Newspapers continue to search for new and innovative cost cutting measures. Too bad they are not nearly as aggressive in reinvigorating their core product. My main example is my experience with Mediabids. We have been around for 10 years, more than 8,500 publications use us, we have sold tens of thousands of ads for publications and yet, nearly everyday, we have conversations with publications who are skeptical about the idea of using a website to sell newspaper and magazine advertising. Just yesterday, I spoke to a large publishing company who has gone through layoffs, product closings and downsizing in the last year and yet, despite their dire financial situation, are nonchalant about the opportunity to sell ads to the 17,000 advertisers who use Mediabids to buy print ads. Many print publications are not in the state they are in by accident.

From The Chicago Tribune. Full story here

The Chicago Tribune and other Tribune Co. newspapers plan to utilize as little content from the Associated Press as practical during the week of Nov. 8.

The goal, as the papers review costs and needs, is to see whether severing ties with the news cooperative next fall is a viable option, the Chicago-based media company confirmed Monday.

The trial is scheduled to be conducted almost 13 months after Tribune Co. gave the AP a required two-year warning that it might drop the news service, effective Oct. 15, 2010. Tribune Co. said at the time that it was keeping its options open while weighing what role, if any, the AP would play in its future.

We deal with a lot of publications here at Mediabids on behalf of thousands of customers and, based on his earning statements, I don't think that McClatchy CEO Gary Pruitt understands what goes on at his own papers. In his earnings report Pruitt said that the digital side of his products was growing but that print upsells (a combination print and online buy) were dragging down earnings. I suspect there is some creative accounting going on to arrive at this conclusion. Publications will tell you (McClatchy publications included) that they can give enormous discounts on print but they have to keep the online rate card intact. So if you buy a combination for, let's say $1,000, you think you are pending $600 on print and $400 on online, but when they generate a bill they will make it $900 online and $100 print (I am using these numbers as an example but propotionally they are pretty accurate). That doesn't mean that the advertiser only wanted to spend $100 in print or that they would have spent $900 online but publications bill out in that way to give someone like Pruitt a happy story to tell. I hope they don't believe that advertisers are actually willing to pay their online rates without the print side discounts.

Here is part of the story, from paidcontent.org:

Earnings Call: McClatchy’s Pruitt: Digital Growth Returns; But Print Upsells Still Drag Online Revs

After posting an online revenue decline of 2.9 percent in Q2, McClatchy (NYSE: MNI) was able to reverse that trajectory to see digital revs rise 3.1 percent in Q3. As print continues to decline—and McClatchy chairman and CEO Gary Pruitt didn’t surprise anyone on the Sacramento company’s earnings call by saying print would fall further in Q4—online is showing signs of more stability and, most importantly, more independence from print. “As online grows, we’re less vulnerable to print declines and we’ll be less burdened by print costs,” Pruitt said.

Unfortunately for McClatchy this time out, print upsells remained a particular drag on its web ads. Pruitt told investors that a little less than half of McClatchy’s web ads are pure online sales, not tied to print. It’s hard to say if it’s improved online sales on its own—plus its 14.4 percent stake in web recruiter CareerBuilder—or the decline of print, but just over 50 percent of McClatchy’s online help wanted revenues are directly from the web. Once the economy rebounds, that tilt in favor of online and away from print is expected to accelerate.

Full story here

As a follow up to our diatribe yesterday on BusinessWeek consider this typically snarky comment from AdAge:

"Why the persistent drop for the business bibles? Business-to-business advertisers have found many more efficient, targeted ways to reach their customers. Brand campaigns remain an important component of their marketing, but they've also gotten much better at maintaining databases of the crucial decision makers who buy their products or services, focusing on preserving their loyalty and contacting them more or less directly than through a major magazine ad buy."

If you are in print - newspapers or magazines - this comment should really bug you. The author, Nat Ives, is wrong about the potential for print publications to generate response for non-branding campaigns but he is expressing a sentiment which is common in the advertising world. In other words, the advertisers you covet think he is right about magazines being a branding advertising medium. Further proof, that if print publications don't start proving response to their customers using any number of rudimentary tracking mechanisms (800#s, text addresses, unique urls), no one will.

The June Teleseminar, sponsored by MediaBids and hosted by Ernest Oriente, of PowerHour, is now available to listen to for free at www.MediaBids.com or here.

The June discussion focused on: Driving Website Revenue for Publications.

The topics covered were:

1. What are the five most important things to know about the four major search engines related to your publication website? What wrong search engine assumptions lead to wasted marketing dollars?
2. What does SEO [search engine optimization] really mean? Why is SEO mission-critical for your publication website + driving revenue for your publishing company?
3. What SEO techniques and strategies will bring traffic to your publication website?
4. Once your publication website is found by Google, Yahoo and MSN…then what?

This week MediaBids took advantage of the opportunity to attend the 13^th Annual New York Magazine Day, appropriate entitled “Industry in Motion”.  The theme of the day was certainly focused on the rapidly changing print advertising industry with special attention being paid to accountability, innovation, and digitization.  Key speakers included the president of Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia, CEO of Time Inc., publisher of Seventeen Magazine, CEO of The Knot Inc., and many more industry professionals. 

We had the chance to hear from a variety of perspectives including the client, advertising agency, and publication.  Many of the themes carried throughout the various voices, though, and everyone seemed to be talking about change.  There were decidedly optimistic undertones to the day with Jayne Jamison, the publisher of Seventeen Magazine, emphasizing the “power of print”.  Funny, though, that her speech really focused the digital results her publication has produced.  She spoke about the power to poll an audience online, success with text messages, video blogging, and the personalization offered through the web.  Her final conclusion that the print magazine, web, and mobile mediums should all complement each other seemed like a bit of an afterthought, and she added little to substantiate this claim.

The topic of accountability was a hot one, but one truly left open.  Accountability is exactly what MediaBids offers; holding publications accountable for the response their print advertising space is capable of generating.  Per Inquiry advertising is all about accountability.  The speakers on this topic circled around the need for a solution and the idea that though it’s easy to hide behind “awareness” goals, the true metric is sales performance.  This is why so many advertisers are attracted to web options where they are easily able to track their results.  If print were capable of tracking the results in the same way (which it is), yet provided stronger, more qualified leaders and prospects, wouldn’t advertisers seek the more effective medium?  The fact is, magazines are the medium of action.

Finally, one particularly interesting thought brought up by a speaker was that with the rise in web blogging, editorial journalists no longer have the final say.  So true then is that of advertising.  The editorial, or the ad copy, is now only the beginning of the conversation with the advertiser standing on the sidelines with little or no input.  The question then becomes if this changes anything.  Now what is your role as an original content provider given that you know someone else will be completing your story? 

When evaluating your print advertising options on MediaBids and beyond, a publication's media kit provides key information to help you make the best advertising decision for your business. If you don't have a lot of time to read through an entire media kit, here's a few key terms to keep your eye out for: 

1.) Circulation: This is the average number of copies distributed for a print publication, through newsstands and subscriptions.

2.) Circulation Area: This is the area  where the publication is distributed.

3.) Frequency: This tells you how often the publication is published. 

4.) Readership/Demographics: A publication's readership refers to the total number of people exposed to a publication. Often times a publication has done some research about their readers and provides important demographic information within the Readership section of their media kit about the age, income level, education level and more of their readers. 

If you have questions about any terms you see in a media kit, or questions about advertising terms in general, check out Mediabids' Glossary of Advertising Terms