Media Companies

It's no surprise that Condé Nast has been getting a lot of bad press recently in the wake of heavy staff cuts and four magazine closures.

But, according to reports, it looks like Si Newhouse is taking the advice of Lucky publisher Gina Sanders and getting some help from an expert: crisis manager and media coach Michael Sheehan.

Our sister blog PRNewser says that Sheehan "has experience in politics and finance having counseled Bill Clinton, Barack Obama, AIG during last year's crisis, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and JP Morgan."

We're looking forward to see how Sheehan works to put a happy spin on all the bad news that's been coming out of 4 Times Square these last few weeks. Will he return the Orangina to the shrunken staff to boost morale?

Condé Nast Hires Crisis Intervention Expert --New York Post

No big shocker here: Sam Zell's bankruptcy of the Tribune Company is going to end up costing its employees more than just their jobs or perks, it's also going to retroactively remove their stock ownership in the company.

To be fair, employees will still receive their first share allocations of ESOP, a program that gives employees options in their company. But as The Los Angeles Times noted, "those allocations won't be worth the paper they're printed on because of the bankruptcy." And the Times should know: They are one of the papers owned by the ill-fated Tribune Co., along with The Chicago Tribune.

So, when the company went bankrupt, employees received shares, but now that the banks have bought out Zell, the stock (no pun intended) that the staffers put into their publication is no longer an option.

Read more: Tribune to end employee stock ownership plan

Earlier: Tribune Co. Files for Bankruptcy, Tales of the Tribune Co.: It's All Gone Straight to Zell

MediaNews Group, one of the largest newspaper companies in the U.S., has decided to launch pay walls on Web sites of two of its papers early next year.

The pay walls will first go into effect for the The Enterprise-Record in Chico, Calif. and The York Daily Record in Pennsylvania, and then may be extended to other MediaNews newspaper properties, Editor & Publisher reports.

"We wanted to get sites that were not metro sites for the same reason that you don't open on Broadway," Howard Saltz, MediaNews' vice president for content development, told E&P. "But not a site that has Web traffic so small that the change would not affect anything." However, what these papers will put behind a pay wall and when exactly we can expect to see them rolled out has yet to be decided.

The decision to launch the pay walls comes six months after MediaNews outlined its new interactive strategy in a May memo, paving the way for online paid content. We'll be keeping an eye on how this latest pay wall plan works out for this paper publisher, and keep you updated on any developments. This probably won't be the last we'll be hearing about publishers unveiling pay wall plans in the next few months.

MediaNews To Launch Partial Pay Walls At Two Newspaper Sites --Editor & Publisher

Related: Poll: Will Paywalls Save Newspapers?

As international newswires like AFP and The Associated Press begin to regulate how much copy can be taken from their articles, it's not just blogs that are going to feel the pinch. Major newspapers also rely on these news organizations from everything from their Op-Ed pieces to their front page cover stories. And with many North American papers trying to hyper-localize their product instead of deal with the cost of foreign correspondents, they will be needing these news agencies more than ever.

Or will they? The Tribune Company announced yesterday that it will be conducting a trial run of its papers (mostly) free of news from The Associated Press to see if the papers can do without the service. Still, it's not much of an experiment: Sam Zell's papers will still be relying on Reuters, GlobalPost, and other international news orgs. Whatever Tribune is trying to prove here is already rendered moot on their dependence on outside news bureaus. Ironically, one of the places Tribune will be taking their news from is The New York Times, which is entering a relationship with The Chicago News Cooperative, a non-profit news organization made up of ex-Tribune employees, for content for its local Chicago edition.

We've asked a similar question before in our polls, but we'd like to hear your thoughts: Can publications exist without independent news bureaus? And if not, what kind of content should publishers be willing to pay these outside services for?

We had hoped that there would be no more bad news this week. But rumors of impending layoffs at Time Inc. have gained steam throughout the week, with the latest news coming from The New York Times.

Stephanie Clifford reports that as its parent company Time Warner prepares to report its third quarter earnings next week, the magazine publisher is expected to announce that it will cut $100 million in costs. Anonymous sources told Clifford these cuts will "come largely from layoffs," although a union rep said he hadn't heard of any coming next week. (A number of Time Inc. employees are covered by a union contract.)

$100 million is a lot, but not compared to what Time Inc. is predicted to report in decreased revenue during the third quarter. As Clifford writes:

"Michael Nathanson, an analyst at Sanford C. Bernstein & Company, said that he expected third-quarter revenue at Time Inc. would fall about 19 percent, to $900 million."

Time Inc. to Cut $100 Million; Extensive Layoffs Are Expected --New York Times

Earlier: Time Inc. Staffers Next On The Chopping Block?

WNJU, Telemundo's New York local station, has appointed Jose Morales to oversee digital and broadcast content. Previously, Morales was Director of Digital Content for Telemundo Local Media and his work has won the network 2 Emmys, making him an ideal candidate to oversee the WNJU's day to day operations.

Full press release after the jump.

continued...

Our sister blog MediaJobsDaily has a tip that publisher Media General is "planning to consolidate the copy-editing and design functions for most of its papers into a central location, which would ultimately end in reducing staff."

Media General owns 21 daily newspapers and more than 200 specialty publications, including community weeklies (some of which are already being edited out of a central location, says MediaJobsDaily), and employs more than 5,000 staffers company-wide. A consolidation of this kind would likely affect quite a few.

MediaJobsDaily: Rumor: Media General Plans To Consolidate Copy Editing, Designing, Thus Cutting Jobs

Between all the layoffs at Conde Nast and The New York Times, you'd think that a journalist who still has a job would hold tight for dear life. Well, as we learned last week with ex-Tribune Co. employees starting The Chicago News Cooperative and selling their content to Tribune competitor, New York Times Co., sometimes leaving a job can be good for your career.

Now James O'Shea's new project has attracted another Chicago Tribune writer, famed columnist David Greising, who will be leaving Sam Zell's publishing nightmare for more cooperative pastures.

Greising was the Tribune's chief business correspondent, so it's hard not to take his departure as a microcosm of Tribune Co.'s quickly decaying structure. Greising will be joining former Tribune managing editor James Warren and former Tribune editor Ann Marie Lipinski.

Tribune's Greising Joins O'Shea's Chicago News Cooperative --Crain's Chicago Business

Earlier: Jim O'Shea Explains The Chicago News Cooperative

There have been rumors for the past few weeks that Forbes would be cutting more staff sometime soon, and it looks like the time has finally come.

We just learned that a memo went out to staff this afternoon from Steve Forbes explaining the situation:

"We -- and the entire media world -- have been hit hard by both the severe recession and the seismic shifts wrought by the Web. Given these dramatic events, further layoffs, unfortunately, are necessary across the entire organization...While these are acutely challenging times, Forbes Media is making the strategic and organizational changes that will enable us not only to weather these storms, but ultimately to emerge as a stronger company, well-positioned to expand and prosper in the years ahead."

Although the layoffs are promised to come from "across the entire organization" reporters from Forbes magazine and Forbes.com might have a glimmer of hope: BusinessInsider.com is hiring.

Update: We've heard that layoffs haven't started yet, but it looks like the top level managers may already know who they have to cut and the bloodletting might start tomorrow.

Know anything? Send us an email.

Forbes' full memo, after the jump

continued...

Everyone agrees. The business model employed by media companies is broken. As advertising revenue dwindles, newspapers and magazines find themselves searching for additional sources of income. One option: charging readers for access to content. But it has become generally accepted that readers won't pay for just any content, especially things they can easily get for free via the Internet.

Today, The Wall Street Journal, which arguably already has one of the best pay models in the biz, announced its plans to launch a new specialized version of the paper for professionals. The service, called The Wall Street Journal Professional Edition, will provide subscribers with customized content from the Journal, Dow Jones newswires and the Dow Jones-owned news database Factiva -- for up to $49 a month.

The Journal describes it Professional Edition today:

"WSJ Professional allows users to set up the Web site with custom feeds of news, information and alerts for the markets and industry sectors they care most about, as well as to access the regular content on WSJ.com. Dow Jones editors will select news stories and information to help WSJ Professional users dig deeper into topics of interest."

Rupert Murdoch, the CEO of Journal owner News Corp., has already said that all of his pubs' Web sites will go behind a paywall within the year. Those plans, combined with the Journal's new venture might provide a model for other media companies to follow. Is this a look at what journalism will look like in years to come?

Dow Jones to Launch 'Professional Edition' of Wall Street Journal -- Wall Street Journal

Related: WSJ Looks To Claim Title Of Number One Paper In Circulation