The group, which publishers more than 100 local and regional newspapers, posted half-year revenues for its continuing operations of £460.8 million – an 8 per cent drop.
Advertising revenues also fell by 15 per cent year-on-year.
Craigslist’s founders may not be concerned with the decline of print journalism, but they should support journalism’s future on alternative platforms.
Outing suggests several collaborations between news organisations and Craigslist to this end.
Sky is to increase advertising on its video content across its sports, news, showbiz, travel, motoring and style sections.
The deal with in-video advertising firm Adjustables will see a range of new ad formats featured in the content.
Sky Sports has already recorded 14 million video ad impressions online and Sky News 3.5 million, according to a release from Adjustables.
The partnership underlines Sky’s commitment to online video, Tom Bevan, operations manager at Sky Digital Media, said.
“Within our growing portfolio, video is clearly something that differentiates Sky’s online offering. We’re particularly well served by a wide variety of unique video content, be that from Sky’s core content business or web exclusive material,” he said.
Online newspapers in Norway generated nearly €290 million in 2007, up 61 per cent from about €180 million in 2005, according to the International Newsmedia Marketing Association (through SFN Blog).
Display and classified revenues increased 41.7 per cent. Search and listing up 112.5 per cent.
Just click through and look…
Gavin O’Reilly, chief operating officer of Indepenent News and Media (INM) and president of the World Association of Newspapers (WAN), has responded to criticism of the publisher’s digital strategy by media commentator Roy Greenslade.
INM has adopted a ‘platform agnostic’ policy for growing its media, O’Reilly wrote in a comment responding to Greenslade, and is not investing in print at the expense of online.
“[T]he O’Brien saga is a distraction from the stark reality facing a company that has put its faith in the longevity of newsprint and averted its gaze from the digital future. It has invested online, of course, but it is way behind many other newspaper companies,” Greenslade wrote, likening INM to a ‘digital ostrich’.
According to O’Reilly, the facts speak for themselves:
INM online revenues grew by 111.5% last year and its 100 websites attract 12 million monthly unique users.
Reports of a ‘volatile’ advertising situation, he added, are not a result of print vs online or structural shifts within INM, but a result of the wider economic downturn.
Le Figaro is predicting that 20% of its revenue will be generated by its online operations by 2010.
But the French newspaper has plans to beat this, Pierre Conte, deputy managing director for new media and advertising for Le Figaro Group, told delegates at the World Association of Newspapers (WAN) conference today.
After rising from 2 million unique users to its websites to 8 million in two years, the group’s web traffic now accounts for 1 French internet user out of every four.
Last year its online revenues accounted for 13% of its total income – so how will the publisher build on this?
Gradual integration
Online success will only be achieved if all the group’s editorial teams want to take part, Francis Morel, managing director, said.
As such Le Figaro adopted an ‘invite not assign’ policy, giving journalists the opportunity to do work for the websites if they wished (though initially for no extra pay).
According to Morel merging editorial teams for print and online was seen as essential, despite concerns raised by the unions.
Journalists became increasingly enthusiastic about working for the websites and now both editorial teams are on the same floor under the same editorial head, though Morel insists this has been about building bridges and not enforced integration.
Advertising
The group has sought to recoup floundering revenues from print classifieds by making a concerted push with this advertising online, setting up a team to find advertisers for online-only.
Contextual and behavioural advertising is also being experimented with.
E-commerce and diversification
Building around the flagship portal of Le Figaro, the publisher has launched specialist sport, finance and lifestyle websites, in addition to acquiring several e-commerce sites.
Content has also been syndicated to other websites, though this is not a long-term business model, Conte says.
“This business [selling content to other websites] will continue to be weak and limited. We need to work on ad revenue. We are not reinventing anything by saying that, but we need to integrate our sales house.”
Content
News remains a priority online for all the group’s content-based websites. On the Le Figaro site a commenting function has been added to articles and submissions from users are welcomed.
Le Figaro has also set up its own TV studio to produce video clips for online and mobile.
As a word of warning, Morel stresses that the digital developments in these areas have not been at the expense of the print product.
“It is indispensable to continue to invest and focus on print, because while the internet is a key territory, it will not replace print.
“We need to be extremely cautious and prudent. The internet is a very volatile market. We need to be very flexible at any time to change our course because we do not know what tomorrow holds.”
The newspaper industry should not be fixated with young audiences, Gavin O’Reilly, president of the World Association of Newspapers (WAN), said at the organisation’s annual conference today.
The chief information officer of Independent News and Media said publishers should be looking to serve all generations with their print and online products.
The focus on youth is largely driven by the advertising industry, which is ‘transfixed’ by the youth market, he said.
“There’s always been an unnecessary fixation on youth. We need to capture them first.
“We need to market the newspaper for all generations and we also need to explain to the young that while the net is overwhelming in content it is pretty underwhelming in reliability.”
According to Tomas Brunegård, chairman of the Swedish Newspaper Publishers Association, Sweden is enjoying an online advertising market of 15 per cent of overall spend – the “highest percentage in the world” (do you know better?)
Despite its small population, Sweden has a healthy and innovative news publishing industry, online and in print. Hear more from Tomas in his speech during the opening ceremony of the 61st World Newspaper Congress in Gothenberg, Sweden today:
[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OB0PX9zcSkU]Glam Media, the ad network which serves over 500 lifestyle and women’s blogs and websites, has launched a new service to distribute video across its network of sites.
GlamTV will feature how-to clips from VideoJug and news from E! Online, alongside music, comedy, entertainment and lifestyle videos from a range of producers and websites, according to a press release from the company.
To launch the service, the publisher has teamed up with Brightcove, allowing users of Brightcove’s internet TV platform to distribute their video content across Glam’s network.
The launch aims to give publishers in the Glam Media network ‘content which is costly to produce’, while providing the video producers with access to niche audiences.
According to a report on Webware, revenue from GlamTV will be shared between all partners in the distribution chain: video producers, Glam and the website hosting the vid.