News

The Dallas Morning News rewards employees for revenue-generating ideas

In a drive to encourage innovation within the organisation, the Dallas Morning News has begun offering financial rewards of up to $25,000 to employees who come up with lucrative business ideas which generate revenue for the newspaper. This “Innovative Idea Share” program, which has already been running for a year, is designed to incentivise the seeking out of creative opportunities for the newspaper to diversify its pool of revenue sources.

French press announces support for Lescure Report tax

Somewhat unsurprisingly, last weekend the French press stated its approval of and support for a tax on smartphones, computers and tablet devices proposed by the recently published Lescure report.

Independent to cut 27 editorial staffers to combat losses

Independent Newspapers will layoff 27 editorial staffers, mostly reporters, to further its loss minimization strategy.

Snowden scoop sees Guardian online challenge New York Times

Internal figures given exclusively to The Atlantic by the Guardian confirm that on 10 June 2013, the day after the British title revealed the identity of NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden, the Guardian’s websites attracted 6.97 million unique browsers. It was the highest level of traffic the sites had ever recorded for a single day, and also the first time that the news title’s US site had ever attracted more readers than guardian.co.uk.

Free trial pays off for Ekstra Bladet freemium content

Seven weeks from launch, the 40% conversion rate from Ekstra Bladet’s free trial shows that some readers are willing to pay for quality content on tabloid (or so called ‘boulevard’) news websites.

Trinity Mirror doubles digital staff, perhaps to woo Sun readers

Trinity Mirror announced plans to recruit 25 digital editorial staffers, doubling the size its new media department in a bid to become “digital first.”

Wall Street shows faith in news publishers’ digital future

The willingness of some of the traditional news industry’s top players to take risks and experiment with their digital offerings is contributing to their recent success on the stock market. While circulation figures continue to fall and ad revenues diminish, some of the US’s most prominent news titles are reporting healthy rates on Wall Street.

Three years into The Times’ paywall, CEO says revenue’s worth lost reach

News UK Chief Executive Officer Mike Darcey said The Times’ strict, nonporous paywall has brought enough revenue to make it a success, three years since its introduction.

Sales of French national dailies plummeted in May

With the sole exception of La Croix, all national daily newspapers in France reported declining sales figures for the month of May, according to the OJD (Association pour la contrôle de la diffusion des medias).

RCS Mediagroup’s shareholders at loggerheads over plans for restructuring publishing business

Tensions are running high at the heart of RCS Mediagroup as key shareholders fail to agree on plans to turn around the ailing multimedia publishing company that controls the Corriere della Sera, Italy’s largest daily news title.