Tepid shopper interest last year forced retailers to cut their year-end forecasts and resort to heavy promotions to move merchandise. This helped newspapers eke out a 3.8% gain in Q4 retail advertising, on a par with the industry's 1999 spending level. Is another promotion-heavy season newspapers' best hope? "I think we'll see promotions again this year," says Kathleen Brookbanks, managing director of media planning and buying firm OMD Midwest in Chicago, which places ads for retailers like Dell Inc. and J.C. Penney Co. Inc. "When they're depending on taking business from others, they go back to what works for them, and newspapers will do well."

Continue ReadingDailies Worried About Holiday Advertising

It's déjà vu all over again in Vancouver, where the venerable alt-weekly is under attack from B.C. Liberal ministers. In what Publisher & Editor Dan McLeod calls "the biggest threat in its 36-year history," the Straight has been stripped of its status as a newspaper under provincial sales-tax legislation and assessed fines and penalties that will total more than one million dollars by year's end. McLeod, whose paper was "prosecuted frequently under a wide assortment of trumped- up charges" in its early years, calls the new attack "a politically motivated attempt by the government to silence one of its harshest critics."

Continue ReadingLocal Officials Hit Georgia Straight $1 Million Fine

When it comes to buying advertising time, some habits die hard, like what appears to be a single- minded focus on targeting broad demographic groups.  In television that demographic is adults 18-49 and in radio it has long been adults 25-54.    But advertisers are starting to move away from targeting all-encompassing groups, helped along in the past few decades by the emergence of media outlets that concentrate on niche audiences. In radio the percentage of ad dollars targeting the 25-54 demographic has been falling for the past seven years,

Continue ReadingRadio Ad Placements Moving Away From Broad Focus On 25-54

For years, NBC's central marketing pitch to advertisers, agencies, TV critics and the trade press alike has been the value of the network's adult 18-49 audience. It has even gone so far as to proclaim it is the only demo that really counts on Madison Avenue. But on Wednesday, the peacock network revealed its real demographic bottom line to Wall Street: adults 25-54.

Continue ReadingNBC Tells Wall Street 25-54 Demo, Not 18-49 Is Its Bottom Line

A survey of California residents during the gubernatorial recall race shows diminished faith in political ads when they traditionally peak--as Election Day draws near. And the Golden State election may be an indicator of how media, advertising and voters interact in the next presidential election.

Continue ReadingStudy: TV Political Ads Have Lost Effectiveness

How fast the market for local advertising is recovering — or even if it is recovering — has become a subject of intense speculation along Madison Avenue. For those arguing whether or not there is evidence of a comeback, the answer echoes that from the old Certs commercial: Stop, you're both right.

Continue ReadingMixed Data on Local Advertising

With the Tribune Co. majority-owned amNewYork set to debut this Friday, the European newspaper company Metro International is preparing to launch its own free paper in the Big Apple, reports New York Daily News' Paul Colford. According to Colford, Metro says its standardized format consisting of short articles is designed "to enable commuters to read the newspaper during a typical journey time of approximately 16.7 minutes."

Continue ReadingNew York City to Get Another New, Free Daily

Deutsche Bank publishing analyst Paul Ginocchio cut his retail advertising growth forecast for the newspaper industry while warning that department store spending is migrating to TV as stores focus on brand-building.

Continue ReadingAnalyst Cuts Local Ad Forecast

In a message originally sent to an AAN listserv, Cincinnati CityBeat Editor and Co-Publisher John Fox tells AAN News that a kickoff party for the Cincinnati Enquirer's "faux alt weekly" was held last week. The new paper, which hits the streets Oct. 29, has been christened Cin. Fox speculates about the meaning of "Cin" and says a 64-page, four-color prototype, "Looks a lot like Thrive in Boise, where the Enquirer's new publisher came from -- similar layout and flow, with 10 pages of daily classifieds in the back. Not a single story jumps."

Continue ReadingNew Gannett Weekly to Debut in Cincinnati