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The New York Times tonight added Mixx bookmarking buttons on its site, which is an important milestone for the company. Facebook, Digg and Yahoo Buzz are the only other third party social bookmarking services that are offered.
The NYTimes doesn’t include well known and more established services like Delicious, Reddit and others on its pages. And since Mixx is only six months old, so this is an important sign of confidence in the young startup.
An example is here, just click on the “share” button to the right of the article.
Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.
Dow Jones (NYSE: NWS), now officially part of News Corp. has made its first acquisition after the deal: it has bought Dutch company Betten Financial News, in an effort to expand its Dow Jones Newswires operation internationally. DJ will combine Betten's corporate and markets coverage with Dow Jones Nieuwsdienst, its Dutch service. Betten's brand is well known in The Netherlands under the "Betten Beursmedia News" brandname. In addition to distribution via market data terminals Betten has its own website and also provides content to a number of financial institutions' Web portals as well as to Dutch sites including Financieele Dagblad and IEX.nl. Betten also supplies content to the DJ Factiva services.
The financial details were not disclosed. More details in the release.
Newspapers have been attracting larger audiences with their websites, partly compensating for the decreased readership of their print editions, according to a new report from Scarborough Research. The analysis of data from 88 newspapers in the top 50 local markets August 2004-March 2007 showed web site growth making up for print losses by 28 percent. Interviews with newspaper executives brought out several common themes among successful news sites, including local coverage, unique and interactive content such as blogs, videos and podcasts, and cross-promotion. Among the highlights:
-- Online audience has grown 14 percent, making up print audience losses by 28 percent.
-- Readers aged 18-34 who view only the online editions increased 21 percent.
-- Online readers are increasingly wealthy and educated; readership among adults with annual household incomes of $75k increased 33 percent. Readership among adults with a college degree or higher increased by 16 percent.
The full report isn't available online but the release has some details.
In a fresh filing this evening, the activists agitating for change at NYTCo (NYSE: NYT) announced that they picked up another 500,000 shares on Wednesday. Through the various funds involved, Harbert Management, the parent company of Harbinger, now controls 15.57 million shares or nearly 11 percent of the company. Just since the investors announced their intentions to seat their own boardmembers on Jan. 25, NYTCo has announced board changes as well as newsroom layoffs. And already, since that date, shares are up over 27 percent.
Related
-- Dow Jones: As tipped last month, the SEC has settled an insider trading complaint against ex-Dow Jones (NYSE: NWS) director David Li and certain affiliated parties. Li was alleged to have passed on news of News Corp.'s bid for Dow Jones to friends, and though he won't admit to wrongdoing, he will pay an $8.1 million fine. Affiliate Michael Lueng, who traded with the help of his daughter and son-in-law, will pay another $16.2 million. Statement.
-- Star Tribune: The Minneapolis daily has laid off 58 staffers - about 3 percent of the newspaper's workforce. Most of the jobs are in the circulation department; no reporting positions are being affected. The paper, which was sold off by The McClatchy Company (NYSE: MNI) in 2006, also handed down an indefinite wage freeze for all its nonunion employees, which will affect about 600 in total. The Star Tribune's revenues have declined nearly $75 million in the past two years.
-- North County Times: The North County Times newspaper, which covers North San Diego County, has begun offering voluntary newsroom buyouts. In response to the weakening economy, the paper is looking for 20 volunteers to take the buyouts, though it has not announced contingency plans, in the event its target is not met. The paper is a division of Lee Enterprises (NYSE: LEE). The news comes a day after major reductions were announced at Tribune. (via NC Times)
-- McClatchy: The newspaper publisher had its default credit rating downgraded by Fitch from BB+ to just BB. The announcement goes into some depth on the reasons for the dongrade, but the bottom line is that McClatchy is a "strong operator", but not so strong that it can swim against the tides of the industry. Also, there's an interesting comment on the fear that the company may be pressured to do something drastic: "??? while Fitch recognizes that companies with dual-class stock structures may be somewhat insulated from shareholder activist-driven event risk, we are cautious that boards of directors and management teams may still be similarly pressured to consider management-lead buyouts (MBOs), other leveraging transactions or large-scale digital acquisitions to attempt to boost their companies' share prices." Release.
-- Private Capital Management: Bruce Sherman, the investor who spearheaded Knight Ridder's sale to McClatchy, has washed his hands of the newspaper industry. The latest filing from his fund Private Capital Management has no holdings in newspaper stocks. Just last quarter, the company held stakes in NYTCo (NYSE: NYT) and McClatchy, although by then he had eliminated his holdings in Belo (NYSE: BLC), Gannett (NYSE: GCI), Media General (NYSE: MEG), and Lee Enterprises. (via E&P)
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A day after the Tribune Co. announced job cuts both in and out of the newsroom, the New York Times (NYSE: NYT) is planning to eliminate 100 newsroom jobs through attrition, buyouts and possibly layoffs, according to NYT itself. The cuts account for 7.5 percent of the newsroom's 1332 employees. The cuts were announced by executive editor Bill Keller, who described layoffs as a last resort that may be required if the company doesn't get enough people to accept buyouts. In a memo, Keller acknowledged that the "low-hanging fruit" of easy cuts is gone and the move would have an impact on the company's journalistic output. In November, the company announced plans to eliminate a dozen newsroom jobs, although none were reporting positions.
The announcement comes as the company is under pressure from activist investors pushing for aggressive changes. Last Friday, NYTCo top brass met with Scott Galloway and on Tuesday, the company announced a board shakeup to bring in more digital and deals experience.
-- The New York Observer relays a first-hand account of the meeting with Keller when the cuts were announced. Apparently, in an attempt to reduce the pain, there is talk of diverting some money set aside for editor bonuses to saving jobs. Perhaps the most oddly revealing news is that during the Q&A, there was just one question about the cuts: "Instead, there were questions about why the fourth-floor was so cold and why stairwells in the building were still inaccessible."
Sam Zell’s Los Angeles Times has introduced its first stand-alone print weekly, a culture and nightlife freebie — one that was reverse-engineered from a Times website that went live last summer. The new free weekly, whose initial circulation is estimated at 100,000, was reverse-engineered from losangeles.metromix.com.
The new tabloid and the site, both called Metromix Los Angeles, represent a push by the Times to finally get its hooks into the young-adult Angelinos who rarely buy the morning paper. “This is something for the Los Angeles Times that’s really trying to reach a demo that we haven’t before,” said Rich Stepan, general manager for Metromix Los Angeles.
Metromix Los Angeles also showcases one way digital media can benefit the same print predecessors they simultaneously threaten. The site at losangeles.metromix.com helped build the Metromix brand, for example, and served as a continuous test issue of sorts for the new print concept.
“We’ve taken this out to them,” Mr. Stepan said. “From our perspective, it’s a resounding ‘We want it.”’
Where to find it
The print edition of Metromix Los Angeles will be distributed every Wednesday on local college campuses, in grocery stores and on racks throughout major Los Angeles neighborhoods. Its initial circulation is estimated at 100,000.
The Chicago Tribune, which is a Times sibling in Zell’s Tribune Co., publishes the free, daily RedEye for young commuters; RedEye was able to stave off a challenge from the Chicago Sun-Times in the form of Red Streak, now defunct.
In Los Angeles, the new entry from the Los Angeles Times will go up against L.A. Weekly, part of Village Voice Media.
The print version of Metromix Los Angeles got the green light because of newspaper publishers’ conviction that local expertise is their chief advantage over electronic channels such as Google News.
‘Hyper-local’
“We’re hyper-local,” said Deb Vankin, editor of Metromix Los Angeles. “I’ve been in the industry for about 10 years covering these things in Los Angeles. I sort of handpicked who I thought would be the experts.
“I can say with certainty that we’re in an age when the media landscape is saturated,” Ms. Vankin added. “They want not everything at once but someone to curate it for them. What’s great about Metromix is our print edition offers that, and if you want more, you can jump on the website.”
These local, youth-skewed freebies aren’t easy to get right. Last month Metro International, the Swedish publisher with free commuter dailies around the world, eliminated 27 jobs and made other cost cuts in New York, Philadelphia and Boston. An executive said the measures were part of a plan to make the U.S. operation finally profitable.
Via Advertising Age - MediaWorks
Harbert Management, the parent firm of Harbinger Capital, announced in a regulatory filing that it now has 9.96 percent of the New York Times Company (NYSE: NYT), or 14.25 million shares. Through its Harbinger unit, the firm had previously disclosed a sub-5 percent stake, as part of an effort to put nominees on NYTCo's board. We reported at the time that it was always the intent to up its holdings, but that it originally wanted to fly under the regulatory radar.
-- Meeting: In addition to the new holdings announcement, the firm filed a letter sent by Scott Galloway of Firebrand Partners (also part of the activist group) to Chairman and Publisher Arthur O. Sulzberger, and CEO Janet L. Robinson referencing a previously unreported meeting held on Friday: "On behalf of Harbinger Capital Partners and Firebrand Partners, I am writing to thank you again for taking the time to meet with us last Friday. We are looking forward to continuing a productive and positive dialog. Accordingly, as we discussed on Friday, each of our director nominees is free to meet with the members of your nominating committee at their convenience."
-- Board nominees: The filing also makes official the four proposed nominees to the board each of whom were previously identified: Scott Galloway, James A. Kohlberg, Allen L. Morgan, Gregory Shove. The fund reserves the right to substitute other names or add additional ones if NYTCo attempts to change the structure of its board.
Related
I have seen the face of the newspaper industry’s business conundrum, and it belongs to Michael Stephens. Stephens — a librarian, library science instructor, tech enthusiast and blogger — recently posted “An Open Letter to the South Bend Tribune” on the occasion of canceling his print subscription. My discerning friend Tom Billiterri found it while rummaging online for hometown news of Indiana and forwarded it with the comment “a sign of the times.” I could excerpt and paraphrase, but the flavor is best savored by reading the whole thing. Stephens’ item is not particularly long, and it’s stated with some style.
