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Online Journalism Scandinavia: Metro Sweden’s deal with Schibsted part of its ‘Freesheets 2.0′ strategy

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Norwegian media giant Schibsted this morning announced that it’s paying £30m to take a 35 per cent stake in the Swedish edition of Metro International’s free newspaper.

In what is a key freesheet market the former rivals have forged a partnership to collaborate on advertising sales with the new company offering advertisers the chance to reach 4.2 million readers across the Metro and Schibsted paid-for dailies Aftonbladet and Dagbladet.

In February, Metro International CEO, Per Mikael Jensen, discussed his company’s strategic goals with Journalism.co.uk saying that consolidation and online innovation would be key for the development of his newspapers, in what he called the ‘freesheet 2.0 phase.’

“We are entering a freesheet 2.0 phase where we are consolidating our core business and looking at more ways to attract readers,” said Jensen, who succeeded Pelle Törnberg as head of Metro in 2007.

In Sweden, this consolidation will mean Schibsted will stop publication of its free paper Punkt SE with immediate effect so that the new joint venture can focus print advertising around a single free title.

The deal has similarities with the one Metro struck at the end of 2007, when it sold 60 per cent of its Czech operation to its competitor Mafra.

The freesheet giant is currently undergoing a strategic review, and when Journalism.co.uk spoke to him, Jensen said we could expect more deals of this nature.

Today, Jensen refused to rule out further consolidations when questioned by Danish media and said he expected dramatic changes in the Danish newspaper market in the coming months (but refused to go into details).

“We do not just sit there and wait for the strategic review to be completed, but implement strategy from day to day. Strategy is something we evaluate each month. Those who believe the strategic review we now are in the middle of will become some sort of bible, will be disappointed,” said Jensen in the interview with Journalism.co.uk.

In addition, Metro is looking to attract more readers online. It’s launching new versions of its websites in all its markets – it recently launched online for the first time in France – and will consolidate some of its editorial activities by creating an internal news agency in London which will serve all its editions.

Jensen is behind Metro’s new developments and alliances but he remains as pessimistic as ever about the future of paid-for printed newspapers.

“I would be very surprised if more than 25 per cent of today’s paid-for newspapers exist in ten years. Of the newspapers that will survive, many of them will be published online only, or make its paper edition free,” Jensen said.

The two newspaper giants may have forged a partnership in Sweden but they remain embroiled in a head-to-head competition over their market leading freesheets in France and Spain.

However, Metro International still has a lot of work to do to convince investors that its business model – the company is still loss-making even though it narrowed its first quarter net loss to £5.1 m – has a profitable future.

MediaGuardian Radio Reborn 2008: Guardian readies ads for podcasts

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The Guardian will soon introduce ad spots to its podcasts in the next few weeks, the title’s head of audio told an industry conference today.

Matt Wells, who announced the plans in January, said a range of bluechip advertisers were interested in the spots, though he did not elaborate on which podcasts would be the first to feature the advertising.

The argument for introducing podcast ads had been significantly boosted by the success of the Guardian’s advertising within its video content, Wells added.

MediaGuardian Radio Reborn 2008: What’s the future for Channel 4’s digital radio?

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The future of Channel 4‘s digital radio prospect was on the table at today’s Radio Reborn conference, prompting some cagey answers from Natalie Schwarz, chair of the 4 Digital group over their ongoing discussions with Ofcom.

In the clip below Matt Wells, head of audio at the Guardian, challenges Schwarz’s comments:

[audio:http://www.journalism.co.uk/sounds/dab.mp3]

Speaking from the audience, Ofcom’s director of radio and multimedia Peter Davies did concede that Channel 4 had not asked for an extension to the launch date of Channel 4 Digital.

Trinity Mirror schedules Ayrshire Post and Paisley Daily Express for revamp

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The Ayrshire Post and Paisley Daily Express will be the next titles from Trinity Mirror’s Scottish division to be relaunched as standalone websites.

The new sites are part of plans to create individual websites outside of the ic umbrella sites for all of Scottish and Universal Newspapers’ (S&UN) 17 local newspaper titles.

The Hamilton Advertiser was the first title to go it alone in March and recorded 20,000 unique users in its first month of operation.

To run the new sites a new team of digital journalists has been recruited by the newspaper group led by S&UN head of digital Craig Brown and online editor John Hutcheson.

The remaining websites will be phased in over the summer, a press release from the company said.

Johnston Press joins AOP

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Regional newspaper publisher Johnston Press has joined the UK’s Association of Online Publishers as an affiliate member.

“This will give us access to some of the best current thinking and will also enable us to contribute to the debate at a very exciting time for online publishing,” said John Bradshaw, Johnston Press head of digital, told AOP.

“We are looking forward to working with colleagues across the industry to drive innovation to satisfy the ever-changing needs of the communities we serve.”

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Brand Republic: Mirror to merge print and online ad sales teams

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Mirror Group Newspapers is planning to restructure its ad-sales team by merging print and online divisions.

The move would reflect similar mergers at other national newspapers. News Group and Telegraph Media Group has each set up cross-media groups for their titles.

According to Brand Republic, The Mirror initiative is being led by David Emin, director of advertising at the group, and Paul Head, head of digital.

The merge is expected to take place in June.

BBC News and Sport websites show off new looks

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The BBC News and Sport websites have today launched their revamped websites. Both editors admit the sites, which are the results of months of development in response to reader feedback, are works in progress.

It’s not a complete redesign, says Steve Herrmann, editor of the BBC News website, on his blog, but more of a ‘site refresh’. Here’s what has changed on both sites according to blog posts from Herrmann and Ben Gallop, head of BBC Sport Interactive:

BBC News

Screenshot of new look BBC News website

  • Wider page layout
  • More open design
  • New masthead
  • Centred pages
  • Use of larger images – enabled by the wider page design
  • Better incorporation of advertising in international version of the site
  • Introduction of embedded audio and video within news pages, with links to this content placed higher on the page
  • Cross-platform content – an area of the BBC News site will be created featuring highlights from TV and radio news programmes

BBC Sport

Screenshot of new look BBC Sport website

  • Wider page layout
  • Use of larger images
  • Introduction of embedded audio and video within sports pages, with links to this content placed higher on the page
  • More prominence for feature content – ‘high profile’ section for original sports journalism content now in middle of the page
  • Better incorporation of advertising in international version of site

Social Media Journalist: ‘Social networks are an echo chamber rather than a way of being exposed to anything new’ Adam Tinworth, RBI

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Journalism.co.uk talks to reporters across the globe working at the collision of journalism and social media about how they see it changing their industry. This week, Adam Tinworth, RBI.

image of Adam Tinworth

1) Who are you and what do you do?
I’m Adam Tinworth, and I’m currently head of blogging for business publisher Reed Business Information.

2) Which web or mobile-based social media tools do you use on a daily basis and why?
I’m a Twitter addict, and am constantly keeping up with the discussions there, either on my laptop or my iPhone.

More stories “break” to me through Twitter right now than any other sources. It’s so quick and easy to publish out with it, you can get news to people before you’re even on the second paragraph of a traditional news story.

I couldn’t live without my RSS feeds. I’ve been an RSS junkie for long enough that I predate Google Reader. I keep my subscriptions in Newsgator, so I can access them in NetNewsWire on my Mac, FeedDemon on my work PC, and the iPhone web version on my, well, iPhone.

While once upon a time I was a heavy forum user (and a Usenet/Mailing List guy before that), most of my conversational reading is in the blogosphere now.

I find the much stronger sense of a huge range of personalities you get on people’s blogs much more appealing than the handful of dominant personalities that tend to dominate forum-like discussion places. And I speak as someone who has been one of those selfishly dominant personalities in the past. I also occasionally flirt with social networks (note that that’s “flirt with” not “flirt in” :)), but find them limited and frustrating.

That said, both Seesmic and Flickr, which have strong similarities with forums, are sites I wish I had more time to explore the true potential of.

3) Of the thousands of social media tools available could you single one out as having the most potential for news either as a publishing or newsgathering tool?
Honestly, I think we’re only just scratching the surface of how blog-based CMS could completely change the way we deliver news to interested people.

I suspect that the news sites of the future will have much more in common with blogs that than monolithic sites with clunky, slow back-ends we build right now.

4) And the most overrated in your opinion?
Facebook (and social network sites in general). I think they’re interesting “walled garden” communication tools, but their strength is also their weakness: they only expose you to the thoughts and recommendations of those you already know.

They are something of an echo chamber, in which existing relationships are reinforced, rather than a way of being exposed to anything (or anyone) new.

Goodbye pop-up player – BBC to embed all video

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image of bbc’s flash video player

The BBC is to phase out the pop-up player that it currently uses to host the majority of its audio and video content in favour of a newly developed embedded Flash player.

The new player has been developed jointly by the journalism and iPlayer teams, so says the BBC Internet blog, as a replacement for the pop-up which relies on using Real or Windows Media formatted video.

Use of the new payer has so far been limited, but over the coming weeks embedded video is expected to become the norm.

It’s hardly surprising, last year Pete Clifton, head of BBC News Interactive, talked to Journalism.co.uk about the experimental use of embedded players across the BBC News online.

During that interview Clifton said that initial tests had shown up to a 40 per cent conversion rate, where people reading stories were also watching the embedded video.

In its standalone player format, he added, the conversion rate was about two per cent. Channel 4 News found about the same.

But he also touched on a another significant point; video embedded into stories, he added, was proving to be popular with audiences as these videos tended to dispense with the traditional news ‘package’ format, instead just showing the footage necessary to enhance the text story sitting beneath the embedded player.

Getting this right is as important as changing the technology to a more user-friendly approach.

So it’s win-win. Better standard of content and technology for the user, fewer headaches for the developers having to reformat all the video

The Crown Jewels indeed.

Online Journalism Scandinavia: Norway’s leading news sites strategies for attracting online audience

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Image of Kristine LoweKristine Lowe is a freelance journalist who writes on the media industry for number of US, UK and Norwegian publications. This week Online Journalism Scandinavia looks at how Norway’s leading news sites attract their audiences. Continue reading →