Friday, July 20, 2012

July 16-22 | Your News & Comments: Part 4

Can't find the right spot for your comment? Post it here, in this open forum. Real Time Comments: parked here, 24/7. (Earlier editions.)

41 comments:

  1. PointRoll has officially lost Ford Motor Media account. Worth $17 million a year in revenue and about 24% of their overall revenue!

    ReplyDelete
  2. I guess that "From the company that brought you the Edsel and re-made the T-Bird" campaign didn't impress . . .

    ReplyDelete
  3. Among the things in Cincinnati that don't add up:

    Just over 60,000 Duke Energy customers remain without power this morning after strong storms rumbled through Greater Cincinnati and Northern Kentucky Wednesday....

    At the height of Wednesday’s storm, which saw wind gusts up to 65 mph snapping tree limbs, some 23,000 Duke Energy customers lost power as the high temperature sweltered to 97 degrees with a heat index of 105.


    Doesn't anybody read this stuff before they push it out on the website?

    ReplyDelete
  4. I only pushed the button once. I swear!

    ReplyDelete
  5. Ha Ha Ha- Nice job USAT Sports7/19/2012 10:16 AM

    USAT Sports Acquisition of Next Sports Star.

    Never heard of this site before seeing the announcement this morning. Who the hell are the 6 million people who visit this site each month? Going to say that this site has been building its traffic numbers through networks and bots.

    Cant wait to see how they try to tie this new site and its products into all the other random shit they have been buying.

    I am assuming they are still just buying traffic. Traffic and a shitty product (which is what they have) is a recipe for failure.

    Nice work USAT Sports!!!

    ReplyDelete
  6. 8:38, how'd you like today's "Enquirer exclusive" about the Cincinnati Reds attendance figures? Wow, teams that make more money have more money to spend! You're really impressing everybody with those "exclusive" labels, Carolyn. I hear the Enquirer is working on an exclusive about how teams that win the most games have better odds of winning championships.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Beusse should concentrate on raising the caliber of writing. do you read the crap your people are passing off to readers?

    ReplyDelete
  8. I wonder how much of the Local papers drop in circulation over the last four years is do to missed delivery? Many people who buy a subscription would rather have a print newspaper. The only reason they will even consider getting their News from a Website is if they've been driven to it by poor service. Gannet's local paper's and others have repeatedly cut service, driving good customers away.Gannett continues to make clear they don't care about the customers. Gannett years ago while still profitable started removing whole sections of News and Classifieds from the Newspaper and reducing it's size. They stopped giving raises and instead gave furloughs. Now they don't even care if a customer receives today's paper the same day. Does anybody still wonder why management is criticized? Why circulation is dropping year over year. The top management at Gannett didn't make Gannett what it was alone. Employees and communities were responsible for all the great years that made Gannett a Media powerhouse. Top management is responsible alone for bringing it down.

    ReplyDelete
  9. Circulation is a good topic. This is the place where things fell apart first, pushing us into a downhill spin. The advent of a consolidated customer service center, decreasing circulation budgets dramatically, reducing start pressure, outsourcing delivery, cutting expensive routes and only keeping the less expensive instead of a holistic approach, poorpoorpoor delivery records due to reduced management and reduced controls, no continuity between call centers and street, squeezing grace to a killer level, converting store sales management to contractors ruining product placement work. Should I go on? These moves started just before the decline and hastened the loss of market penetration and hurt the brands more than anything we could discuss. People started bad mouthing papers when excellent delivery went bad and longtime carriers got the shaft (everyone loved their carriers and couldn't believe the company would toss them aside). This was a marketing disaster.
    Today, the excuse is... we saw digital coming and needed to reduce expenses. No, we were setup for all of this through consolidations that took local control and the ability for publisher to move his team as needed away.

    ReplyDelete
  10. The desperate and dying Journal News has also resorted to using the cheesy "Exclusive" label. Think I even saw one on a rewrite of a Police release.

    ReplyDelete
  11. RIP Tom Davis (as in Franken and . . .) from SNL. Apparently AP is cutting back on editors as well. The photo caption currently reads: "Hold for Obit Story - File This"

    http://news.yahoo.com/al-frankens-snl-partner-tom-davis-dies-ny-215034281.html

    ReplyDelete
  12. To whoever asked about Deal Chicken, it is in big trouble. Crashing and burning in most markets.

    ReplyDelete
  13. 7:26..I don't know what paper you are at but here in Florida, we started on our slippery slope with A CD who wished "there was no single copy". Things that were done were aimed at propping up home delivery and decisions made hurt single copy somewhat. Our carriers here persevered for they were still wholesalers and their pay depended on their selling papers, regardless. Single copy held it's own as people leave home delivery for single copy, not the other way around.

    Then we got some manager under him who started slicing up the routes, taking away racks and giving them to home delivery (as in subtracting sales locations) and turning the S/C carriers into delivery agents with less pay. Our S/C carriers now are fewer in number but are still dedicated as they need their jobs and need the paper to last as long as possible.

    "Converting store sales to contractors" here went just the opposite. Management took over all control, now treat their carriers like employees instead of contractors with all the orders and ways to do things increased. The draws are ridiculous as Tenn. doesn't know the how's and why's of sales here in FL. They're putting out too few during the week and burying carriers and stores with way too many.

    You may not have meant to be degrading the carrier force but that's what it sounds like. I assure you our carrier force here in Florida is doing all it can to sell as many over priced, story missed circulars as they can.

    ReplyDelete
  14. 7:01 . I meant to criticize the relationship and business decision, not the force. The communication is an issue.

    ReplyDelete
  15. 7:01am, if they are dictating the number of papers to be left at a location, it doesn't sound to me like you are a contractor, but more like an employee.

    So, ask for benefits. O/T and mileage too!

    ReplyDelete
  16. To 7:26-You get it!! I had worked for Gannett, and you could see it coming. Horrible was this..Management blamed DM's for the losses and poor service. Then they started to "Bully" and manipulate people so as to force good employees to either give up, quit, or accept mgmt's attitude as a way of life. Management treated their employees no better than their family dogs or cats. Unless of course you were 25-33...

    DM's are only refered to as an expense.

    ReplyDelete
  17. Another gaffe on today's Enquirer website. I guess the chief press release rewrite person was off today.

    "June home sales rose Cincinnati in Northern Kentucky.

    "Sales in Cincinnati were up 5.6 percent to 1,892CQ, the Cincinnati Area Board of Realtors reported on Thursday. The average price also increased, from $166,304 to $176,063."

    ReplyDelete
  18. 7:56 exactly, along with other things. They are now more employees than ever before.

    Benefits, days off....good thought but would only end in a 30 day notice and out the door. There are a few carriers who keep all documents given out in case they ever get screwed. As the over used saying goes...it is what it is. The job is getting done in spite of management.

    ReplyDelete
  19. There is no way DealChicken can be making money. Besides a few markets having a good deal here and there, if you look at all of the sites - Nothing is selling!

    ReplyDelete
  20. Deal Chicken = Shark Jumped.

    ReplyDelete
  21. 9:10 and 2:25 Totally agree on Dealchicken. Half of Louisville deals are now those fly-by-night "cheap vacation" scams. And the few legitimate businesses are brand new startups, not established and reliable repeat customers.

    ReplyDelete
  22. The ice cream sprinkled with drugs was a big hit in Shreveport!

    ReplyDelete
  23. Hey, we just had a big Happy One Year Anniversary Part for Deal Chicken in Appleton about a week ago. It's got to be going great.

    ReplyDelete
  24. missed delivery credits at my site are in the thousands so far this year....around 9k I think...and its a mid sized market.

    ReplyDelete
  25. 3:46, "Gannett years ago while still profitable started removing whole sections of News."

    What do you mean, when Gannett WAS still profitable? They still are and have been for many years. Just not enough for them not to spill its employees' blood everywhere.

    ReplyDelete
  26. I remember a time when I could expect something a little different -- often more interesting -- in USA Today's coverage of big news stories. But unless the nation's newspaper is saving it for print, there is currently nothing that distinguishes USAT's coverage of the movie theater shootings from other online news sites. In fact, USAT's coverage is behind in my opinion, both in display and journalistic substance, once again showing a lack of urgency or news judgment or both. Might also be a result of deeper budget cuts than some of the more respected news brands. Does USAT cover anything west of the Mississippi anymore that isn't in Hollywood?

    USAT has become too predictable. When it tries to break from the pack, it comes up with sidebars like how the movie industry is reacting. Who cares? Is that really the story right now?

    It appears USAT has no interest in being a journalistic leader and I certainly have lost my desire to put coins in a machine to buy a copy of the once fairly decent newspaper.

    USAT is lucky we live in a era when Americans favor things like name recognition and superficiality over substance and quality. If this country had more discriminating readers, USAT would be losing more ground with this sort of uninspired reporting. The dumbing down of America seems to be a lifesaver for USAT.

    ReplyDelete
  27. Digital was supposed to wipe out Television stations too. Television Revenue is doing just fine. print would have been much better off if they hadn't used coming of Digital as an excuse to degrade service.

    ReplyDelete
  28. 5:42 That is true. What I should have said is when profits were much higher than today.

    ReplyDelete
  29. Once a reason to enjoy reading the news online, the Story Chat comments, while often times, loaded with stupidity, at least there was community conversation.

    Since going to the Facebook log-in requirement, the chat comments and community conversation is pretty much totally non-existant. Totally gone. Page views and unique visitor traffic has plummeted as a result.

    And this "digital subscription"...what a joke. The iPad app is horrible. The story count is non-existent. The "News" tab sometimes has one or two items...usually "Today's Calendar"...that's NEWS??? Some days, we get three stories. On a good day...maybe four or five. If you think the newspaper is thin, read your local news off the app...it's ridiculous! I will say, I really like the USAToday app. The community newspaper app is shit!

    Seriously...if the newspaper's future is riding on the quality of content I find on my iPad from this paper...they'll be closing up shop within the next year or so. Total disappointment in content for what they charge.

    ReplyDelete
  30. Don't worry, broadcast television is not too far behind print on the "wipe out" curve.

    And the intimation that Gannett somehow has changed too fast is just ludicrous. The truth is the opposite.

    ReplyDelete
  31. Customer service, meaning live humans, is what customers want on delivery. There are times we don't have it. I get some calls. Those people are pissed, and I gotta believe their support is eroding. I'nm afraid the next recession will be like a lawnmower coming through.

    ReplyDelete
  32. 9:10pm, Deal Chicken must be doing ok at my site, they just hired another sales rep.

    ReplyDelete
  33. The dumbing down of America is hurting us all. Dumb people usually don't have as much disposable income as the smarter folks. Sure they like more video ,color, and pictures, but they really don't want to pay for it. Why should they, it is entertainment, not news. Internet entertainment is generally free. Cable, Sat, and netflix are charging, but that level of content is in a different league from what we have morphed into. Cable and Sat are struggling at the moment too. Gannett online papers are a joke. Three college kids could do a better job for free. Cranking up the physical paper prices is crazy! This is just to try and push people to digital to show growth there, while total circulation is probably dropping. The current product should be free online and maybe a nickle at newsstands. That is all it is worth.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. 12:09 you are e titled to your opinion but I disagree. And on another note Friday's USAT had great content and was stuffed with ads. Looking good!

      Delete
  34. To 6:26: if that's what you really think please resign.

    ReplyDelete
  35. Earlier in this post someone was questioning the success of DealChicken. I have to tell you that Deal Chicken is doing very well and is a huge revenue generator for the company. Although you may find some deals unappealing, just like any product advertisement, a great deal of Deal Chicken advertisements have directly sold to tens-of-thousands of customers.

    ReplyDelete
  36. 6:41 In her presentation last week to Wall Street media analysts, Martore said of DealChicken: "We saw another strong quarter of sequential improvements as second-quarter revenue was up 20% compared to the first quarter."

    She did not, however, provide dollar figures, so it's impossible to know what this increase means. Was it a 20% increase from $1 million? $10 million?

    Also, I would suggest that a 20% sequential jump for a service that's just a year old isn't necessarily impressive. Typically, growth rates are greatest in the early stages of a start-up, and they tend to be huge.

    ReplyDelete
  37. Last year our site was told that the DealChicken target was $100 million for the year. I would love to know how close we are to that goal with 2/3 of the year gone.

    ReplyDelete

Jim says: "Proceed with caution; this is a free-for-all comment zone. I try to correct or clarify incorrect information. But I can't catch everything. Please keep your posts focused on Gannett and media-related subjects. Note that I occasionally review comments in advance, to reject inappropriate ones. And I ignore hostile posters, and recommend you do, too."

Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.