“Rebekah Wade, the editor of the Sun, is to become chief executive of News International from September.”
MediaGuardian predicted the move in March earlier this year.
The long-running debate around pay walls for online news sites seems to be moving into reality.
Following recent announcements by the Sunday Times and News International, Nieman Journalism Lab has this report on Rhode Island’s Newport Daily News.
The 12,000-circulation paper has introduced a three-tier pricing structure for print/online subscriptions (see the video below).
Meanwhile, paidContent.org reports that ESPN The Magazine is introduced paid-for online content.
On the subject, Salon co-founder Scott Rosenberg’s post is well worth a read (via Mark Potts). Rosenberg has experience in the field – “[A]t Salon we tried every online revenue strategy you can imagine,” he writes.
“Yes, 2009 is different from 2000-2002. But the fundamental lesson remains: you can get some revenue from readers, and there’s nothing wrong with trying; but if in doing so you cut yourself off from the rest of the web in any way, you are dooming yourself to irrelevance and financial decline.”
News Corporation has posted losses of £4.4 billion for the last quarter of 2008. Rupert Murdoch has warned of job cuts with losses at News Corp’s UK newspapers expected to be announced next week.
MediaGuardian reports that there will be ‘a series of editorial job cuts’ across News International’s tabloid and broadsheet newspapers in the next two weeks and that the group will ‘cut the rates it pays some agencies for stories’. News International refused to comment on the reports.
If the Wordle and other coverage isn’t enough, here’s the Hugh Cudlipp speech by the editor of the Sun, Rebekah Wade, in full [note: may have differed very slightly in actual delivery]:
The challenging future of national and regional newspapers is now the staple diet of media commentators.
If you have been reading the press writing about the press you’d all be forgiven for questioning your choice of career.
I’m not denying we’re in a tough place – we are.
But I don’t want to use this speech to make grand statements on the future of our industry.
I want to talk to you about journalism.
All you really need to know about UK tabloid The Sun‘s editor Rebekah Wade‘s Hugh Cudlipp lecture, courtesy of Wordle (hat tip to Jason Cobb). Or read the speech in full here.
News International has delayed a plan to redevelop its Wapping site in London due to the economic recession, Reuters reported Wednesday.
Former head of mobile strategy for News International (NI), Andrew Bagguley has been hired as a consultant for Guardian News&Media (GNM), as the title begins its move into the mobile market.
Bagguley left NI in August following a reorganisation of the publisher’s digital arm. He helped The Sun and News of the World launch mobile websites and implement QR codes for mobile advertising.
After two years at NI Bagguley has just started at GNM, a spokeswoman for the group confirmed to Journalism.co.uk.
“We want to benefit from his experience launching mobile for News International so he’ll be working closely with our in house teams to formulate our plans,” she said.
GNM currently offers news alerts via text message and a version of Guardian.co.uk for PDA, SmartPhone and BlackBerry devices.
Speaking at the Monaco Media forum, Murdoch, who took over News Corp’s European and Asian business last year, said the industry had spent ‘not enough time thinking about customers’ daily lives’.
Cross-promotion between print and online had been successful for News International’s titles, he added.
According to the Ipsos Mori British Business Survey 2008, the News International owned Times titles are attracting more business executive readers than their rivals.