The Los Angeles Times is once again at the center of a heated debate about the future of newsrooms and their products. The New York Times reported this morning that the L.A. Times has made plans to transfer control of its monthly magazine to its business operations, effectively wresting control of the product out of the hands of its editors.
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Penton Media has let go 42 employees due to “economic pressures.”
U.S. News & World Report, effectively ceding to competitors Newsweek and Time, has announced that it will drop back and publish only every two weeks.
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Tribune Co. can do without large numbers of news employees without losing much content, said Randy Michaels, the company’s chief operating officer, during a conference call with analysts.
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At a special session tomorrow (Friday), the Screen Actors Guild president and national executive director will attempt to persuade dual cardholders to refuse to ratify the prime time TV deal recently agreed upon by the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists.
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Arbitron’s PPM continues to fight for its life as a new industry ad from Cox Radio, Inner City parent ICBC Broadcast Holdings and Saga Communications urges the company to hold off on the rollout of the new measurement service.
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Some 85 percent of U.S. consumers say they believe the country is in a recession and U.S. consumer confidence in the economy plunged 17 points from the second half of 2007 to the first half of 2008, according to a new online survey by The Nielsen Company, writes MarketingCharts.
Higher prices at the pump and the grocery checkout line might be cutting into Father’s Day budgets, according to the National Retail Federation’s 2008 Father’s Day Consumer Intentions and Actions Survey, writes MarketingCharts.
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Local newspapers pulled about $3.1 billion in local online revenue in 2007, for about 36 percent of last year’s local online advertising revenue total.
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J. Crew is predicting that its full-year profit will be lower than its previous prediction of $1.85 a share. Earnings for 2008 are likely to be closer to $1.72 a share, said Gap Inc. CEO Mickey Drexler.
The Radio Advertising Bureau will recommend a set of selling and schedule verification guidelines to members. The guidelines suggest that radio broadcasters guarantee the GRP delivery of a radio schedule - and offer makegoods if the guarantee is not reached.
A chatty Rupert Murdoch failed to offer much reassurance about the future to attendees of the D: All Things Digital conference in Carlsbad, Calif., last night.
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While big media companies are putting a positive spin on the effects of the sluggish economy, it is clear they are feeling the pinch of what Merrill Lynch economist David Rosenberg is now calling a recession.
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Nielsen continues to say that many U.S. households are not prepared for the upcoming switch from analog to digital television broadcasting; 12.6 percent have TVs that will receive no picture come Feb. 17, 2009.
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The banks financing the Clear Channel buyout have finally placed the cash for the deal in an escrow account, where it will remain until the deal is complete, following an agreement by the company to accept a reduced bid.
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Spanish Broadcasting System believes Arbitron’s PPM could have a potentially devastating impact on Spanish-language radio stations, and has hired a PR firm to help educate the public about possible damage that could be caused to Hispanic communities.
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Cox Radio and Inner City Broadcasting are waging war against the commercial rollout of Arbitron’s PPM, saying in industry print ads that the lack of MRC accreditation should have grounded the PPM rollout until the new system passes inspection.
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Home Depot is struggling against the worst U.S. housing slump in more than 25 years, and its profits are showing the strain.
Nearly one in six U.S. homes (15.8 percent) had only wireless telephones in the second half of 2007, according to preliminary results from the July-December 2007 National Health Interview Survey (NHIS) from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), reports MarketingCharts.
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Maverick investor Carl Icahn is preparing to mount a proxy bid for Yahoo, reports The Wall Street Journal (via MarketingVox).
