MorphNMedia

The Ranger  is heading into another adventure so come along for the ride. Keep coming back throughout the day.

You never know what’s around the next bend in the trail but  you can bet the ole Ranger has your back and will bring you the latest on what the varmits are up to today!

There’s always smoke on the horizon in this territory. Sometimes it’s a signal from some friendlies  but most often-as-not it is another group of folks burnt out by  the desparados.

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The good news for Employees of Journal Communications 10 extra days off this year. The bad news, no  money to go anywhere!

Most employees at all Journal Communications (JRN) divisions will take a 6% pay cut for the remainder of the year and in return will get 10 additional personal days off under a plan announced Thursday by Steven J. Smith, the company’s chairman of the board and CEO.

In a letter sent to employees, Smith said the pay reduction and time off are a reflection of weak advertising spending.

“There is a high probability that this environment will continue for at least the balance of 2009,” Smith said. “As we manage for the long-term success of the company, we must identify constructive ways to continue to reduce costs.”

The pay cuts and time off affect executives, managers, market managers, supervisors, as well as corporate staff. The company is also asking on-air broadcast talent and most union employees to negotiate payroll reductions.

The program will be implemented at Journal Communications, Journal Broadcast Group, Journal Sentinel and Journal Community Publishing Group.

This week, the company also offered a voluntary separation agreement to newsroom employees represented by Newspaper Guild Local 51. The company has told the Guild that it needs to cut $1.2 million in annual payroll.

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BELO is asking employees to take wages BELOW what they were making as well.

A.H. Belo, the parent company of the Dallas Morning News stated Thursday that it will cut salaries and suspend pension contributions this year in an effort to lower costs. It will also stop matching contributions to its savings program and amend severance for the time being.

Here’s the release:

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 News Corp gets some online leadership from AOL

As expected, News Corp. has signed former AOL CEO Jonathan Miller to the new position of chairman and CEO, Digital Media Group and chief digital officer for the conglomerate.

Based in New York and reporting directly to News Corp. chairman and CEO Rupert Murdoch, he is tasked with taking the company’s digital efforts to the next level.

“Our focus moving forward is twofold: to enable our digital businesses to flourish as individual entities and to bolster the digital strategies of our core media properties by treating them as central to, and not separate from, the enterprise,” Murdoch explained the move. “With his strong background in media and entertainment, coupled with a deep understanding of the digital business, Jon Miller is — hands down — the best equipped executive to provide the vision, oversight and operational experience to truly transform our offerings.”

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There’s GOLD in that there Internet!

Broadcast TV stations reached the $1 billion revenue mark in online advertising sales for the first time in 2008, a 36 percent rise over 2007. And while in the majority of markets newspapers are still outstripping the TV outlets with unique visitors, the broadcasters are gaining ground.

Last year, local TV sites surpassed newspapers in 22 markets out of 80 markets, in terms of unique visitors, compared with only 16 markets last year.

That’s according to a Borrell Associates report commissioned by the Television Bureau of Advertising. The study was released this morning at a conference attended by TV station representatives and the press.

In Top 20 markets, TV site revenue grew 65 percent, year over year, with per-station online revenue surging past $1 million for the first time. Markets ranked 51 to 210 had an average gain of 33 percent. But there was a 3 percent decline in revenues by markets ranked 20 to 50. Gordon Borrell, CEO of Borrell Associates, said that decline mirrored a similar trend among newspaper sites. “In the mid-market levels, they came on very fast,” he said, noting that many midsize-market TV sites launched a decade ago. “They saw an awful lot of growth but hit a wall last year.”

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Saving Paper…

Peachtree Media Advisors, Inc.  has written a report for the newspaper industry to radically restructure their core business model, capitalize on social media trends, leverage their journalistic integrity, target stimulus money, recapitalize their balance sheets, and acquire interactive marketing services and consumer-facing social media companies.

(You might be able to tell from that run-on sentence that the Ranger is Wrangling here).

As one of the most trusted sources for information, the newspaper industry is well-positioned to leverage its advertising and editorial infrastructures to generate new digital marketing revenue streams from local merchants as well as professional bloggers.

 PRWEB

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What’s in a name?

ABC Radio Networks has a new name: Citadel Media. The company says the new name represents its dedication to connecting audiences with advertisers across multiple platforms beyond its core radio business including mobile, out-of-home, digital and experiential marketing” and will “allow the company to capitalize on synergistic opportunities throughout the marketplace.” RadioINK

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Paperless News from a Newspaper thanks to Hearst

US publishing group Hearst Corp. plans to launch a wireless electronic reader for magazines and newspapers similar to Amazon’s Kindle for books.

Fortune Magazine reports the device is likely to be unveiled this year and that other publishers will be allowed to adapt it for their use.

“I can’t tell you the details of what we are doing, but I can say we are keenly interested in this, and expect these devices will be a big part of our future,” Kenneth Bronfin, Hearst interactive media group chief, told Fortune.

The magazine said Bronfin led an investment by Hearst more than a decade ago in E Ink, a Cambridge, Massachusetts-based company that supplies the electronic-ink technology used in the Kindle and in devices produced by Sony.

“What Hearst and its partners plan to do is sell the e-readers to publishers and to take a cut of the revenue derived from selling magazines and newspapers on these devices,” Fortune said.

The magazine said the Hearst e-reader has a large-format screen “suited to the reading and advertising requirements of newspapers and magazines.”

It said the device “will approximate the size of a standard sheet of paper, rather than the six-inch (15-centimeter) diagonal screen found on Kindle.”

“Given the evolving state of the technology, the Hearst reader is likely to debut in black and white and later transition to high-resolution color with the option for video,” Fortune said.

Downloading newspapers and magazines will be done wirelessly…

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