Media Industry Archive

It’s gotten to the point that Google is generating so much news related to our industry every day that we could devote our entire media blog to the Mountain View-based search giant alone. But that would be wrong. So, for now, we’ll just try to summarize some of the recent, most salient developments once a week or so. (As I write this, from Las Vegas, I have just noticed that my...

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Just when you thought print and Google had parted ways, Google has started to give out advice to the magazine industry … on how to improve its Web sites. Yeah, the timing is a bit odd since Google officially shuttered its Print Ads product, targeted towards newspapers, at the end of last month. But yesterday Google put its analytics evangelist, Avinash Kaushik in front of the crowd at a...

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Blockbuster may file for bankruptcy — As rival Netflix remains strong in the recession, retail movie rental chain Blockbuster’s stocks tumbled yesterday on rumors that the company is allegedly considering filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. Today the company announced it hired a law firm to explore restructuring options which may include a Chapter 11 filing. In recent years...

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Hobbled by a $402.4 million write-down on its newspaper assets, Cablevision Systems said it lost $321.4 million during the fiscal fourth-quarter ended December 31. Does the impairment charge discredit the cable operator’s business model that expanding content and distribution across print, online, and television could deliver predictable revenue growth? Cablevision, which dominates Long...

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When we last checked in on Vanno, the San Francisco-based start-up that has built a web-based index for measuring corporate reputations, my focus was on its model of providing a social evaluation platform where users can collectively and quantitatively build an authoritative index of company reputations. Vanno enables users to share personal stories or news articles about a particular company,...

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Editors … they’re soooo 2008. Or, at least they are at Hachette Filipacchi, which has re-christened its editors-in-chief as vice presidents of brand content. Publishers? They no longer exist at Hachette either. Now they’re chief brand officers. The title swaps are all part of a new “brand-centric” structure for magazines like Elle, Elle Decor, Woman’s Day and...

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As last week’s tsunami flattened the newspaper business, it swept away the Rocky Mountain News, a daily newspaper in Denver. Unless you live in or near Denver, this probably was not a news item you wished to dwell upon — but, in a deeper sense we all live in Denver these days, so I wanted to at least pay a passing tribute to the people suddenly swept out of work and the culture of a...

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By far the most interesting story in this Monday morning’s dump of media news was one in Advertising Age, in which Time Warner CEO Jeff Bewkes explains something called “TV Everywhere.” The initiative, which involves many major media players, would both let consumers view video on any platform they wanted, and keep alive something that’s been sorely lacking as other...

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Financial Times profits up as online subscriptions kick in — The Financial Times announced a 13 percent rise in profits today, mostly on the strength of its paid online subscription plan. After acquiring Mergermarket, Exec-Appointments.com and Money-Media last year, digital is now responsible for two-thirds of the Times’ revenue. The newspaper’s print circulation grew by 16...

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