Media Industry Archive

For years, newspaper publishers have been anticipating the emergence of a portable electronic devise that could speed up the transition from print to digital in ways that might help their industry to survive. Several products have shown some promise — the Kindle from Amazon and the eReader from Sony, among a handful of others — but these were developed with books, not newspapers in...

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For the first half of 2008, magazine ad revenue fell by 7.4 percent. Through an industry trade group, the Magazine Publishers of America, this sector of the media industry is launching an aggressive campaign to convince ad buyers that magazines move merchandise. In a new twist, the campaign argues that magazines create a state of “purchase intent” in consumers, many of whom will...

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Even the most casual visitor to this blog has heard enough about what’s ailing the newspaper industry to have a pretty good idea how fast this nationwide crisis is worsening. But it still is stunning to track the actual downhill trajectory of ad revenue. Until now the one bright spot has been online ad revenue, with most newspaper sites showing strong growth. But by several different...

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With so many trends and counter-trends sweeping the media industry it can be difficult to recognize which ones to watch. One “keeper,” though, is the growth of online video. We reported earlier this week about Google’s success in identifying pirated videos on its YouTube site, and then monetizing that content by sharing ad revenue with the content owner. Though still nascent,...

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If Rupert Murdoch thinks print publications aren’t a good business, he’s doing a pretty good job of misleading the rest of us. After all, his Wall Street Journal has just announced the debut of a glossy lifestyle magazine today. It’s called WSJ., and according to the company, it will launch on Friday, September 5, inside The Wall Street Journal Asia and The Wall Street...

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Much of the time, in trying to cover the media industry, I find myself almost cross-eyed trying to keep track of old media and new media companies simultaneously. Today’s no exception. The venerable St. Louis Post-Dispatch, which was established by none other than Joseph Pulitzer, has announced 18 more layoffs. Combined with the 31 announced last March, this amounts to approximately a 4.5...

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In addition to the text, video, and audio files that are the main components of “multimedia” content on most websites, there are a growing number of creative tools for displaying data in completely new ways. One of the earliest, WeFeelFine.org, which launched a couple years back, probably would not strike most media execs as worth a second look. The site aims to take the emotional...

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