some of the era's best-known illustrators, often with seasonal themes. Archival issues of the magazine, one of the nation's oldest, are a repository of cultural history illustrating the lives of American women in the 19th and early 20th century.

Cynthia Leive Re-Elected President of ASME

Cynthia Leive, the editor in chief of Glamour, has been re-elected president of the American Society of Magazine Editors. Roberta Myers, editor in chief of Elle, has been elected vice-president, while Adam Moss, editor in chief of New York, has been elected secretary, and David Willey, editor in chief of Runner's World, has been elected treasurer. Marlene Kahan is the executive director of ASME.

Editor resigns over apparent ad pressure

PC World editor resigns over apparent ad pressure

By Tom Krazit
http://news.com.com/PC+World+editor+resigns+over+apparent+ad+pressure/2100-1030_3-6181075.html

Story last modified Thu May 03 06:39:03 PDT 2007


Award-winning Editor-in-Chief Harry McCracken of PC World resigned Tuesday over disagreements with the magazine's publisher regarding stories critical of advertisers, according to sources.
McCracken, reached Wednesday evening, confirmed that he resigned after 12 years at the magazine and 16 years at publisher International Data Group, over disagreements with management. He declined to comment on the nature of those disagreements.

But three sources, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, told CNET News.com that McCracken informed staffers in an afternoon meeting Wednesday that he decided to resign because Colin Crawford, senior vice president, online, at IDG Communications, was pressuring him to avoid stories that were critical of major advertisers.

Wired News reported Wednesday evening that McCracken quit after Crawford killed a draft story titled "Ten Things We Hate About Apple."

An IDG representative confirmed McCracken resigned, but said he was unable to comment on personnel matters. In an e-mail to News.com, Crawford denied that advertiser pressure played any part in McCracken's resignation.

PC World is best known for its product reviews and how-to expertise. The magazine has won numerous awards over the years for its coverage of the PC industry and technology in general, including six prizes--such as Best Computer/Consumer Magazine--just awarded last week at the Maggie awards, run by the Western Publications Association.

Now on News.com:
Digg in tough spot with DMCA debacle
Images: Hidden gems among Webby winners
A battery of questions about lithium ion
Extra: A cleaner environment--through beer
Video: Play old games on your PC
"I spent 12 years at PC World; it's been incredibly good to me," McCracken said. He said he will still have some sort of writing relationship with the organization.

A source at PC World who wished to remain anonymous praised McCracken's decision.

"It saddens us all that Harry, a PC World institution, decided to leave," the source said. "But dammit, we're proud of him of doing it."


PC World is published by IDG, a venerable trade publishing organization that has been covering the technology industry since 1964. The monthly magazine reaches 4.3 million "purchase influencers," and PCWorld.com has 6.8 million unique visitors per month, according to a Wednesday press release touting the Maggies winners.

IDG also publishes well-known trade magazines and Web sites about the computer industry such as ComputerWorld, Network World, and InfoWorld, which recently shuttered its print publication and focused solely on its Web site. IDG was founded by Patrick McGovern and is privately held.

Crawford has been with IDG since 1994, according to his blog, when he became CEO of Macworld. He ran Macworld until 2003, when he became vice president of business development within IDG's corporate management structure, before assuming his current role.