From Marketingcharts.org - full story here

This report should be interesting for newspapers and magazines still determining the best way to sell their digital space.

Online Revenue Better for Local Media Cos. With Digital-Only Reps

A “one-staff-fits-all” strategy may not be the best approach for local media companies, according to a January 2012 report from Borrell Associates, which finds that sites with dedicated digital account executives (AEs) outperform those without by a factor of 2.5. In fact, gross online revenue per sales representative (online dollars divided by all representatives selling digital products) is roughly $186,000 for sites with digital AEs, compared to $73,300 for those without any dedicated AEs.

Among TV stations the disparity is even greater: those with sales representatives dedicated exclusively to selling online advertising average almost 3 times the gross revenue of those without ($208,200 vs. $70,300).

Online-Only AEs Hiring Down

46% of local media respondents reported having an online-only AE, down from 60% in 2009. Radio sported the lowest average of digital-only sellers, with just 11% of radio companies employing at least one. Only 2 in 5 local TV stations had at least one online-only AE, although the majority of newspapers (55%) did.

Digital AEs Perform Well With Consultative Sales Approach

Overall, sales managers seemed pleased with their representatives’ performance using the consultative approach, with the majority rating their performance good to outstanding. However, there was a clear difference between companies working with dedicated digital AEs and those without: managers with digital AEs reported an excellent to outstanding rank at a rate of 56%, while those without a dedicated digital staff reported that satisfaction level at a rate of 32%.

Similarly, managers whose staff included digital AEs were far more likely than those without to rank their staff’s understanding of digital products as excellent to outstanding (58% vs. 11%).

Other Findings:

• 15% of managers who had no digital-only AEs on staff rated their staff’s motivation to sell digital products as poor.
• Less than half of managers without digital-only AEs said that their sales representatives had a good to outstanding level of understanding of the basic business trends for their advertising customers.

About the Data: Borrell’s analysis was derived from: an online survey of 345 local media sales managers that yielded 230 usable responses, conducted November 2011 to January 2012; Borrell’s database of online revenue and number of dedicated sales representatives at more than 5,100 local media companies in the US and Canada; and a survey of 7,805 local businesses conducted January to December, 2011.

Full story from AdAge here.

This effort makes sense. It is just hard to have a lot of confidence in newspapers when they team up for new ventures- their track record is horrible. However, let's hope this works- clearly there is a need. By the way - does this mean that newspapers are for SOPA? Just a few days ago editorial organizations all came out against it.

New York Times, Washington Post Expand Policing of Article Pilfering Online

Newspapers Form NewsRight, a For-Profit Company Tracking Sites That Scrape Content

The New York Times Co., The Washington Post Co., The Associated Press and 26 other news companies began a joint venture today to police websites that use their articles without consent and demand fees for legitimate use.

The NewsRight venture is a for-profit entity spun out of an Associated Press program started two years ago to explore ways to stem content pilfering on the web -- a practice known as "scraping" -- and to capitalize on a news-reading audience that is migrating online. Large news organizations have been suffering financial losses as a result of scraping, according to David Westin, 59, the former head of Walt Disney Co.'s ABC News who became NewsRight's chief executive officer in April.

Wired Magazine recently declared that Amazon "owns" the internet. Good to see the owners of the internet turning to print to rally last minute holiday sales:

 Full story from PaidContent.org here

Amazon Includes Circular In Weekend Newspapers

The front page of the circular says “Last Minute Gift Ideas For Everyone On Your List.” (Excuse the not-great cell phone picture.) The inside pages feature products that are eligible for free one-day shipping, including DVDs, electronics, video games, music and Kindles. A box on page 5 explains what Amazon Prime is and offers a free trial by visiting amazon.com/primeholiday.

Each item featured in the circular includes its list price, which is crossed out, then “Our Price: ? Check latest price at Amazon.com.” Each item is also accompanied by its star rating and reviews on Amazon.

Books are not included in the circular or in the free one-day shipping promotion.

Amazon recently ran a price check promotion that made many people very mad, but that I believe was more of an effort to compete against big box stores than independent bookstores. This circular seems to be part of that same strategy.

Too bad they don't have ads yet:

Story from CIO Today. Full story here

According to media reports published Wednesday, Amazon.com now believes it will ship more than eight million Kindle e-readers this year -- about 60 percent more than the 4.8 to five million range forecast for 2010 by financial analysts. Earlier this month, the online retail giant observed that it has been seeing huge demand for its latest Kindle devices.

"In just the first 73 days of this holiday quarter, we've already sold millions of our all-new Kindles with the latest E Ink Pearl display," Amazon noted. "In fact, in the last 73 days, readers have purchased more Kindles than we sold during all of 2009."

From The Economist - full story here

Newspapers have escaped cataclysm by becoming leaner and more focused

Jun 10th 2010

“PRINT is going to live longer than people think,” asserts Mathias Döpfner, the boss of Axel Springer. Perhaps it will in central Europe. The publisher of Bild and Die Welt recently recorded the most profitable first quarter in its history. The profit margin on its German national newspapers is a startling 27%. The firm is expanding into Poland. If newspapers are in crisis, Mr Döpfner says, he likes crisis.

A year ago the mere survival of many newspapers seemed doubtful. It had become clear that the young, in particular, were getting much of their news online. Readers were flitting from story to story, rarely paying. Advertising too was moving online, but not to newspapers’ websites. Rather, it was being swallowed by search engines. The classified-ad market was ravaged by free listings websites such as Craigslist. A deep recession, received wisdom had it, would surely finish off newspapers, which have high fixed costs in the form of journalists and printing presses.

In some ways the pain proved even greater than analysts expected. The Newspaper Association of America reports that print and online advertising has fallen by 35% since the first quarter of 2008. Circulation has dropped alarmingly too. Yet almost all newspapers have survived, albeit with occasional help from the bankruptcy courts. American newspaper firms like McClatchy stayed mostly profitable even as revenues plunged (see chart). Some companies are now worth ten times as much as in the spring of 2009, although they remain far from pre-recession heights.

Steep cover-price rises have helped. But for the most part newspapers have cut their way out of crisis. In the past year McClatchy reduced payroll costs by 25%. Many publications closed bureaus and forced journalists to take unpaid leave. There have been clever adaptations, too. At Gannett, another American firm, 46 local titles now carry national and international news from USA Today, the firm’s national paper. A group of New Jersey newspapers jointly produces features and editorials. Bob Dickey, who runs Gannett’s community papers, says they have realised there is no need to work out what to say about the Gulf oil leak seven times.