RSS FeedArchive for the ‘Publishers’ Category

Gannett Buys Belo For $1.5 Billion, Aiming For Advertising 'SuperGroup'

Gannett BeloMost of Gannett's acquisitions in recent years have been about making the company more digital, but its $1.5 billion purchase of local broadcast operator Belo is a nod to the media business's main advertising driver: television.

But as McLean, VA-based Gannett goes about creating an advertising and content "SuperGroup," as the company stated in its release, Dallas' Belo can also provide the basis for a wider digital sales network, something Gannett had hoped to achieve with its former newspaper paper partners in the defunct quadrantONE joint venture.

Gannett and Belo haven't said what will happen with Belo's seven-month-old digital marketing unit, ScreenShot Digital – calls and messages weren't returned – but that piece of the business could fit with the similarly focused Gannett Local and alongside the company's other digital properties. Those properties include rich media provider PointRoll, jobs site CareerBuilder, e-circulars provider ShopLocal, daily discount outfit Deal Chicken, mobile rewards program Mobestream Media (Key Ring) and Facebook ad platform Blinq Media.

The addition of Belo effectively doubles Gannett's TV holdings. That's important for the company's digital efforts in two clear ways.

(more...)

eMarketer: Amazon Ad Revenues To Reach $835 Million This Year

Amazon Ad RevWorldwide advertising revenue for Amazon will reach more than $800 million in 2013, as the company leverages its rich customer data and deals with the challenges of mobile advertising, according to a new forecast from eMarketer.

"We've been looking at Amazon as a business for a while now, and at this point we felt there was enough data available from enough third parties that we could develop a statistical model that we were confident...represented their business," VP of communications Clark Fredricksen told AdExchanger.

For 2013, eMarketer forecasts that Amazon's worldwide ad revenues – which are only a part of the online retailer's total revenue – will be $835 million, a 36.9% increase over $610 million from 2012.

(more...)

NYT Is Open For Programmatic Business - 'Issues' Remain

NYT Haskell, ProhaskaFor the past year, executives at The New York Times Company speaking on its quarterly earnings calls have singled out a particular challenge for the newspaper publisher's display ad business: programmatic media buying methods.

With this month's hire of online ad veteran Matt Prohaska as programmatic advertising director, the NYT still regards exchange and automated media selling environments with a clear degree of concern but also considers them manageable and advantageous.

"We haven't changed our opinion in that we firmly believe programmatic is disruptive," Todd Haskell, the NYT's group VP of advertising, told AdExchanger in an interview. "We feel it has created downward pressure on price, and it has created new capabilities for people to buy around inventory on premium sites. So we have issues with it."

The NYT is not a stranger to programmatic activity. The company has used the Google DoubleClick Ad Exchange for some time. But there's more work to do in balancing sales channels and buying mechanics.

(more...)

As NBCU Preps TV Upfront Showcase, Emphasis Is On Cross-Platform

Naylor, EVP, Digital Media Sales NBCUAbout seven days ahead of last week's NewFronts digital content showcases held by Yahoo, Aol, The Weather Company, Blip, Digitas and others, NBC Universal tried to get a jump on things with its own interactive presentation, which it dubbed "Digital.Amplified." Although it was a participant in the NewFronts last year, the feeling this year was that as an established media company that still has its primary business centered in the worlds of broadcast and cable TV, Comcast-owned NBCU would go its own way to highlight those connections.

Besides, it provided a bit more room between its digital event and its main content event, the network upfront, which will be held on Monday. AdExchanger spoke with Peter Naylor, EVP Digital Media Sales at NBCU, about the different ways online ad methods – including programmatic and the rise of mobile – have factored into the network's strategy for selling its fall programming lineup to marketers and media buyers.

AdExchanger: How important is cross-platform ad sales to this year's upfront?

PETER NAYLOR: Cross-platform selling is important in the upfront because consumers are embracing our content on all the platforms where we make it available. Many years of NBCU research looking at cross-platform consumption from our full episode player at nbc.com to the London Olympics tell us that those marketers whose message reaches a consumer on more than one platform enjoy outsized response rates for message association, ad awareness and purchase intent.

So we not only go to market during the upfront talking about GRPs, but we also talk about digital, sponsorships, branded content, innovation and marketing franchises with our customers. NBCU’s Digital.Amplified event was a great way to elevate the awareness and demand for all of the possibilities we want marketers to be aware of as we bring them to market.

(more...)

The World According To The OPA: Prez Pam Horan Talks NewFronts And Private Exchanges

Pam Horan, OPAThe NewFront – the digital world's answer to the TV upfront marketplace – wrapped up last week with a number of high-profile, extravagant showcases of new content from Yahoo, Aol, The Weather Channel and others. At the same time, programmatic buying methods have adopted traditional models of locking in guaranteed sales, months ahead of schedule.

But can digital, with its near-infinite inventory and lack of a fall season or defined day parts, successfully emulate these traditional  models?

AdExchanger checked in with Pam Horan, president of the Online Publishers Association, for her take on what's in front of digital sellers these days.

AdExchanger: What do you think of the way the NewFront period has evolved? Is it meaningful in terms of becoming a marketplace that actually generates revenue, in the way that the upfront is for television?

PAM HORAN: Making a direct comparison between the NewFront and television upfronts is always going to be difficult simply because the seasonal structure of TV schedules and the nature of their inventory is so different. I think the NewFront has played an important role in highlighting the depth and breadth of digital content that advertisers can partner with. The impact of it is spread out more than television’s upfront because digital is always generating new content and doesn’t have a “fall season” to front-load.

(more...)

Wall Street Journal Aims Video Content And Ads At NewFronts

nina-lawrence-wsj“Can the TV upfronts work in digital, too?”

This is a question the Wall Street Journal’s Nina Lawrence gets to consider after she and her WSJ team present their wares at today's Digital Content NewFronts, produced by the IAB.

With only five months under her belt as VP of Global Marketing and Advertising Sales, after transitioning from Condé Nast, Lawrence says her new company’s video offerings draw strong interest from digital agencies and drive the WSJ’s participation in digital marketing’s answer to the television upfront.

According to Lawrence, the Journal’s video product includes 100 hours a month of original video content distributed across 30 platforms, netting out to 23 million video streams a month – 125% growth over last year.

She adds that the Journal has also grown from its business and financial industry roots by including new content categories and broadening its readership to leaders of all kinds, including “style and cultural leaders.”

Lawrence discussed NewFronts and her company’s offerings last week.

(more...)

Still Vexed By RTB Impact, NYTCo Tweaks Paywall And Video Strategies

Mark Thompson, CEO NYTCoThe New York Times Co. CFO Jim Follo reiterated a point he's been making on earnings calls since last year, namely that "premium" digital advertising continues to be challenged by the rise of audience targeting and the infinite amount of digital inventory generated by social media. Read the release.

During the Q1 earnings call, Mark Thompson, the former BBC executive who was named president and CEO of the NYTCo last year, attempted to calm analysts by detailing the early steps of what he called a new digital strategy. That strategy will offer tiered and lower-cost access via the metered paywall and a heightened concentration on video content and ads.

NYTCo appears ready to face the issues associated with automation. This week it hired former X+1 executive Matt Prohaska as its first programmatic advertising director. However, no mention of this new role was made during the call. Instead, Thompson and Denise Warren, EVP for the NYT's digital products and services group, offered a broader outline for turning around the company's ad declines.

"I've spent most of my time since I arrived as CEO of this company working with my colleagues to develop a medium-term strategy for the New York Times," Thompson said. "What you will hear today will not be my last word on the subject of 'strategy' but a significant first step to put the company on the path to sustainable growth."

(more...)

Programmatic Hits Faster Than First Thought Says Perfect Market's Schoenfeld

julie-schoenfeld-perfect-marketPasadena, California-based Perfect Market has had a ringside seat while its publisher clients have battled to keep revenues flowing as an important slice of ad spend has moved to audience-based, programmatic campaigns.

Consequently, in the past couple of years, Perfect Market CEO Julie Schoenfeld says her 60-person company has gone from helping publishers monetize content in their archive (“Found money for many publishers,” notes Schoenfeld) to monetizing content as it is created, since “60% of all traffic hits on the first day of the story.”

With the new strategies in place, Schoenfeld claims that things are going well. The company saw triple-digit growth last year and expects more of the same in 2013 with no need for additional funding, though Schoenfeld adds, “Sometimes when you're in a good place and you're expanding, money comes at you. And so we certainly wouldn’t turn it away.”

AdExchanger spoke to Schoenfeld about her company and industry trends last week.

AdExchanger: Is your client the editor, the ad ops team, or sales with the newer just-in-time yield management?

JULIE SCHOENFELD: We are more focused on the ad ops side of the business with our digital publishing suite. We do have an audience development capability, though, which we sell in conjunction with our product, where we help the editorial side of the house understand the levers that drive engagement and traffic on their site.

For example, one of the biggest changes in the past couple of years is something our chief revenue officer, Tim Ruder, often mentions. In the last 12 months, the Google algorithm has changed more than in the first 10 years of its existence. That’s because it is taking into account more social signals.

(more...)

MailOnline Considers Programmatic Amid Traffic And Video Gains

Sean Oneal, Mail OnlineMailOnline's site is an endless broadsheet of breaking news, tabloid gossip and tawdry thrills (pictured: the money a stripper makes in just ONE shift – and it's more than most people make in a month). Some might consider this publishing format tailor-made for real-time bidding. But the site, which has its own dedicated editorial and advertising staffs separate from the UK print newspaper of the same name, has staunchly resisted the pull of programmatic, even in the face of tremendous traffic growth.

comScore says MailOnline has well over 50 million monthly uniques globally and is America’s third-biggest online newspaper, with 19.3 million uniques behind the NYTimes.com and WashingtonPost.com. The company's chilly regard for programmatic, however, may be thawing as it feels more confident in balancing its direct sales with automation.

MailOnline is in the midst of ramping up its video offerings. We spoke with Sean O'Neal, the former president of Nielsen's Vizu before being named MailOnline's global CMO in December, about the company's advertising plans around video and mobile, as well as where it sees some value for programmatic tools as part of its yield arsenal.

(more...)

Paywalls Helped Gannett In Q1 As Ad Losses Mounted

Gracia-GannettFalling ad revenues hurt Gannett in Q1, even as the company enjoyed the fruits of its paywall strategy.

Digital revenues and the completed national rollout of its all-access content subscription model contributed to Gannett's 1.6% increase in overall revenue for the first quarter 2013. Total revenues were $1.2 billion, while advertising revenues accounted for $526.5 million during the first quarter, a drop of 4.5%. Press release.

As CFO Victoria Harker said during the company's earnings call today, "the publishing circulation benefits were significant enough to nearly offset all of the decline in advertising revenues during the quarter."

(more...)