‘WSJ’ Astounds with Gains in Print Ad Revenue

News Corp. doesn’t really provide a lot of Dow Jones information in its earnings releases but golly gee they certainly said a lot with one graph in its Q2 fiscal year ending Dec. 31 statement. Mostly this: Print advertising revenue at The Wall Street Journal GREW 5%. I will repeat this: print revenue GREW 5%. It did even better on the digital side, where ad revenue jumped 17%.

via Fitz & Jen: ‘WSJ’ Astounds with Gains in Print Ad Revenue.

The Final Countdown: Print Media Has 60 Days To Get On Their Life-Saving Apple iPad

Newspapers and print media have been waiting for the Apple tablet to save them for the past two years.So, here it is guys. Rev your creaky wheels. You have two months–just 60 days–to recreate your content for the Apple iPad.Apple will ship to consumers starting in March, with 3G models coming later in April.The New York Times, Condé Nast, Hearst and Time have already gotten started. But their prototype applications will need to be edited for the iPad’s specs–or maybe they just need to make better Web sites.

via The Final Countdown: Print Media Has 60 Days To Get On Their Life-Saving Apple iPad.

S&P: Newspaper Industry Nearing the Bottom in 2010, Will Likely Stay There

NEW YORK The financial outlook for Q4 of 2009 and beyond is not looking so sharp as traditional media — especially newspapers — are expected to suffer from an economic downturn despite easing comparisons.

Standard & Poor’s latest media and entertainment scorecard, courtsey of Seeking Alpha, forecasts newspapers may be nearing the bottom, but will likely stay there. Local media as well as national magazines will experience further EBITDA declines though at decelerating rates.

S&P notes that while the last part of 2009 should “bring easier year-over-year financial comparisons … the credit outlook is still grim for these issuers, and we think that even the first quarter of 2010 could still see lower revenues and earnings.”

via S&P: Newspaper Industry Nearing the Bottom in 2010, Will Likely Stay There.

Another Analyst Turns Bullish Sort Of On Newspaper Stocks

NEW YORK Newspaper stocks have come back so far from their parlous state a year ago that the sector now ranks among the market’s best performers, the chief analyst for Zacks Investment Research Inc. says in his latest report.Zacks Chief Equity Strategist Dirk Van Dijk says newspapers now rank seventh-best among 206 industries tracked by the Chicago-based firm. Two stocks — Gannett Co. Inc. NYSE: GCI and The New York Times Co. NYSE: NYT — are now given No. 1 ratings in its stock evaluation system.Newspaper stocks across the board are trading at or near 52-week highs, and some have rebounded spectacularly since hitting all-time low prices in the winter of 2009.Gannett’s share price, for instance, is up 103% from a year ago. Stock in The McClatchy Co. NYSE: MNI sunk below $1 a share last year, and only narrowly avoided being delisted by the New York Stock Exchange. A year later, McClatchy shares have soared 322%.Still, newspaper stocks remain near historic lows. McClatchy shares in January of 2005, for instance, traded for around $60. On Wednesday, McClatchy shares closed at $5.06.

via Another Analyst Turns Bullish Sort Of On Newspaper Stocks.

Local newspapers still number one for news

More local news comes from newspapers and their websites than from television, radio or online-only news sources, ABC News reports.

A study by the Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism looked at one week of local news reporting across 53 media outlets in Baltimore during July last year. It found that for six major stories, 61% of original reporting or new information came from newspapers and their websites. By contrast, 28% came from local television stations and their websites, 7% for radio stations and 4% for online-only publications.

Although local television produced slightly more content than newspapers, fewer of the stations’ stories contained original reporting. Content often included information obtained from other media, primarily newspapers.

“This study does suggest that if newspapers were to disappear, what would be left to aggregate?” director of the Project for Excellence in Journalism Tom Rosenstiel said.

via Local newspapers still number one for news – Editors Weblog.

Hyperlocal sites becoming major M&A targets (Dealscape – M&A)

While newspapers have been decimated by the economics transforming today’s media industry, Web sites that report news and deliver other content at the neighborhood, or “hyperlocal,” level, are bursting with life, with many of them becoming sought-after targets by big media and big tech companies. In December, Google Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG) tried — and failed — in its reported $550 million bid to buy Yelp Inc., a user-generated review site that has raised $31 million from investors including Bessemer Venture Partners, Benchmark Capital and DAG Ventures since its inception in 2004.

Successful acquisitions in the sector in 2009 included MSNBC.com’s buying EveryBlock.com for undisclosed terms and AOL Inc.’s (NYSE:AOL) purchases of Patch Media Corp. and Going Inc.

Meanwhile, hyperlocal startups continued to get funded. In December, Outside.in Inc., which pulls together neighborhood blogs and other local content, announced it had closed a $7 million Series B round of funding, led by existing investor Union Square Ventures, with participation from new investor Turner Broadcasting System Inc. As part of Turner’s investment, CNN.com will use Outside.in’s aggregation and curation tools to power hyperlocal news across all of its sites. The new round brings Outside.in’s total raised to $12 million.

via Hyperlocal sites becoming major M&A targets (Dealscape – M&A).

CHART OF THE DAY: The End Of Newspapers

Newspapers had a nice run from the 1970s to the 1990s. Unfortunately, as this chart from the Bureau of Labor Statistics makes clear — by way of Marketwatch — it’s over.Newspaper employment has utterly collapsed in the last 15 years, with employment numbers now around where they were in the mid-1950s.The good news: It’s a great opportunity. The next decade will give birth to new forms of reporting, more in tune with today’s technology and news consumption habits.

via CHART OF THE DAY: The End Of Newspapers.

2009 Revenues Dropped 4.3% For Nation’s 100 Top Media Companies

CHICAGO (Adage.com) — The nation’s top 100 media companies eked out 0.8% revenue growth in 2008, but reported revenue for top media firms in the first half of 2009 fell 4.3% from a year ago, according to Ad Age’s analysis.

For the nation’s 100 Leading Media Companies, revenue growth in 2008 was the lowest since 1991, and 2009 is set to show the first decline since Ad Age began ranking media firms in 1981.

Remarkably, 11 of 2008’s Media 100 firms filed for bankruptcy over the past year, crushed in most cases by shrinking revenue and debt loads taken on during the blind optimism of the boom. Print media dominated the list: six newspaper companies, two magazine publishers and two yellow-pages firms. No. 11 in Chapter 11 was a debt-laden cable firm, Charter Communications.

via 2009 Revenues Dropped 4.3% For Nation’s 100 Top Media Companies.

72% Of Advertisers See More Digital Spending In 2010

A regional survey of 8,500 senior advertising, marketing and media executives by Round2 Communications found that 72% predict they will increase their spending on digital media in the coming year. Justifying this apportionment, 33.9% said ROI for new media is “somewhat” better than traditional, and 28.2% said new media’s ROI is “significantly” better.

Along with the good news for digital media, the survey (which focused on executives from companies headquartered in the Western U.S.) delivered some bad news for traditional: 86% of the respondents say they expect their spending on traditional media — including broadcast TV and radio and print newspapers and magazines — to remain even (45.7%) or decline (40.3%) in 2010.

But despite all the negative publicity, it’s worth noting that print still garners the lion’s share of media spending, with 47% of those surveyed saying print is their single biggest media investment. That places it well ahead of email marketing, with 13.4% of respondents saying this was their main area of expenditure, and interactive advertising, at 10.2%.

However, these in turn trumped direct mail (9.7%), TV (8.6%), search (7%), and radio (3.8%). Meanwhile, the heavy print spending may be at least partly the result of discounts offered by print publishers, with 32.2% of respondents saying print currently offers the deepest discounts.

via MediaPost Publications

Google’s Display Advertising Strategy Revealed!

The search market isn’t growing like it used to, and Google needs to convince the world display advertising can be its new growth engine.

Today, Google gave it a shot, hosting a conference call to explain a three-pronged display advertising strategy.

Google said it will…

• Simplify ad-buying and ad-selling.
• Increase display ad peformance with better, more measurable units.
• Open display advertising to new types of business.

The big challenge for Google (GOOG) is that its search revenues will surpass $25 billion this year, so for shareholders, any new business’s revenues will look tiny in comparison.

Power through a CliffNotes version of the presentation

Via Silicon Alley