Media Industry Archive

The Associated Press is reporting today that one of the standby annual events of the newspaper industry will not be held this year in order to help the struggling newspaper companies save money, as they concentrate on how to survive the deepening depression. For only the second time in its 87-year history, the American Society of Newspaper Editors (ASNE) has cancelled its annual convention. The...

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So both the San Francisco Chronicle and Newsday intend to try and charge for their online content. That’s precisely the kind of idea one would expect from the likes of the Donner Party, cornered, starving, desperate. As they consume what is left of their operations in this manner, we can now safely start composing the obituaries of these two storied newspapers. Even if they disappear only...

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Newsday.com to charge for content — After writing down its $650 million acquisition of Newsday by $402 million, Newsday owner Cablevision announced it will begin charging for online content. Publisher Timothy Knight hinted that access to online news is likely to be bundled with cable subscriptions. The Wall Street Journal and the Financial Times have successfully charged for online...

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It’s becoming clear that in changing its Terms of Service to claim it owned user content (and having then to change its TOS back), Facebook has awakened a sleeping giant: its own user base, which suddenly seems scarily aware of the sanctity of its own data. It probably won’t go back to sleep any time soon. I could have written that paragraph last week, but I’m actually basing...

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So, I was just about to publish this post when I learned that Blake Jorgensen (at right), the Yahoo CFO who this entire post hinged on, has left the company, only one day after telling the crowd at the Goldman Sachs Technology and Internet Conference that the company wouldn’t be opposed to doing a deal with Microsoft on search. And here I was, ready to call a a Microsoft-Yahoo search...

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A recent study by the research outfit Ipsos indicates that U.S. Hispanics are reading the news and consuming media in both English and Spanish, switching back and forth between the languages “with ease.” According to the report, “U.S. Hispanics take advantage of their bilingual abilities by using, accessing and ultimately enjoying media in both languages. Regardless of their...

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Nielsen released its fourth-quarter three-screen report yesterday, which measures how viewership is changing across TV, the PC and mobile devices, and the report elicits some fascinating facts about how video consumption is expanding, and changing, as mass media fragments. As was true during the last recession, media consumption habits continue to evolve ever onward, when it seems like...

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Hearst threatens to close San Francisco Chronicle — In a warning to union employees, Hearst has threatened that it will have to significantly reduce the paper’s staff to stay in business. Otherwise the publisher may have to sell or close down the paper entirely. In 2008 the paper posted a $50 million loss, its seventh in a row. Hearst purchased the Chronicle in 2000 for $660...

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The Associated Press is reporting this afternoon that the Hearst Corp. is close to a decision to fold the San Francisco Chronicle in the next few months. According to the article, “Hearst said the Chronicle lost $50 million last year and is hemorrhaging even more money so far this year.” Hearst is trying to negotiate with its unions to be able to cut costs substantially, including...

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Apparently, the problem with print publishing is that it needs to be democratized. That, at least, is the takeaway I gleaned from an excerpt from a speech given yesterday at the Interactive Advertising Bureau’s annual conference by Mike Mendenhall, CMO of Hewlett-Packard. (They sell a lot of printers, doncha know?) In it, he talks about Magcloud, a recently-launched site from HP which,...

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