Media and Money

Wants ‘less fluffy news and more international news’
By Paul Bond

No knock on his “good friend” Jeff Bewkes — or on Superman — but Ted Turner wishes that he were running Time Warner so that he could make some changes at Cartoon Network and CNN, the cable news channel he founded 29 years ago, according to The HollyWood Reporter.

At CNN, he wants “less fluffy news and more international news,” especially about China, Turner says in an interview set to run on Bloomberg TV on Friday. “Less talk, more news,” he says.

As for Cartoon Network, Turner tells anchor Betty Liu, “If I had control of it, I’d put ‘Captain Planet’ on at a top time period so that kids would see the environmental superhero instead of just Superman.”
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Viewers of the BLOOMBERG TELEVISION® network have the highest median household income and the highest median net worth among cable news networks in the U.S., according to the 2009 Mendelsohn Affluent Survey.

The BLOOMBERG TELEVISION viewer’s median income of $156,290 was 12% higher than the survey average and 10% higher than the average of other cable news networks. The BLOOMBERG TELEVISION network is the only U.S. cable channel whose viewers earn a median annual income of more than $150,000.

In addition to delivering an extremely affluent audience, the BLOOMBERG TELEVISION network delivers the most highly concentrated group of viewers who have the titles Chairman, CEO or President, and the highest concentration of financial professionals.

The 2009 Mendelsohn Affluent Survey polled consumers with a household income of at least $100,000. According to the survey, the BLOOMBERG TELEVISION audience leads also in value of liquid assets, value of principal residence, value of total real estate owned, amount of total charitable donations made in the past year, expenditures on fine jewelry and watches in the past year and vacation travel in the past year.

Google’s Gmail webmail service can now detect if users have included a potentially incorrect recipient with a new feature, called “Got the wrong Bob?,” which takes note of the people that a Gmail user usually includes in a group, and pops-up an alert if an unfamiliar recipient is included.

“Got the wrong Bob?” will be an early stage prototype that could change significantly, become temporarily unavailable or even disappear without notice.

Gmail users interested in trying out the new feature can activate it by going to the Settings section of their account and clicking on the Labs tab, where they will see this new feature listed.

The feature complements another existing Labs feature for Gmail called “Suggest more recipients,” which detects when a recipient usually included in a group e-mail has been left out and asks the e-mail sender if they forgot this person. That feature has now been renamed “Don’t forget Bob.”

The features are two of several that Google has designed to reduce the instances of embarrassing e-mail communications gaffes by Gmail users.

Users of Microsoft Corp’s Sidekick mobile phone may have permanently lost data such as contacts, photos and calendar entries due to the failure of a Microsoft server computer. Why didn’t I ever switch?

Anyhow, T-Mobile said that its customers who do have such data stored locally on their Sidekick devices will “almost certainly” have lost the data. The company also advised customers against resetting a Sidekick by removing the battery or letting the battery drain as this would still result in the loss of any personal content stored on the device made by Danger, a company Microsoft bought in 2008.

By Jennifer Saba
When the Audit Bureau of Circulations releases the latest numbers on Oct. 26, it will show that USA Today’s circulation fell 17% to 1.88 million for the six months ending September 2009, a drop of about 390,000 copies. The decline could also threaten USA Today’s position as the No. 1 newspaper in the country by circulation.

To put that in perspective, the reduction of copies represents roughly the entire daily circulation of The Arizona Republic the 10th largest paper in the U.S. as of spring.

The loss was an expected one at the Nation’s Newspaper, which implemented a price increase last December to $1, and has been punished by the travel industry struggling to cope with a serve economic downturn. “We have known this,” David Hunke, president and publisher of USA Today, said on a phone call from a Marriott hotel in San Francisco. “We have been aware the statement coming out is the toughest one we have ever faced.”

Hunke said that USA Today was down about 100,000 in single-copy sales, editions sold at racks and newsstands at airports. Home delivered copies, which represent roughly 16% of total circ, is flat.

The significant magnitude of the loss is related to its hotel programs and a decline in room occupancy. Hunke explained business for the hotel partners is off about 40%, which has been a drag on circulation. “While we have been able to do a lot of things to keep their business, we suffer with them,” he said.

Earlier this year, Marriott announced that it would stop automatically delivering copies of USA Today to rooms and instead implement a program where guests can request the newspaper of their choice: USA Today, The Wall Street Journal, the local daily or no paper at all.

Hunke described the relationship presently with Marriott as “very solid” and that USA Today is scoring very high in surveys about preferences.

It should be noted that USA Today shies away from discounting its circulation and that includes copies sold under hotel contracts. Hotel partner deals vary depending on the brand, explained Hunke, but all of copies sold under the hotel category are considered fully paid or in ABC parlance, more than 50% of the basic cover price. “We have maintained the contract and pricing structure with everybody,” he said. USA Today is in nearly 22,000 hotels.

As a result circulation revenue — a growing area of interest for publishers — is relatively stable and an important revenue stream for USA Today. It is expected to be flat in Q3 and up in 2010.

Hunke said USA Today derives more revenue from circulation than advertising. Granted, advertising revenue has dropped significantly at USA Today — paid ad pages were down 38% in Q2 — but it’s an extraordinary ratio for an industry where the benchmark is typically 80% advertising revenue to 20% circulation revenue.

Hunke anticipates that circulation volume will be flat by September 2010 publisher’s statement and that travel will snap back. “These are tough numbers,” he said adding, “We have a very good aggressive plan.”

(NYTIMES) Are the print media history? If so, someone forgot to tell Tatler, the glossy magazine diary of London’s upper class at play, which celebrates its 300th birthday this month.

Like an obstinate British blueblood sticking to tweed, Tatler seems to have decided that the Internet is a passing fad. It keeps the magazine’s contents off its spartan Web site, posting only material from its supplements on subjects like travel, cosmetic surgery and private education.

While many magazines are digitally challenged, few seem to be as unbothered about it as Tatler, a fixture on coffee tables in stockbrokers’ homes in Surrey and elsewhere around the world where old and new money mingle. A special anniversary issue, the November edition, which appears Thursday, is the biggest in the history of Tatler, at 408 pages — including 224 pages of advertising.

“I’m rather tired of all this business about the Internet,” said Patricia Stevenson, Tatler’s publishing director. “Magazines are wonderful things to have with you and to take around with you. I think Tatler is going to be around for another 300 years.”

The magazine traces its history to 1709, when a publication called The Tatler appeared in London covering news and gossip gleaned from coffeehouses. It lasted only two years, but the name was adopted by a succession of Tatlers over the centuries.

The magazine developed its current niche after 1979, when Tina Brown was hired as its editor. It was acquired three years later by Condé Nast, which still owns it.

“Tatler has had the unique ability to bankrupt more people than any other magazine,” said Nicholas Coleridge, the managing director of Condé Nast in Britain and vice president of Condé Nast International, adding that at least 10 of the roughly 50 owners of Tatler, in its various incarnations, had suffered that fate.
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