Week of May 18, 2009

More Bad News For Newspapers

Friday, May 22, 2009

The Audit Bureau of Circulations reports the most dramatic decreases in newspapers sales ever. According to their report covering September 08 to March 09 sales dropped 7.1% compared to the previous year. Only a handful of papers had any good news. Here are some of the details:

• 11 of the 25 largest newspapers sustained drops of at least 10%, with the New York Post falling by more than 20%.
• 23 of the top 25 saw decreases in daily sales. The only 2 to increase were the Wall Street Journal and the Denver Post. The Post's increase were at least in part due to the demise of its long-time competitor, the Rocky Mountain News.
• 23 of the top 25 also saw decreases in Sunday sales. The other 2 papers, the Arizona Republic and the St. Louis Post-Dispatch each showed increases of less than 1%.

According to the ABC, subscription and newsstand sales account for 15-30% of newspaper revenue, with advertising making up the rest. Of course, ad revenue figures for newspapers are even worse than the circulation numbers.

Biggest Drop Ever For Newspapers

Thursday, May 21, 2009

The Audit Bureau of Circulations, the company that tracks newspaper subscriptions and circulation reports the biggest losses ever for the beleaguered newspaper industry for the 6-month period ending in March. Sales dropped 7.1% compared with the comparable figures from October '07 to March '08. What's worse, the drop is accelerating, as you can see from the most recent 3 surveys:

Oct 07 - March 08: - 3.6%

April 08 - Sept. 08: - 4.6%

Oct 08 - March 09: - 7.1%

Hulu Goes Global?

Wednesday, May 20, 2009

Hulu is about to go global, with deals pending in 8 countries outside of the US, including the UK. The Financial Times reports that deals with UK program suppliers like ITV and Digital Rights Group are among the companies in talks with Hulu. This comes on the heels of Hulu closing a deal with Disney to, go along with its existing deals with Fox and NBC.

The international deals would mean that a number of the most popular British TV shows, which have never aired on US television, would soon become available in the US. That means big revenues for these companies. For example, ITV, which produced the British smash, Britain's Got Talent, the show which became famous for the Susan Boyle phenomenon, made nothing from over 100 million views of Boyle's performance on YouTube.

TV Upfront Sales Going Down

Tuesday, May 19, 2009

The TV Networks' traditional upfront presentations promise to be among the most volatile ever. Upfront is where the networks roll out their new fall schedules for prospective advertisers, hoping to get ad commitments in advance for the coming year. This year, due to the economic situation, the network advertising take is expected to shrink by 10-20%, according to Advertising Age. Besides the general economic malaise, there are several other factors that make this an interesting year, including the continuing erosion of the prime time audience, the accelerating growth of Hulu and more.

The most intriguing situation surrounds NBC's move to put Jay Leno on 5 nights a week at 10PM. Cutting 5 hours out of prime time space that could be given to dramas and other scripted shows will have an unknown impact on buyer's attitudes. The other networks will watch intently as a talk show like Leno's is much less expensive to produce, softening the blow of the overall hit to advertising revenue. If the Leno show succeeds, in either upfront sales and/or ratings in the fall, expect the other to follow with similar moves.

More On Pro Sports Most Successful Digital Venture

Monday, May 18, 2009

Recently we talked about the spectacular success of MLBAM, the digital arm of major league baseball. One of the reasons for the big increase in traffic at MLB.com is undoubtedly the January 1st launch of the Major League Baseball Channel. The 24-hour baseball channel generates plenty of traffic for the website, and vice versa, due to massive amounts of cross promotion.

But MLBAM is about more than just baseball. The company also runs or owns the websites for a number of other sports and entertainment ventures:

• MiLB.com (Minor League Baseball)
• Major League Soccer's MLSNet
• Yes Network's YesNetwork.com (The New York Yankees TV home),
• SportsNet New York's SNY.tv (TV home of the New York Mets
• World Championship Sports Network
• Guns N' Roses
• Bob Marley
• rehearsals.com

It also provided the backend infrastructure for CBS Sportsline's March Madness on Demand service, which broke records of its own, as we detailed recently.