Monday, September 20, 2010
Pop Quiz | Name USAT's top ad revenue loss
12 comments:
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Wife = Life
ReplyDeleteHoney = Money
Let's take a wild guess and say, oh, travel? Do I win anything if I'm right?
ReplyDeleteBut why would this be news? Hunke already said several times that the recession pummeled both travel ad dollars and travel-related circulation. Where's the surprise?
Or are we talking about the mysterious disappearance of Amish fireplace ads?
Travel.
ReplyDelete7:10 a.m.: Travel, yes. And here's why I find that newsworthy.
ReplyDeleteOn the July 16 second-quarter earnings conference call, responding to a question from a stock analyst about USAT's travel-related advertising, Gracia Martore said:
"Yes, we did see improvement in travel and I think where that’s beginning to come from is some of the luxury hotels and the higher name plates and organizations seem to be seeing better occupancy rates, beginning to see better occupancy rates and we’re starting to see more travel advertisers focusing in on USA Today which is always a very, very good platform for them to be on. So, yes travel advertising is an improved category for us."
I'm wondering: What happened to that improvement?
Well...define "improvement." Could she mean that declines were not as steep, or that declines were slowing? You know, the numbers are still sliding, just not quite as quickly? I guess you could call that improving.
ReplyDeleteNot exactly a sign that USAT's travel category is turning around, to be sure.
That's bizarre. Airline fares are 22% higher than they were 5 years ago. Clearly the industry doesn't feel the need to spend money on newspaper advertising. Current newspaper advertising business models no longer work.
ReplyDeleteappreciate
The Travel section has some of the best writers and the best cover stories in the paper.
ReplyDeleteThe wife and I stayed at a moderate Virginia Beach hotel last weekend and the Front Desk stack of USAT papers dwindled down to zero pretty fast that Friday morning. Speaking of 'travel,' don't get hustled by the huge nests of Timeshare vermin down there. GoldKey owns 60% of the hotel strip, and will do anything to fill the occupancy year-round. Enjoyed reading all the complaints and the free meal coupon for the opportunity to say "no" 20 times for the chance to make monthly payments for air, er, a resort timeshare.
ReplyDeleteFrom out of nowhere, BP has been one of USAT's single-biggest advertisers this year -- possibly its biggest overall.
ReplyDeleteI suspect the same is true at several Gannett papers along the Gulf Coast.
The challenge ahead: How to make up for that lost revenue now that the oil spill crisis is easing?
"How to make up for that lost revenue now that the oil spill crisis is easing?"
ReplyDeleteThat's simple: Cut more positions! When there's only one employee (Hunke), the profits will be enormous! Gracia's magic spreadsheet told me so.
If we can't get election advertising in the papers, we deserve to go down. The most intelligent likely voters are our subscribers - granted, also the oldest voters - but it's a market we should go after.
ReplyDeleteInstead, we'll demand credit checks and four day deadlines for online, three day deadlines for ROP, a week out for inserts... while TV can punch in another six commercials during the news starting in a half hour.
My local markets are in two contests that already have become the most expensive campaigns in state history, yet aside from a single sheet insert early in primary season, nobody is talking to me through Gannett.
Seriously, why aren't we chasing this money more effectively? The candidates put our headlines in their TV ads, for goodness sakes. They know we can dump LOADS of gravitas onto their campaigns. But we have no national plan or framework to take both local candidate and national party/ P.A.C./ lobbyist money and maximize their results and our revenue.
We didn't have a plan for the 2006 election, or the 2008 election, and we don't have one now. Again.
Hell, even a nice little flyer with targeted Scarborough research would be something to hand to candidates - instead we have to use the same audience info we throw at car dealers and realtors and hope that the candidates won't notice.
It's embarrassing. Our audiences are tailor-made for election ads and we still can't make the sales consistently or cohesively.
At least KARE is making money off the election, I suppose.
7:05 - even in their best days, newspapers were never a vehicle for candidates at any level. Broadcast has always been prefered. Stop pretending your idea is novel or new. It's a story that's been told many, many times.
ReplyDelete