Tag Archives: print media
Stats Suggest Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Media Market Is Among Nation’s Most Racist
In the anonymous world of the Internet, people in the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton area and surrounding counties use the n-word in Google searches more often than most areas of the United States, according to statistics compiled by a top data scientist.
The Wilkes-Barre/Scranton media market — which includes Northeastern and Central Pennsylvania along with some counties in New York and New Jersey bordering the region — ranked 16th out of 196 nationwide for frequency of computer users searching the word, the data reveals.
Residents of the media market used the racial slur in online searches more than anywhere else in Pennsylvania except the Johnstown-Altoona media market, according to a study by a data scientist who gathered the information for a 2013 report about how racial animus affected the presidential elections of Barack Obama.
Read more:
Citizens Voice Tops Times Leader In Daily Circulation
Map of Pennsylvania highlighting Luzerne County (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
The Citizens’ Voice has jumped ahead of The Times Leader in daily circulation in Wilkes-Barre’s newspaper battle for the first time in at least 25 years, according to data compiled by the Alliance for Audited Media.
According to the latest figures released from the last six months ending Sept. 30, The Citizens’ Voice has taken the circulation lead to 24,041 copies per day, compared to 22,676 for The Times Leader, a difference of 1,365.
“The Citizens’ Voice is here to stay. We are the local newspaper,” said Joe Nealon, circulation director for The Citizens’ Voice. “Readers have been recognizing for a long time that The Citizens’ Voice is the better newspaper. More and more people are realizing that and The Times Leader is losing readers.”
Read more: http://citizensvoice.com/news/voice-tops-times-leader-in-daily-circulation-1.1778539
Pottstown Resident Miffed By Lack Of ‘Mercury’ Front Page Coverage For Pottstown High School Football Team’s Win
Pottstown Borough Hall
Editor’s Note: We saw this on Facebook and feel it needs to be shared with the wider community. We understand and share this parent’s concern about the promotion of Pottstown and the Pottstown School District. In our humble opinion, Pottstown and Pottstown School District news should always take priority in the local paper. Far more disturbing is the son’s comment that “nobody cares about Pottstown”. How sad is this and what does it say about the prevailing attitude of Pottstonians if this despair has crept all the way down the ladder to school age children? At times this appears to be the prevailing attitude of the leadership, both paid and elected. This issue needs some serious discussion by the “powers that be” and this cycle of “nobody cares” needs to end. How will Pottstown ever recover with a defeatist attitude! Apparently, this attitude has been picked up on by “the rest of the world” and might be why articles like the recent one in the Philadelphia Inquirer get published.
I found myself very annoyed this morning. I went and bought my local HOMETOWN newspaper which is operated and ran in Pottstown. I looked on the front page and to my surprise and anger there is nothing about the Pottstown High School football team winning yesterday, but yet we put the Perk Valley vs. Methacton score on the front page. Now please don’t think that I am putting down the other schools, but to not have the school that resides where your paper is published on the front page was to be quite frank, appalling. My son, who happens to play for the Trojans, told me “what is the big deal Dad, no one cares about Pottstown”. News Alert: I care and there are people out there that do care. I’m sure there are people that agree with him but I am not one of them. I am a former grad who still supports his local team. How do we expect to move forward in this school district when our students have the mentality of no one cares about us, no big deal? Our town needs help and I just think that a putting some good news about the LOCAL KIDS would go a long way in changing people ‘s attitude. Rob Bertoti
Businessman Lewis Katz Buying Philadelphia Newspapers
The Philadelphia Inquirer-Daily News Building in Philadelphia, PA. Taken from North Broad and Callowhill Streets. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
PHILADELPHIA (AP) — Businessman Lewis Katz and philanthropist H.G. “Gerry” Lenfest will take over Philadelphia’s two largest newspapers from their partners with an $88 million auction bid.
Katz and another businessman, George Norcross, had bought The Philadelphia Inquirer, the Philadelphia Daily News and the Philly.com news website for $55 million in 2012. But they began feuding and competed to take control at Tuesday’s auction.
Katz made his fortune investing in the Kinney Parking empire and the Yankees Entertainment and Sports Network in New York. He supports the investigative reporting favored by current Inquirer editor Bill Marimow.
Read more: http://www.timesherald.com/business/20140527/businessman-lewis-katz-buying-philadelphia-newspapers
Pittsburgh Tribune Circulation Pulls Away From Post-Gazette’s
Map of Pennsylvania highlighting Allegheny County (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
The Tribune-Review widened its circulation edge over the Post-Gazette with gains in its printed newspapers on Sundays.
The Tribune-Review and its Trib Total Media-branded papers and electronic editions posted a Sunday circulation total of 337,484 during the six months that ended March 31, more than 45,000 ahead of the P-G, according to figures from the Alliance for Audited Media.
Average weekday and Saturday circulation over the six months at the Trib also outpaced the competition.
The Trib’s Sunday papers increased from a year ago partly because of the inclusion under alliance rules of branded community papers.
Read more: http://triblive.com/news/allegheny/6108284-74/trib-circulation-editions#ixzz31zPnaWhJ
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Rival Owners Of Philly Newspapers Pledge $77M Bids
The Philadelphia Inquirer-Daily News Building in Philadelphia, PA. Taken from North Broad and Callowhill Streets. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
WILMINGTON, Del. (AP) — Rival owners fighting for control of Philadelphia’s two largest newspapers have each pledged $77 million to take control of the company.
The Philadelphia Inquirer and Philadelphia Daily News are being sold as investors who bought them in 2012 argue over newsroom management and corporate strategy.
Wealthy businessmen George Norcross and Lewis Katz lead the rival factions, and testified at a hearing underway in Delaware this week to determine who can bid at the planned auction.
“There are people interested in this newspaper,” Katz testified Tuesday. “Whether or not they will come forward to bid is, in my mind, still problematic.”
NJ’s Largest Paper, Star-Ledger, Cuts 40 News Jobs
The Star-Ledger (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
NEWARK, N.J. (AP) – New Jersey’s largest newspaper is cutting about 170 jobs, including 25 percent of its newsroom positions, as it moves to consolidate operations and cut costs.
The Star-Ledger reported Thursday on NJ.com that the cuts will mean the loss of 40 of the 156 newsroom staffers at the paper.
Other journalists at the newspaper are being offered jobs at NJ Advance Media, a new company being created by parent company Advance Publications to provide content, advertising and marketing services to all of its papers in New Jersey and Pennsylvania.
Read more at http://www.philly.com/philly/news/new_jersey/20140403_ap_bcb3f7ff38f04519b9d0130680554985.html#yfmrwV6huUd6q3Sx.99
Times Leader Readership Sees Largest Annual Increase In State
The Times Leader has the second highest percentage growth rate in the nation — and highest in the state — for its total online and print audience, according to figures tracked by a newspaper auditing group.
The Times Leader ranked second among U.S. newspapers of any size participating in the most recently released report issued by the Alliance for Audited Media. The company used total online and print reader numbers available at the end of March to create its rankings of the top 25 papers.
The Times Leader’s audience of 219,656 was up 19.4 percent from the year prior figure of 184,037.
Closing Of Newark Star-Ledger Possible
The Star-Ledger (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
NEWARK – Owners of the Star-Ledger plan to close New Jersey’s largest newspaper by year’s end if production unions don’t make concessions in contract negotiations, the publisher said Wednesday.
In a letter to staff, publisher Richard Vezza said the company felt “pushed into a corner” by the unions, whose contracts expire in July. Vezza said they have until Sept. 27 to make compromises or else the paper will shut down.
“This is not a threat. This is reality,” Vezza said in an interview.
The paper’s website, www.nj.com, is owned by a separate company and will continue to publish “no matter what happens with the Ledger,” Vezza said.
Read more at http://www.philly.com/philly/business/20130627_Closing_of_Star-_Ledger_possible.html#bdzrJUzhQ0AOWDGl.99
Warren Buffett Eyeing Allentown Morning Call?
President Barack Obama and Warren Buffett in the Oval Office, July 14, 2010. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Tribune Co.’s imminent emergence from an epic bankruptcy has fueled a flurry of speculation about the future of one of the country’s largest diversified news media empires.
Weighing in on the matter Thursday was one of the world’s richest men, Warren Buffett. The Oracle of Omaha, as he is known for his legendary financial prowess, expressed interest in one of Tribune”s newspapers. Which one?
You are reading it.
Asked if his company, Berkshire Hathaway of Omaha, Neb., might buy The Morning Call, Buffett responded: “Allentown is our kind of place.”
Lancaster Newspapers Charting New Direction
Lancaster Newspapers announced a series of changes Monday to strengthen its focus on delivering local news and information to Lancaster County residents.
In the first step of this effort, the company named Ernest Schreiber as executive editor, overseeing its news-gathering operation seven days a week.
Schreiber, who came out of retirement to take the newly created position, will lead a combination of the Intelligencer Journal/Lancaster New Era and Sunday News staffs.
Effective immediately, the 75 reporters, editors and photographers will operate as a single newsroom, not two.
Journal Register Co., Parent Company Of The Mercury, Files For Chapter 11 Bankruptcy
NEW YORK, N.Y. – Digital First Media, which operates MediaNews Group, Journal Register Co. and Digital First Ventures, on Wednesday announced that JRC filed voluntary petitions for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York and will seek to implement a prompt sale.
“We expect the auction and sale process to take about 90 days, and we are pleased to announce the company has a signed stalking horse bid for Journal Register Company from 21st CMH Acquisition Co., an affiliate of funds managed by Alden Global Capital LLC,” said John Paton, CEO of Digital First Media.
The filing enables JRC to continue normal business operations during the sale process.
Harrisburg Newspaper To Publish 3 Days A Week
Editor’s note: According to Wikipedia, in 2011 The Patriot-News averaged over 492,000 readers per week between their print edition and Pennlive.com. The newspaper was ranked in the top 100 in daily/Sunday circulation (United States) in 2005.
HARRISBURG, PA — The daily newspaper in Pennsylvania’s capital city is switching to a three-days-a-week publication schedule in January, in what it calls an adaptation to the changing world.
John Kirkpatrick, publisher of The Patriot-News of Harrisburg, announced the changes Tuesday in an email to friends of the newspaper.
The email didn’t say which days the paper will be published. It says the change will be accompanied by an expansion of the paper’s around-the-clock news coverage online.
“We are not making this move lightly,” said Kirkpatrick. “We understand how important the daily paper is to a large number of people in our region. However, this is a major step to make sure we are leading, not trailing, in the world of innovation and solutions.”
Read more: http://www.mcall.com/business/mc-patriot-news-20120828,0,7285933.story
Easton Newspaper’s Owner Losing Faith In Print?
English: The Express-Times building in Easton, Pennsylvania. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
The New Orleans Times-Picayune‘s planned move to a three-day-a-week newspaper could signal that its sister papers in the Lehigh Valley and region — the Easton Express-Times, Harrisburg Patriot-News and Newark Star-Ledger — will eventually do the same, industry analysts say.
Advance Publications, which owns the Times-Picayune, has not announced plans to scale back at its three publications in this region, but one expert said conversations about taking that step already are happening at a time when newspapers across the country continue to grapple with declining advertising revenue and print sales.
“I think it will happen,” said former Knight Ridder executive Ken Doctor, who writes the Newsonomics blog. “The question is time. I know there are discussions within [Advance Publications] about how quickly to proceed with its other newspapers. I don’t know if a timeline is set, but there have been discussions on how and when to do this.”
Read more: http://www.mcall.com/business/mc-advance-publications-cuts-20120525,0,338158.story
New Orleans Newspaper Cuts Print Edition To Three Days A Week
A true-color satellite image of New Orleans taken on NASA’s Landsat 7 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
NEW ORLEANS, La. (Reuters) – The 175-year-old Pulitzer Prize-winning New Orleans Times-Picayune newspaper will reduce the number of days it publishes a print edition to three a week, making the Louisiana city the largest in the United States without a daily newspaper.
Advance Publications, which owns the Times-Picayune, said on Thursday it made the change because of the upheaval in the newspaper industry and the necessity to focus on its digital publications.
The company said three of its newspapers in Alabama – the Huntsville Times, Mobile Press-Register and Birmingham News – would also cut back their print editions to three days a week.
Read more: http://www.mcall.com/business/sns-rt-us-media-neworleans-newspaperbre84o03e-20120524,0,1798086.story
Gannett Posts 25% Decline In Earnings
McLEAN, Va. (AP) — The Gannett Company reported a 25 percent decline in first-quarter profit on Monday, as advertising in its newspapers continued to decline.
The company, which owns 82 newspapers in the United States, including USA Today; 23 broadcast television stations; and several digital media properties, said it earned $68.2 million, or 28 cents a share, in the quarter, down from $90.5 million, or 37 cents a share, a year earlier.
Revenue in the period, which ended March 25, fell 2.6 percent to $1.22 billion from $1.25 billion last year.
Results were helped by strong TV advertising and growth in digital products like the CareerBuilder Web site. Even so, overall revenue came in below analysts’ expectations. Analysts had expected $1.24 billion in revenue, according to a poll by FactSet.
Newspaper Barons Resurface
The Philadelphia Inquirer-Daily News Building in Philadelphia, PA. Taken from North Broad and Callowhill Streets. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Editor’s note: If you have followed the sale of the Philadelphia newspapers, this article gives some perspective on what that might mean for Philadelphia from an out-of-town perspective.
Is there anything more forlorn than the American metropolitan newspaper? First readers began deserting in droves, then the advertisers followed. Family owners headed for the exits and then hedge funds and other financial players scooped up newspapers thinking they were buying at the bottom of the market. Greater fools came and went, each saying they could cut their way to former glory and renewed profitability. They got a haircut instead.
Many smaller community newspapers remain stable and newspapers with a large national footprint have generally done better. But quite a few of the midsize regional and metropolitan dailies that form the core of the industry have gone off a cliff: over all, the newspaper industry is half as big as it was seven years ago.
So if most newspapers are an uneconomical proposition incapable of sustaining profits, let alone pay off the debt so many buyers have larded on them, who is left to own them?
Rich guys.
Related articles
- Political Figure Considers Bid For Philadelphia Newspapers (huffingtonpost.com)
Local Investors Buy Philly Newspapers For $55 Million
The Philadelphia Inquirer-Daily News Building in Philadelphia, PA. Taken from North Broad and Callowhill Streets. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
PHILADELPHIA, PA — A group of powerful local business leaders announced Monday that they have purchased Philadelphia‘s two largest newspapers from hedge funds for approximately $55 million, a fraction of what investors paid for them in 2006.
It is the fifth time in six years the newspapers are being sold.
The buyers, who include influential New Jersey Democrat George Norcross III, former New Jersey Nets owner Lewis Katz and cable TV mogul H.F. “Gerry” Lenfest, said they plan to keep the newspapers’ tradition of strong journalism alive in the digital age.
Read more: http://www.mcall.com/business/mc-philadelphia-newspapers-sold-20120402,0,5831712.story
Wilkes-Barre Times Leader Newspaper Sold
Impressions Media, owner of The Times Leader newspaper in Wilkes-Barre, has been acquired by a Philadelphia private equity firm, The Times Leader announced on its website.
Read more: http://www.mcall.com/business/mc-times-leader-sold-20120306,0,6696191.story
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