http://blogs.pressgazette.co.uk/mediamoney Peter Kirwan on media business and finance Wed, 08 Dec 2010 12:05:14 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en The Guardian’s analysis of behind-the-paywall traffic at The Times and The Sunday Times, reported exclusively by Press Gazette this morning, offers something new: an assessment of how many subscribers are actually visiting the sites. The official numbers for pure-play digital subscriptions from Wapping, published in early November, told us something about conversions. ... http://blogs.pressgazette.co.uk/mediamoney/2010/12/08/dept-of-small-numbers-the-guardians-analysis-of-murdochs-paywall-traffic/ What’s not to like about DMGT’s final results for the year to October? A few things. Although the overall numbers suggest a welcome improvement, classified ad markets remain broken, online and in print. After the steep declines of 2008-2009, this recovery still feels very weak. In ... http://blogs.pressgazette.co.uk/mediamoney/2010/11/25/dmgt-2009-a-weak-and-narrow-recovery-takes-shape/ It was the condescension that jumped off the page. When Newsquest, the second-largest local newspaper publisher in Britain, wrote to its employees in early August announcing the closure of its final salary pension scheme, the justifications were vague and the FAQs superficial. The cost of running ... http://blogs.pressgazette.co.uk/mediamoney/2010/11/11/arrogance-hypocrisy-newsquest/ In the middle distance, a different kind of Guardian Media Group appears to be taking shape. The Sunday Times reports that GMG investments like EMAP and Trader Media Group, as well as wholly-owned subsidiaries that operate radio stations and classified websites, will be hived off into “an investment portfolio ... http://blogs.pressgazette.co.uk/mediamoney/2010/11/09/what-would-paul-dacre-say-if-the-guardian-became-a-fully-fledged-charity/ There are reasons why business ventures that make an initial fist of it get three years to prove their long-term viability. In the first year, you make mistakes. In the second year, you correct them. In the third year, you get realistic year-on-year comparatives. These tell ... http://blogs.pressgazette.co.uk/mediamoney/2010/11/03/return-of-the-prodigal-why-advertising-will-make-or-break-wappings-paywall/ Like many of the old guard Fleet Street commentators, Stephen Glover frequently talks nonsense when confronted by financials. This is the same man who wrote a 328pp book about launching and running a national newspaper that failed to mention revenue or profit in any substantive way. Like the rest of us, ... http://blogs.pressgazette.co.uk/mediamoney/2010/10/06/what-is-sustainable-at-a-loss-making-national-newspaper/ Is this the year of the content farm? Last month, Demand Media, which already has a UK operation, published its IPO prospectus. This autumn, AOL plans a UK launch for Seed.com, a platform for freelance contributions that looks a lot like Demand’s. Homegrown entrepreneurs have taken the hint, too: last week, ... http://blogs.pressgazette.co.uk/mediamoney/2010/09/07/the-rise-of-the-content-farms/ The recovery is starting to remind me of the Tour De France. High on a mountain ridge, the peloton is stretched out along a vast stretch of road. But two groups are visible. The leaders represent consumer-facing mass media -- the broadcasters and national press. The laggards come from B2B ... http://blogs.pressgazette.co.uk/mediamoney/2010/08/13/ad-revenue-recovery-different-strokes-for-different-folks/ Is the advertising recovery we’re witnessing as unbalanced as anything that occurred in the City of London during the run-up to 2008? That’s what I’m starting to wonder. Take DMGT’s Q2 numbers, which disclose that retailers once again outperformed the broad advertising market, increasing their expenditure Associated Newspapers by 19% YOY. ... http://blogs.pressgazette.co.uk/mediamoney/2010/08/11/retail-advertisers-in-national-newspapers-too-big-to-fail/ If you needed an indication of where News Corporation is going, yesterday brought it: a £7bn+ bid for 60% of BSkyB, coupled with two smaller deals designed to make newspapers palatable to the company’s shareholders. A spoonful of sugar makes the medicine go down; or as the Americans would say: offense and ... http://blogs.pressgazette.co.uk/mediamoney/2010/06/15/ruperts-spaghetti-junction-news-corp-now-boasts-four-ways-to-sell-paid-digital-content/