Euro RSCG has done a print and poster campaign for the Chicago alt-weekly, Sun-Times media and marketing columnist Lewis Lazare reports. Euro RSCG's chief creative officer says the deal is being paid mostly in barter, but it included enough cash to hire local photographer Ross Feighery, who Lazare says "has done a smash-up job shooting the campaign visuals."
Hartford Advocate Editor Alistair Highet calls the listings calendar his paper's "universal point of interest." The calendar is -- and long has been -- indispensable for most alt-weeklies, attracting readers who don't necessarily agree with a paper's perceived political stance. But the marketplace is increasingly crowded with online and print publications listing concerts and theater times. Freelance reporter Charlie Deitch speaks with AAN members to find out what they're doing to fend off competitors' attempts to infringe on the alts' longtime stronghold.
Chicago's new weekday tabloids RedEye and Red Streak are pulling the same display advertisers as AAN members Chicago Reader and Chicago Newcity, Jeremy Mullman reports in Crain's Chicago Business. "This will have some short-term impact on the Reader," newspaper consultant Scott Stawski tells Mullman. "I believe it'll put Newcity out."
While publicly traded media companies are laying off employees and warning Wall Street of sharply diminished returns, Chicago's free circulation papers are holding their own, Kathy Bergen of the Chicago Tribune reports. "There isn't the voracious need to satisfy shareholders and start making layoffs," Richard Karpel, executive director of AAN, tells the Trib. Chicago Reader Publisher Jane Levine tells Bergen: "Our total revenue in 2001 will be about even with 2000, and I feel blessed for that."
