Category: News

Talking Points Memo, the eight-year-old political blog, has hired its first vice president of sales, who will lead its in-house advertising efforts. Diane Rinaldo, formerly director of political advertising at Yahoo!, holds the new position. Until her hire, TPM relied solely on advertising services like Blogads. In March and April, Rinaldo reports, TPM sold more advertisments than it did for all of 2008 (this refers only to in-house sales, rather than total advertising revenue). You can read the Nieman Lab post here…….Continue Reading TPM ramps up its in-house advertising

The decline in advertising, coupled with a decline in viewership, has hurt local TV news almost as much as newspapers. The Philadelpha Inquirer reports that, in response to this trend, local TV channels are attempting to gain advertising from companies and products that do not normally buy many spots. This means that local advertisements, from Empire Carpeting to the Snuggie, are more likely to show up in places they didn't before. You can read the Philadelphia Inquirer article here…….Continue Reading Local TV news may soon be filled with local ads

The Financial Times is building two studios that will allow its correspondents to produce video and audio content for the website. FT.com will charge non-subscribers to watch the videos, if they exceed 10 videos a month. The site already produces 170 videos per month. FT.com has over 11 million unique viewers per month, and over 100,000 subscribers. You can read the Media Week article here…….Continue Reading Financial Times invests in online video and audio

The Federal Trade Commission announced that it will host a hearing on Sept. 15 to discuss the struggle for new business models for journalism. Though an agenda has not yet been released, the FTC says that witnesses will include a host of interested parties — from journalists to privacy experts to consumer advocates. The purpose is to investigate how the failing news industry, and any potential solutions, may have an impact on competition and the consumer. You can read the FTC's announcement here…….Continue Reading FTC to hold hearings on future of news

Bill Mitchell at Poytner Online reviews the Kindle, which he sees as a "supplement to print and online as opposed to a substitute for either." The demographics for the Kindle, he argues, appear to skew older, which may be bad news for newspapers hoping that the device will save their industry. He notes some problems with the format and function of the Kindle, but in general has a positive review. You can read the Poynter Online post here…….Continue Reading Kindle may not transform news reading

In the UK, Google is arguing that laws should be relaxed to allow newspapers to consolidate. In papers submitted to the Office of Fair Trade, the search engine suggests that revising the existing barriers to merging would allow local and regional newspapers to compete with Google itself as well as other internet sites. Google's comment comes as the OFT is reviewing the newspaper merger framework. You can read the Times article here…….Continue Reading Google supports UK newspaper mergers

This summer, the Federal Trade Commission is expected to release new guidelines for bloggers and the way they handle sponsored posts. Specifically, the guidelines will dictate that bloggers disclose when they're voicing opinions that aren't their own, or are writing about a product they received for free. The rules are not binding, and may leave some wiggle room, but are an attempt to provide the same level of transparency and accountability in social media as exists in traditional media. You can read the post by Business Week here…….Continue Reading FTC to regulate sponsored blog posts

Ryan Chittum of the Columbia Journalism Review does the math on the Kindle, and concludes that it is "just another way for papers to lose money." Newspapers available on the Kindle would receive only 30 percent of the revenue from the subscribers — $4.20 from a $14 subscription fee. Since there are no advertisements on the Kindle, there is no additional revenue stream. The setup means that if all of the New York Times subscribers were to switch to the Kindle, the paper would only make $52 million, enough to fund about a quarter of its newsroom costs. Chittum's conclusion……Continue Reading CJR: Kindle doesn’t look like the answer

Beth Teitell of the Boston Globe, noting that only a third of Americans would personally miss the printed newspaper, lists the important societal benefits that newsprint provides. "You can shed a tear right now for the iconic ransom note, with letters clipped from newspaper headlines. What's a kidnapper to do?" Teitell queries. She also advises people to invest in umbrellas, and to find an alternative to papermaiche for their child's next school project. You can read the article on Boston Globe's website…….Continue Reading Remembering the value of newsprint

Next month, Martha Stewart will begin to charge for online videos from the archives, which are not currently available on the web. Users can purchase the videos and download them to their computer, mobile phone, or iPod. A price has not yet been determined. The Web site will continue to rely mostly on paid advertising as it experiments with charging for online content. You can read the Women's Wear Daily post here…….Continue Reading Martha Stewart to charge for online video