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Saturday, March 30, 2013
51 comments:
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."
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The "ex-marketing" label is frustrating for someone like me who has had to lay off staff to continue sending our tithe to the Crystal Palace.
ReplyDeleteI understand that we pay put cash in our Tyson's envelope for finance, H.R., GPS, GIADC, IT, Design Hubs etc. for the services we no longer can handle locally because they've been consolidated in some hope of saving money. But we get something in return, even if it's not everything we want.
But corporate marketing? The people that should have the tools and knowledge to grow Gannett and all our locations?
We send our money and we get three ideas once a month via 'On The Road'. We get people who tell our customers that we've realized what readers want. We get meet and greets and fancy parties that not only have resulted in no obvious increased national ad spends, they have tagged Gannett as 'amateurs' among advertising decision makers.
At some point, corporate marketing needs to be responsive to the needs of the sites - whether broadcast, print, digital or elevator.
What we don't need is to lay off more content producers so that we can continue setting girls on fire.
Corporate marketing? It never existed. What little there was of it disappeared when Tara Connell got the axe.
DeleteThis comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
DeleteSpot-on post, 7:31. There's no way in hell we're saving money by all we have to pay to the Des Moines hub. And then there's all the talent lost when the copy editors got laid off when we went to the hub.
DeleteAlso loved your girls on fire line!
Why are there so many corporate marketing departments -- broadcast, usat, usat sports grop, print, point roll, deal chicken, and the biggest joke, one for gannett, as if that is needed. Individually or collectively no one seems to know what they are doing.
DeleteGannett does not have a marketing arm. It is the corporate communications department. Get it right or shut up.
DeleteThis comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
DeleteCorporate marketing has been busy so knock it off.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.adexchanger.com/publishers/gannett-sharpens-digital-ad-position-says-cdo-payne/
Except Dave Payne isn't marketing, he's head of the digital division. And in this article he does a much better job of detailing actual products than anything that girls on fire have burned.
DeleteDid marketing set up the interview? I guess that could be considered an accomplishment.
Jim:
ReplyDeleteSomeone asked you about this statement:
"Now, consider the fact that the paper has somewhere between 1,200-1,400 total employees."
The commentor stated they didn't think there are still that many USA TOday employees on the payroll since circulation moved to GPS. So far you have not responded to that query.
How many USA TOday employees are really still on board?
As of December 2012, here is how the total full and part-time employees break down by division: 9,549 in USCP; 7,623 in GPS; 2,668 in Broadcasting; 1,976 in Digital Ventures; 793 in USAT; 721 in Corporate; 432 in Digital; and 127 in National Sales. These numbers do not include Careerbuilder, Newsquest, or Pointroll.
DeleteI don't know how many USAT employs. The paper no longer discloses that figure publicly.
DeleteThank you, 12:52.
DeleteAnd the much touted "5,000 journalists" number includes all full and part-time employees that are classified as newsroom/information center employees, not just reporters and editors.
DeleteWhat are the 7623 in GPS doing? Does that include home delivery carriers that are paid by the size of the route using their own vehicles?
DeleteCarriers are not employees, they are independent contractors. They would not be included in employee headcount.
DeleteFlorida Today sports writer makes ESPN's "Not Top Plays" today. Here's why:
ReplyDeletehttp://on.flatoday.com/YIj3Pm
So Ted Power is in charge of two production hubs?
ReplyDeletehttp://apple.copydesk.org/2013/03/29/gannetts-nashville-studio-hires-new-creative-director/
Cheers
DeleteBottoms up! And call a cab this time.
DeleteAs for Power's DUI, I think most people would agree that's the biggest fool one can make of one's self by light years.
DeleteBut the fact remains that the guy already paid for what was after all a single mistake — dearly — in every way imaginable a full three years ago.
So give him, the person, a break. And I'm no fan of his.
Saw a recent job posting from USAT's Sports Group for Senior Director of Promotions... What happened to the VP in that position, guru Bouker Pool?? Has the Sports group not been able to hold onto another VP level. Lazarus, and now Pool? Sports group not doing as well to keep 'em? And interesting, that if he's gone...that he's not being replaced at same level, which means they aren't allowed to hire another VP...? Oh well, as has been commented before...long gone are days when USAT was admired for stability of staff.
ReplyDeleteThis is how you get to $300 million in annual revenue?
DeleteThe amount of incremental revenue SMG has generated for Gannett above and beyond what USAT was already getting for Sports is minimal. Someone will figure that out - someday.
DeleteThat "someday" will be sometime in 2015, which is the deadline for Beusse to deliver the $300million that USAT wouldn't have earned without the Sports group. The Big Lead / SportsonEarth / US Presswire revenue will count toward this 'new' revenue (against what acquisition cost, who knows) but, otherwise, agreed that anything else incremental is very minimal. By 2015, though, Beusse et co will have their bags packed with the loads of salary and bonus paiid them, so...
DeleteMost will be long gone by the time 2015 rolls around.
DeleteAPP employee here. Curious what happened yesterday in the sales department? Strange things happening in that part of the building.
ReplyDeleteHope there was a mass firing. If any part of the APP needs new blood, it's that one. People at the APP spend too much time polishing fingernails instead of hustling for advertising. And that part of the building is due to soon receive a flat screen television as part of an employee lounge. The building is for sale and a large part of the failure at the APP rests on its advertising department.
DeleteThe Courier-Post is another place with resources wasted on planning parties and other bullshit seen by everyone outside ad dept. The non-productive dead wood has been allowed to remain because mid management are worthless.
DeleteOur advertising department recently got a 46" flatscreen. They're going to use it when it's too cloudy to look out the windows in the afternoons.
DeleteA local sales manager quit, about a week or two before the key accounts director quit.
DeleteAt least they’re smart enough to know when to get out.
You have it backwards. Key accounts director walked out first. It came as a shock that the local manager quit as he seemed to be drinking the cool aid during his time and was well liked. The problem on the local side is that they are in the process of moving advertisers out of packages, aka their rates are going up if they want to do exactly what was in that package. No one has any answers or any directions other than to pray they can win the digital business to keep their jobs. Morale looks to be at an all time low. You have bosses screaming at people with the door open and are trying to hide the fact people are working in a hostile work environment by adding couches and funky pillows to make the illusion that youre working at a trendy digital company. Bottom line - the APP is a shit show and I for one would enjoy to witness a mass exodus.
DeleteThey did the same thing at my site: swanky expensive couches, monster flatscreen... it made the survivors of layoffs, many of whom lost good friends and working relationships, curious for two obvious reasons:
Delete(1.) Even though funded by a separate budget, the timing was callous as hell some big remodel project the very next week after 60 people lost their livelihood. Very insensitive. No surprise there.
(2.) Who, working, has time to use this swanky upscale "break" area, as if there was no grueling stress of a very intensely insecure (and sometimes outright hostile) work environment with a gutted staff? More la-la land cluelessness.
I myself broached these questions to some exec and the expression on her face was one of confusion and hurt, then umbrage. Yet she sounded like it was a pat answer she had answered several times before from others: "You should appreciate that we did this for the employees!" Like employees are some charity case and not the engine that drives the enterprise.
"Yeah," I thought, biting my tongue for the sake of my career, "most of whom don't have time, you twit."
But there was an upside, though. Everyone -- the real producers -- could tell who the real deadwood was (as the "deadwood" wasn't generally the laid off but the older employees with experience) by the fact that the same very, very few characters seemed to have always had time to indeed avail themselves for naps on the swanky couches... in public, right?.. in a workplace, right?... leaving their coworkers to slave away even more.
This is why this company is toxic.
Advertising had to have a committee to decide what colors to paint the walls. After the decision was finally made, somebody even had the balls to nominate them for an award for their work.
DeleteIt's not just APP, somebody must have told the ad managers that it's more important to have a pretty room than make money. Was that one of the seminars held in Phoenix last month?
Des Moines in the news for publishing map of schools with no armed guards. WTF.
ReplyDeleteAs a retiree, I received a letter from my former newspaper publisher today requesting a donation to the annual United Way fund. The letter was postmarked yesterday (3/28), received today (3/29) and the donation form needs to be completed and received no later than 3/31 (Sunday).....typical.
ReplyDeleteUSAT hiring Sales Manager on Careerbuilder posted in Shreveport.
ReplyDeleteLooks like Wilmington publisher has to get out his PR handbook to handle new hassle over stolen Phillies tickets Some of the commenters don't understand the expense.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.delawareonline.com/article/20130329/NEWS01/303290060/Police-37-000-Phillies-tickets-stolen
The News Journal in Wilmington was supposed to get a shipment of Phillies tickets and parking passes in time for Opening Day. The package with those tickets got sent to another company whose mailroom manager resold the tickets on Craigslist. This would have gone unnoticed except the secretary to the News Journal's publisher spotted the Craigslist ad. The stolen tickets have been voided and the mailroom manager is in jail on a theft charge.
ReplyDelete[Context: the News Journal uses the Phillies tickets as an incentive to its advertisers.]
$37,000 for Phillies tickets, another $20,000 for Eagles tickets - heck in Wilmo - that could save two full time newsroom employees. And you can count on one hand how many advertisers who ever saw those tickets. Everything he touches, turns to douche.
DeleteSo Des Moines caved and pulled the map regarding guns at schools?
ReplyDeleteSeriously, who thought the map was a good idea?
The map disappeared without comment? WTF?!
DeleteAnd the editor said in an interview he didn't know about the map before it was published. That has got to be total bullshit, or else he's that inept of an editor.
What's going on at the Asbury Park Press? I have heard in sales there's been another manager to call it quits?
ReplyDeleteHey 2:52 p.m.:
ReplyDeleteJudging from the size of the APP, its sister papers and the lack of advertising on their websites, there is not much advertising being sold.
Here's the big news: An employee lounge _complete with a flat screen television _ is coming to the advertising department.
Shouldn't those who work in advertising be out in the street hustling advertising?
The building is for sale, as announced in The Press and on app.com, yet laziness is being promoted by management.
The sale of the building tells me the newspaper and its websites are failing. A large part of the reason for the failure rests with the advertising department yet management is promoting rest with a lounge.
Go figure!!!
I wouldn't say it's laziness. It's the culture of the building. Everyone is miserable. Tom if you are reading this, come downstairs more often and look around.
ReplyDeleteIs anyone going to report on the SEC filing/ Daily Kos article about Gracia Martore's agreed to severance (if she leaves... I'm sure everyone wants her to stay with the great things she's done to the stock price)?
ReplyDeletehttp://nissanwhistleblower.blogspot.com/2013/03/nissan-dept-of-energy-fraud-is-real.html
Heh Sharyn I didn't think anyone could be more biased than Jim but you win hands down. I read several pieces on your blog. Gurl turn off the Star Trek reruns, get out of your Mom's cellar and breathe some fresh air.
DeleteOk so gannett not reporting stories is OK?
DeleteMartore deserve 46 Million. Fine
Cant blame the guy for leaving. The APP continues to not appeal to smaller, local merchants. They notice the lack of local advertisers in the paper leading to their decision to not spend their ad dollars. They advertise in the smaller paper publications that are more local and are certainly less expensive. Also, the majority dont care about what Gannett Local has to offer. It leaves the sales staff with very little to be confident to talk about, forget about selling. Management can sugar coat objections all they want but the APP or pardon me "NJ Press Media Solutions" has a serious branding issue.
ReplyDeleteWho has left?
DeleteSo it was a voluntary leaving? Wasn't so sure
ReplyDelete