Hot topics click link for more
Gannett Cuts Again
About the only good news about Gannett’s announcement Wednesday it was cutting some 1400 jobs from its newspaper division (not including USA Today) is that it wasn’t more. The GannettBlog which is usually pretty accurate on Gannett happenings had forecast a week ago the cut would be more like 4,000.
As it is, it means around 3% of the newspaper workforce will be gone by July 9. With these cuts on top of the 10% workforce reduction last year, forcing employees to take unpaid leave, closing the Tucson Citizen, slashing dividends and the like one can’t help but feel all is not good at the largest US newspaper chain and management doesn’t really see any signs of quick improvement. Publishing ad revenue dropped 34% in Q1 and the company will be announcing Q2 numbers on July 15 – six days after this latest cull. There’s a message there?
Could it be that the noose on that $3.7 billion debt the company owes is getting a bit tight for comfort? Wall Street is happy, of course that jobs will be lost thus costs slashed and the shares closed up Wednesday at all of $3.66!
What Does McClatchy Do Now?
It seemed a pretty neat idea – exchange around $1.15 billion of existing McClatchy debt for new notes at a discount of 70% off the value of the old, threatening the debt holders if they didn’t take the deal then they would come at the very end of the creditor line if there were bankruptcy proceedings. The thinking was that a 70% discount would be more attractive than possibly losing everything. But that’s not the way the money people saw it and the company was able to dump only $103 million of its debt at the discounted price.
So now S&P is forecasting that McClatchy will default on part of its debt by the end of the year and has lowered ratings for some debt down to SD which stands for selective default. Most of that is senior unsecured debt related to the Knight-Ridder purchase in 2006.
S&P still holds to its prediction made in February that McClatchy will be in violation of loan covenants by the end of this year or early next year that require a ratio of earnings to debt of no less than 7:1. But with Q1 publishing revenue dropping near 30% and no improvement seen for Q2, maintaining that ratio becomes ever more difficult in spite of savage cost cutting.
It may well be that the debt holders for the most part have insurance that pays off in full only if the company goes into bankruptcy, so there is little incentive to help management lessen the debt load by swapping old debt for new debt at a big discount.
A day without ratings…
…a day without sunshine
Imagine, if you will, media buyers waiting as the day begins for overnight TV ratings. They wait. They inhale more coffee. They throw pencils at each other.
Word arrives. The numbers aren’t coming. Light dims.
Odd as it may seem, there were no TV overnight ratings for Tuesday (June 30) in Germany. “Unfortunately,” said ratings supplier GfK, “due to technical problems during data retrieval we must inform you that the data for Tuesday has not been released.”
It was, said GfK, a problem with data collection, more or less blaming subcontractor Media Control. "We are working to resolve the problem and they will immediately inform us as soon as more information becomes available," said the GfK statement. The flow of audience numbers might resume by mid-day Thursday.
Meanwhile, counseling has been suggested for data-addicted media buyers. (JMH)
Radio channel goes digital only
Means and method
Norwegian public radio channel NRK Klassisk became DAB-only (almost), shutting down it’s FM frequencies from July 1st. The channel is also available through the Web and digital TV set-top boxes.
“With this we take a step towards full digital distribution of radio in this country,” said NRK radio director Marius Lillelien, reported in Kampanje.com (June 30). NRK Klassisk is an arts and classical music channel.
After a tortured debate, Norway’s Culture Ministry ordered NRK to shift some channels on FM to the DAB platform so the FM frequencies could be assigned to local stations. (See more on that story here)
DAB-only channels are not in short supply in many countries, though their numbers appear to be dwindling, particularly from private commercial broadcasters. Far more rare is switching a recognizable radio brand to digital-only distribution. NRK Klassisk has been on the air on FM since 1995.
At the end of December Swiss public broadcaster SSR-SRG moved DRS MusikWelle from medium wave (AM) to digital-only. DRS MusikWelle, known for Swiss-German folk music, was originally known as Musigwälle 531, a channel born in the mid-1990’s.
One observer with knowledge of SSR-SRG thinking, anonymous because of strict SSR-SRG rules on unauthorized comment, said moving DRS MusikWelle to the DAB platform may have encouraged many older radio listeners to also make the shift to DAB. SSR-SRG estimates 300,000 DAB receivers in Switzerland. (JMH)
30 years of Radio 3
30 hour marathon broadcast
Spanish public radio channel Radio 3 is celebrating its 30th anniversary with a 30 hour marathon broadcast through July 1st. Radio 3 is RNE’s cultural channel. It was founded in 1979.
Several past Radio 3 hosts are reprising original programs. Radio 3 is “the best example of that culture is not boring and is part of our everyday life, of who we are and how we relate,” said station director Lara Lopez, reported by Publico.es (June 30). Lopez also noted Radio 3’s audience has grown almost 30%.
Pirate Bay sold
New model, like Napster?
Notorious Swedish file sharing site Pirate Bay has been sold for SEK60 million (€5.5 million) to software company Global Gaming Factory (GGF).
"The Pirate Bay is among the top 100 most visited Internet sites in the world," said GGF CEO Hans Pandeya in a presser. "However, in order to live on, The Pirate Bay requires a new business model, which satisfies the requirements and needs of all parties, content providers, broadband operators, end users, and the judiciary. We would like to introduce models which entail that content providers and copyright owners get paid for content that is downloaded via the site."
Pirate Bay’s founders owe about €5.5 million in fines after losing a court battle over whether or not it encouraged illegal file-sharing activity. (See that story here) Pirate Bay also lost an appeal, claim bias on the part of the ruling judge who has affiliations with the music publishing business. The loosely affiliated Pirate Party, however, will be sending representatives to the new European Parliament. (JMH)
It’s Crude, But Jackson’s Death Is A Magazine Bonanza …
Magazines full of tributes to Michael Jackson have already hit the newsstands and the betting in industry circles is that this is going to be a gold mine week.
And big money is being spent – Northern & Shell, publishers of OK! Magazine have shelled out $500,000 for a picture said to be the last of Jackson taken alive as he was being transported to the hospital.
That’s an exclusive, but having it on the cover will sell the magazine? When you’re at the newsstand and you see a magazine cover with Michel Jackson as you remember him or a magazine cover showing him in distress on the way to hospital to die, which are you going to buy as your momento?
…And Also For Newspapers
Newspapers had bumper sales announcing Michael Jackson’s death and taking a leaf from the lessons learned when they sold out with President Obama’s election newspapers are reprinting those Michael Jackson editions as mementoes at stiff prices and they are coming out with additional commeratives.
As good an example as any is USA Today that on Tuesday published a 40-page tabloid that will be on sale through July. It sells for $4.95. Pay $6.99 and you can get instead a glossy 96-page tribute. And as for the June 26 edition reporting Jackson’s death, reprints are available at $4.95.
Gotta make a buck somehow!
Arbitron sample challenged
Again and again and again
Audience research is an exacting science. This digital era has brought many changes to that science. US radio measurement service Arbitron continues to suffer with its electronic measurement system PPM – Personal People Meter. Pain has been exacted from Arbitron, ranging from the regulators investigation of PPM to the discharge of several senior executives. (More on measurement here)
US radio consultant Randy Kabrich provided us (June 30) with his latest analysis of PPM results in one US market (Houston, Texas).
“Unfortunately,” he writes, “the PPM sample is not yet properly balanced ... it is significantly under the population percentage in cell phone only households and it is severely under the population percentage in ethnic demos, especially young ethnic demos. It also under represents affluent educated households and, in particular, it under represents women in general.”
In short, the sample used to measure radio audience with the PPM system is smaller, one-third smaller, than the old discarded diary method. Kabrich’s analysis is “that one of the reasons that certain formats do not perform well in PPM is heavily tied to the amount of sample available.”
Kabrich’s conclusions – complete with charts and graphs – play into the hands PPM critics, including the National Association of Black Owned Broadcasters (NABOB), which has made a formal complaint to the US regulator Federal Communications Commission (FCC). According to Kabrich, attorneys for NABOB asked him to bring forward the sampling data.
Arbitron comes to different conclusions. Many US radio broadcasters want criticism of and complaints about PPM to go away fearing media buyers, the primary PPM champions, will spend even more time with Facebook and other new media rather than spending their clients money on radio ads. (JMH)
UK Radio Festival Opens
…without biggest commercial broadcaster
With a bang and not a whimper the UK Radio Festival opened (June 30) in Nottingham.
Digital radio, and the future prospects thereof, was first on the agenda. The BBC’s Tim Davie told the gaggle the governments suggestion of FM switch-off in 2015 is “ambitious.” Reminding one and all that 600 transmitters would be required (note unrestrained joy from transmitter salesmen) Davie said the BBC would not be paying the whole price.
Most commercial broadcasters, reported by the Guardian, Radio Today and MediaWeek, expressed relief that FM switch-off is now part of the plan. RadioCentre’s chief executive Andrew Harrison said the cost of DAB transmission “should come out of the public purse.”
One DAB champion from the commercial radio side won’t be speaking. Nick Piggott, Global Media’s head of creative technology, was pulled from the itinerary. Global Media, the UK’s biggest commercial broadcasting company, also pulled its three paid delegates. (JMH)
Salaries and expenses
More swag for jurnos
The salaries and expenses of BBC executives received lavish (lascivious?) coverage in the British press last week. Reading through (almost) all of it, a couple of concerns come to mind. Salaries of the top strata are high, but considering the scale and scope of the BBC not terribly out of line. Claimed expenses, however, are more troubling.
Many – and it would seem all UK newspaper writers – would like to see BBC executive salaries more in line with, say, the Royal Mail…or bus drivers. Too, many BBC employees – and I’ve heard from a bunch – would like to see a little less difference between the top of the scale and the bottom.
It is unimaginable that the French press would expend the same amount of ink on the salaries at French public broadcasting. And certainly not in Sweden, where salaries are, well, adequate.
Considering that Mark Thompson, BBC’s General Director, hasn’t (yet) built a moat around his house – unlike a Member of the British Parliament - his claimed expenses, and those of most of the BBC elite, are perhaps too low. It’s certainly fair to criticize claiming a few bottles of bubbly for BBC stars. After all, most of them thrive on something much stronger, reflected in their over the top fees, not to forget their behavior.
The resolute failure on the part of Thompson and the rest of that top tier is spending too little on politicians and, naturally, newspaper people. The BBC needs to establish a special swag fund specifically for newly impoverished Mps and – with the possible exception of Rupert Murdoch – the newspaper people and competitors. (JMH)
Michael Jackson, Reflecting
And relief
Modern journalism – and, even more, post-modern – reflects viewers, listeners and readers’ interests. Most program managers and editors leapt to wall-to-wall coverage Friday of pop icon Michael Jackson’s death. And, rightly so, as noted many MANY phone calls, emails and Tweets to ftm world headquarters.
Most coverage was laudatory; radio stations produced specials even if the music didn’t quite fit the format. Michael Jackson was for a certain generation an iconic performance figure. His passing – again, for a certain generation – is every bit as significant to popular culture as the passing of Elvis to an older generation. Some chose to dwell on other, more controversial parts of Jackson’s life but, well, some people always see darkness.
Some commented that coverage of Michael Jackson’s life, music, talent and weirdness was inconsequential to the greater issues of the day; that media seized on trivia. They are wrong. It was Friday, the end of the week in much of the world. During the past two weeks viewers, listeners and reader have been inundated with ugliness. How many more times did people want to see, graphically, a young Iranian woman dying on the street? American conspiracy theorists (get out the tin foil hats!!) could note that coverage of Michael Jackson’s death blew yet another right-wing scandal off the headlines.
Every writer knows the relationship between tension and relief. Jackson’s death, certainly sad, provided in the warm tributes a little relief.
Note to newspaper people: sitting in the warm Geneva sun at the wonderful neighborhood park with a two year old, local newspaper Tribune de Geneve on the table, the Michael Jackson tribute issue. The two year old was totally attached to the newspaper. His mother said, “He loves to turn the pages.” There is hope, newspaper people. (JMH)
|
