pressgenerator.com

Kate and William - a royal wedding and a royal cash boost!

2010-11-16T05:31:00.000-08:00

A god send for the tourism industry and a god send for newspapers and magazines. Come to think of it a god send for plate and mug makers!

As a confirmed republican I was firmly put in my place a few years back while working on a project for VisitBritain. The client contact, himself a republican, showed me the figures relating to The Monarchy and Tourism. Breathtaking - billions of pounds come into our economy on the back of tourists coming to the UK on the royalty trail. It pretty much dwarfs the civil list.

While I'd still like to take their huge chunks of land away from them I can't argue in terms of the cash generated. I won't be watching on the day but neither will I be waving a placard in anger.

The UK's newspapers and magazines, struggling as they are, will lap up the boost in sales due to commemorative issues, picture specials and giveaways.

So if you are angry about the cost of the wedding just turn off the telly, think of England and all that cash pouring in to our crumbling economy which really does affect each and every one of us!

Japan Newspapers in Crisis

2010-09-17T02:48:00.000-07:00

Excellent article by Roy Greenslade on Japan's newspaper crisis

Japan's Newspaper Industry in Crisis

Now that's a headline I didn't expect to write. For so long Japanese newspapers appeared to be immune to the difficulties faced by the printed press in other advanced economies.
But the situation has changed, due to a 42% decline in advertising spending over the past decade, which has been exacerbated by the global downturn that has hammered the Japanese economy.
The shrinking revenues coincide with a scramble by Japanese publishers to make their online editions profitable and attract a new generation of readers in an ageing society.
"Newspapers are seeing a crisis coming," says Shinji Oi, a professor at Nihon University. "Japan has yet to see the major newspaper bankruptcies and financial troubles that we have seen in the West. But newspapers' business fundamentals are definitely deteriorating."
Overall circulation has slipped by only 6% in the 10 years to 2009, with the top-selling Yomiuri Shimbun newspaper boasting the world's biggest sale of more than 10m copies a day.
Newspapers also remain the preferred source of news in Japan, with total circulation standing at a robust 50.4m daily sales in 2009.
With home-delivery subscription strong, armies of sales staff are always on the lookout for potential new subscribers, offering inducments to new customers such as laundry detergent or tickets to sports games.
Demand for fresh news is met with constantly updated editions throughout the day, with so-called "yomawari" (night watch) reporters doorstepping senior figures until the early hours to generate fresh headlines for their morning editions.
But an apparent failure to capture a younger generation that has grown up with the internet and the concept of free, up-to-the-minute news could prove costly in a greying society.
A survey by the Japan Press Research Institute found that most people under 40 regard an average £25 monthly newspaper subscription fee as too expensive.
Meanwhile, according to Takaaki Hattori, a media law professor at Rikkyo University, a perceived deterioration of quality in pursuit of sensationalism has disappointed readers.
He said that serious journalism was costly and Japanese media had sought to cut editorial spending at the expense of quality reporting (now where have I heard that before?)
And here is yet another similarity with the situation in Britain and the US - the charging-for-content dilemma. Major Japanese newspapers have shied away from establishing full-blown net editions due to reader resistance to pay for news.
Though most publishers have adopted a wait-and-see approach to devices such as the iPad some titles, such as the Nikkei business daily and the Sankei Shimbun have launched apps.
At the vanguard is the Nikkei, which became the first major Japanese paper to launch a full-scale online edition, featuring free and paid-content sections with stories and analysis.
Since its launch in late March, it has acquired roughly 440,000 subscribers, including some 70,000 paid readers by July. But the readership is only a fraction of the print edition's 3m circulation.

Life online! Could you do without it?

2010-09-16T03:40:00.001-07:00

Great piece from BBC Online about a generation brought up online!

There is now a generation who do not remember the world before the internet took off, and who live out their lives in a slew of public online arenas. But there is also a growing number of people who feel their life online has spun out of control.

Someone born in 1992 will be 18 this year. And in one way or another, their entire life has been lived online.

From birth announcements to e-mails to childhood photos, and now social networks and blogs, traces of a person's whole life could be pieced together online.

For many, a limited conception of privacy is normal, but there are some people who are now having second thoughts about how much of themselves to display to the world.

Daniel Sieberg is one of them. As a television correspondent, he recognizes that social networks had taken over his life before he decided to take the jump, and disconnect.

"Me and my ego got sucked in. Big time. And my relationships suffered," he said in his Declaration of Disconnection posted on the Huffington Post.

"I allowed the passive acceptance of strangers to replace meaningful interaction with the people I know and love. I had become more interested in a wall post here or a poke there."

'Beyond privacy'

Gordan Savicic picked up on the fact that some people feel they have lost control online. He created a service to help people disconnect from social networks.

Based in the Netherlands, the Web 2.0 Suicide Machine is a website that logs into your accounts and deletes all of your data, friend-by-friend and post-by-post.

There is quite a demand for the service.

People just want to get rid [of online profiles] because they noticed they spend way too much time in front of the computer
Gordan Savicic of Suicide Machine

It has had about 90,000 requests so far and there is currently a month-long backlog.

"We figured out that people have advertised so much with their online ego, that basically a kind of avatar persona has been created so actually people start talking about killing someone like it would be a real person," says Mr Savicic.

So it goes far beyond privacy. The more time we spend in the digital world, cultivating our online profiles and virtual networks, according to Mr Savicic, the less time we are spending in our real lives communicating with our real friends.

"People just want to get rid [of online profiles] because they noticed they spend way too much time in front of the computer," says Mr Savicic. "They are basically getting their analogue life back."

Risks and limits

But according to psychiatrist Dr Jerald Block, based in Portland, Oregon, "disconnecting poses some risks".

Dr Block treats patients who use the internet excessively - more than 30 or 40 hours a week.

"If you are heavily active [on the internet], by disconnecting you are losing a significant relationship. Those 30 or 40 hours of time now have to be filled with real life."

Dr Block says some people can find it very gratifying, while others find they are not capable of staying disconnected.

However, he believes the worst case scenario is when the decision to disconnect is made by a third party. "It can be a disaster and can even lead to suicide."

For 23-year-old Giorgio Pagoria, signing up on social networking websites is out of the question. Proud of not being on Facebook, he says social networking sites are too addictive.

"At the beginning you do it for contacts, friendships, event planning, but then you get into the loop and you can't just get out, you become addicted and not in a good way."

Still, Mr Pagoria acknowledges that it can be difficult to remain disconnected in his study abroad programme, called Erasmus, in the Netherlands.

"Here in Erasmus everybody uses it to organize events and if it wasn't for my roommate who is on Facebook I would miss out and I would probably have to use my phone more."

Amplified lives

There are some people who fear they are being changed by a virtual world of status updates and 140 character distillations of their lives.

Clay Shirky on the issues of privacy in social media

If we can't live in the moment without tweeting about it, or broadcasting all of our thoughts to our 2,000 Facebook friends, are we in danger of losing our sense of identity?

Clay Shirky, author of Cognitive Surplus, says the age of the internet may not be changing who we are as people, but it is altering the way we see each other.

"We are a social species, we've always shaped each other's identities.

"What's happened now, is the explicitness, the permanentness, the globalness, the searchability, all of those things have amplified a bunch of those effects."

So how do we navigate this magnified environment we are all operating in now? Mr Shirky's advice is to find balance.

"We should look at the medium and say what are its advantages and disadvantages, and how can we maximise the former and minimize the latter, based on the way the world is right now?"

Newspaper Advertising

2010-09-15T04:25:00.000-07:00

Media Week reveal who is advertising in the National press this week.

Who is advertising in the national press this week?

Travel companies are targeting those dismayed by the September weather forecast in today's papers with several campaigns aimed at the off-peak holiday crowd.

Ryanair continues its "one way" ticket offers across the press with European destinations within reach for as little as £5. While Expedia's long-running campaign continues and Sandals is back on the cover of The Guardian with an ad offering two for one travel.
Tunisia's tourism board takes out full page ads in The Daily Telegraph and The Times tempting readers to visit "the jewel of the Mediterranean".
Morrisons promotes its "Let's Grow" campaign, which encourages schools to grow fruit and vegetables. The campaign has been running for more than a year but continues to be popular with shopping parents.

Charity and volunteer organisation VSO takes out a strip ads in several papers to remind readers how massive an impact volunteering can have in third world countries.
Southern Electric introduces its "iplan" to help customers save energy and money in ads across the press.
The Daily Express gives away vouchers for a free pack of Cathedral City cheddar.

This article was first published on mediaweek.co.uk

New Twitter Features

2010-09-15T04:09:00.000-07:00

Interesting news from Media Guardian on Twitter changes.

Twitter's self-imposed - and endlessly fascinating - 140-character limit on "tweets" is being tweaked to include pictures and video, the company announced last night.
Although a number of third-party programs which access Twitter's output via its database can already link directly to pictures and videos on other sites, the site itself has so far held back from allowing anything beyond text-only hyperlinks to appear in users' streams.
But now it is following in the footsteps of the biggest social networks Facebook and MySpace, which have made themselves essential to their hundreds of millions of users by becoming a channel for multimedia content.
Twitter has already been famous as a channel for pictures: in January 2009 when a plane ditched in the Hudson river in New York, the first pictures of the plane was propogated via Twitter from Twitpic.com, one of a dozen photo-storage sites that have grown up around the microblogging service which launched in 2006.
Sharp-eyed users had noticed that Twitter tested an "inline media" option in July, apparently as part of a test: officially Twitter said then that it was "a small test of a potential... setting for inline media."
More information can be found at twitter.com/newtwitter

UK regional newspaper ABC's

2010-09-09T13:13:00.000-07:00

Hell's teeth. The latest circulation figures for UK regional daily newspapers makes frightening reading. They all shed readers but some more than 10 per cent in six months. I'd say that was a hemorrhage. Some papers have shed more than 20 per cent. It will soon be all over!

Slow death of newspapers continues

2010-07-29T10:42:00.000-07:00

The 115-year old Hounslow and Brentford Times is no more. Who is next? Will it be a big beast? The circulation of The Observer fell by more than 23 per cent year-on-year in its first full month after relaunching. So what is the future for newspapers?

The News International paywall experiment over at The Times and Sunday Times has already seen a dramatic slump in online visitors - not a surprise.

MEN media cuts ten jobs while taking on five trainees, Trinity Mirror incredibly reports 67% profit by slashing costs! Ludlow Journal dies!

The Times was down 14.8 per cent year on year, the Telegraph dropped 18.5 per cent and The Guardian also dropped 14.8 per cent.No UK-wide national title managed a year on year circulation rise, with the Daily Star yet to feel the benefits of its latest price cut to 10p.

Gloomy times

The Times Online - a new future?

2010-05-25T03:16:00.000-07:00

I've just had a sneak preview of the new Times and Sunday Times websites. At first glance I have to say they look fantastic. A brave mix of modern and traditional layout, coupled with some clever navigation to ease a smooth journey around the site. Great work.

However, they have GOT to make money out of it. Owners News International nailed their colours to the mast when Rupert Murdoch declared he was going to make his websites pay.

Punters will soon have to shell out to read the times online. In many ways I wish him luck. He has huge power in the media and it would be ironic that the man I opposed as a young journalist should turn out to be the saviour of reporting - but sadly I doubt it.

For a start News International simply has too much competition. I downloaded the iphone app for Metro and it is great. Effectively you are reading the Press Association news feed - the same copy that forms the basis of a great deal of national news reporting. Metro made its name on being free so it can hardly go paid for.

The Times is relying on its highly paid columnists to attract paying customers and what it would refer to as higher quality news coverage. That's a big ask.

Younger readers especially are conditioned now to getting their news for free. The whole industry needs a rethink.. There will always be a demand for material written by good journalists. They need to brainstorm a whole new way of making it pay.

The biggest strength national newspapers, and local ones for that matter, have is their brand. Times, Mail, Echo, Gazette, Post, etc. But time is running out on these brands. As people get older and starting dropping off that powers wanes. Readerships are literally dying and publishers need to act fast to retain the brand value in a whole new way.

Personally I would make local papers virtually free (say 5p a copy) to bag more quality advertising and run the web and hard copies in unison rather than the half way house situation that exists at the moment.

Death of the Quango: Cuts, Deficit, Cuts, Quango, Budgets - Happy days!

2010-05-24T06:22:00.000-07:00

And there off. After months of talking, waiting, predicting, the cuts are finally here. It's almost a relief that they are finally here.

They spent ages hiding them from us that it was becoming a case of wanting them more the less we knew. If that makes sense. Hurrah! They are here!

Travel Lodge for civil servants and the crappy train carriages like the rest of us - fair do's. Meaningless quangos to go - fair enough. I'm really beginning to enjoy this.

Bye bye Becta - I didn't even know what they did? Apparently they are, soon to be were, the education IT procurement quango! What a laff!

Let's get some more! Someone create a Wii game - Get Quango! I thought of it first!!!!

Cut fuel costs by saving petrol. Easy?

2010-05-19T13:51:00.000-07:00

A report in a national newspaper highlighted how many drivers have slipped into bad habits while behind the wheel, which is costing them dear.

Over-revving is a very common way of wasting petrol. Typically drivers let revs run to over 3,000 rpm in a petrol car and 2,500 in a diesel before moving up a gear.

But drivers should be changing up at 2,500 in a petrol car and 2,000 in a diesel. While this might not sound much, the difference can make quite a dent on your fuel tank and in turn your pocket!

Going into too high a gear can also be bad for petrol use as when an engine labours you are using too much fuel.

Negotiating speed bumps badly can also drink petrol as speeding up and slowing down is bad for consumption. Instead drivers should go a steady 15-20mph over speed bumped roads to save fuel.

Speed is also an issue. Driving at 55mph or 65mph makes little difference but as soon as a car goes over 75mph it drinks petrol.

It pays to remember that an efficient driver is a smooth driver as every time you slow down and then accelerate the car uses more fuel. Another petrol saving tip is to keep tyres inflated to the right level.

Annabel Green of national IFA Moneygate said: “A recent fuel economy test drive in The Observer newspaper demonstrated how much could be saved. Based on a monitored test run, the motorist revealed that driving efficiently could save him £7,734 over 10 years driving a mini car and save 16 tonnes of CO2 if he did 15,000 miles a year.

“This is a massive saving. Many people are looking to trim their budgets and this is another example of how it is best to look at all household products and services to cut costs.”

For advice on how to save money go to www.moneygate.co.uk

Cuts for Children - Brown scaremongering?

2010-04-27T07:25:00.001-07:00

Now Brown goes for the jugular warning of Cuts for Children. Run - they are after your're kids!!!
Labour attacked Lib Dem plans to axe child trust funds and Tory proposals to scale back child tax credits.
He said the Conservatives are focusing on the "broken society" saying a "stew" of crime, addiction, anti-social behaviour and poverty affects millions of people.
A stew! Not a casserole - a stew! Wow - he appears to be clutching at straws and not Jack Straws either.
To make matters worse for Labour children's TV character Peppa Pig will not appear at one of its election event as the show's distributor wants to avoid "any controversy".

Hung Parliament - is it so bad? Blog.

2010-04-27T07:23:00.001-07:00

Is a threat of a hung parliament really so bad? Tory old stager Ken Clarke inferred that the city would collapse under a hail of indecision. Meanwhile Cameron warns of years of weak Government.
Well - we seemed to do alright during the second world war under a coalition. While the last hung parliament was in the early 70s it didn't last long so really the only real stint during "modern" times was during the war.
Just like then it could be fair to say we are in a state of emergency. Clarke warns of a collapse in City confidence - what about a our collapse in confidence in the City! Let's face it, the parties are so close together they are already practically one consensus Goverment. There's no Michael Foot v Thatcher battle of dogmas here. You could slip a fag packet between the policies of the three main parties - they are effectively arguing over bits and bobs.
Cameron talks of cutting the bloated state but as Thatcher could well remind him it was the building up of the public sector, especially in the North, that held off social collapse in the 80s. He knows that and will cut accordingly. Brown will cut, Clegg will cut - they have to but at a sensible rate. So really, they are all arguing over travelling in feet and inches and not miles.
Vote hung!!!

Can The Times make it paid online?

2010-03-26T09:14:00.001-07:00

So can Murdock really make it pay. In June it will cost £1 a day or £2 a week to get access to the Times and Sunday Times new websites, News Corp said in a statement.

Subscribers to the print versions will get free access to the websites. The Times newspaper costs £1 on weekdays and £1.50 on Saturdays, and The Sunday Times costs £2.

James Harding, editor of The Times, told the BBC that the move was a "big risk, but less of a risk than throwing our journalism away, while Rupert Murdoch, the chairman of News Corp, believes people will pay for good journalism.

It is a massive risk. While there is so much free news out there will people really pay to subscribe. They will have to make it radically improved in terms of web presentation so I wait with baited breath to see what the new sites look like.

Someone had to take the risk and perhaps Murdoch is the one most equipped to give it a try.

News Corp's Wall Street Journal already charges for online content but it is in a niche market. If The Telegraph online remains free will people pay for Times? Difficult but Murdoch is not daft - he is trialing the service with titles that have been propped up financially for years so there is less to lose than say with The Sun which has the best visitor figures for News International.

The latest ABC traffic figures for Times Online - which includes the Times and Sunday Times - saw daily user figures rise 6% to 1.22m, while monthly browsers fell to 20.42m.

Assuming that only 5% of daily users convert to the paywall system - a standard metric for paywalls - that would bring in £1.83m if they each buy a £1 daily pass. At a 10% conversion, it would net £3.66m per month for the two papers. If more chose the weekly pass, the revenues would be lower.

The move follows Murdoch's statement in August last year that that he would introduce charges for all his newspapers, saying that News Corp wanted to prevent readers moving to free sites by making its content better and differentiated from other publishers.

Well the race is underway - who will follow and will it be a success. Who knows but the future of print journalism is at stake. Will the man most journalists once reviled turn out to be the saviour of their sector!!

www.pressgenerator.com

House-giveaway and press generator

2010-03-03T04:07:00.000-08:00

What do you do when you want to give away your lifestyle - call www.pressgenerwww.pressgenerator.comator.com

Check out our press release which is working its way around the web! The property crash has forced a London man to put his luxury pad up for grabs in a village fete-style competition, as he prepares to move down under. (www.house-giveaway.com)

Australia-bound IT consultant Adam Trutwein is offering a once-in-a-lifetime chance for someone to live an up-market London lifestyle for free, by offering up almost everything he owns as a prize in a ‘how many sweets in the jar’ competition! www.house-giveaway.com.

Up for grabs for a lucky winner in the £20 per entry competition, is a luxury £375,000 fully furnished, two-bedroom apartment in London’s trendy Islington. The apartment, which would be mortgage-free for the winner, is for keeps and is packed full of high-spec goodies such as a 50" HD plasma TV and hand-made Italian furniture.

The winner literally won’t have to spend a penny as full running costs and bills are thrown in for a year – from Sky HD subscriptions and utility bills, to groceries - and there’s even the service of a cleaner!

Adam, 26, explained that he came up with the quirky life-changing package idea after deciding to leave his top city-based IT career behind to follow his own dreams of a fresh start in Australia.

He said: “Making the move to Australia is a fresh start for me and I thought it would be a great idea to offer someone the opportunity to change their life too, particularly as everything seems to be a struggle at the moment.

“Offering up everything I own in a competition provides a wonderful opportunity for someone to kick-start their life in London – be that a new career, a year off having fun, helping out your son/daughter or simply getting that crucial first step on the property ladder.

"The package really does include everything – there’s even a free pass for underground and bus travel thrown in for a year, £200 a week for 1 year in cash and the use of an on-site gym.”

Adam has put the competition in the hands of London solicitors Turbervilles who hold the sealed jar of sweets. All the cash raised will be held by Barclays Bank until the winner is announced.

A total of 30,000 tickets are up for grabs at £20 a go through his website www.house-giveaway.com The closing date will be when the 30,000 tickets are sold or 30th July 2010, whichever comes first.

Adam, originally from Gillingham, added: “The chance of winning this competition far outweigh the odds of winner the national lottery!”

Full details and competition rules can be found online at www.house-giveaway.com

GIVEAWAY FACTFILE

A two-bedroom luxury apartment in London’s trendy Islington worth over £375,000!

A 50’’ HD plasma TV

Fully furnished to a high standard

Free food for a year

All utility bills, service charges and ground rent paid for a year

Services of a cleaner for a year

A year’s free internet, telephone and Sky HD TV subscription

Council tax and TV licence paid for a year

£10,400 in cash

The free use of communal gym and Japanese gardens

A year’s underground and bus travel pass

Adam can be contacted for interview by email at adam.trutwein@mac.com or by mobile phone on 07968759649 or go to www.house-giveaway.com.

Press Release: Press Generator No Frills PR

2010-01-21T07:53:00.000-08:00

There's no getting away from it. Business is getting tough out there. But pulling marketing and pr activity is a bad move. However, there are ways of reducing budgets without affecting quality.

Many businesses retain PR agencies on contracts to carry out campaigns. For many, these agencies carry out quality and creative wide-ranging campaigns but for some all they are paying for is a press release service. In many cases the client is expected to come up with the ideas!

These clients can cut their PR budgets by simply using a press release service. If they know what the target market is and they know how many press releases they use a year - it's simple.

Just think retainers of a thousands pounds a month could be reduced to a couple of hundred. Imagine a whole year's PR campaign for a couple of grand!!!

Press Release: Shakin Stevens

2010-01-13T05:40:00.000-08:00

Poor Shaky gets done for lamping a photographer. But alas it was not a Paparazzi photographer snapping him coming out of some top nightclub but an over enthusiastic amateur getting close at a gig at a hotel in Ballymena.

Which gets me wondering if Shaky has spent all his cash or why else would he be doing a turn in a hotel in Ballymena. Last time I was in Ballymena it hadn't yet turned into Las Vegas.

Press Release: Snow Joke

2010-01-06T04:42:00.000-08:00

Yes it's time for media cliches to be wheeled out. Lots of snow equals WHITE OUT, WHITE HELL, SNOW JOKE, etc.

Interesting watching the rolling news channels to see the use of the word COULD. An outside broadcast had a news reporter standing with a free flowing motorway behind him. It could, he said, be white out at any time and traffic could come to stand still.

That's the problem with outside broadcast - first you have to get there in which case it is probably not as bad as it is somewhere else. Lots of the BBC coverage has been from the NE of England which is suffering but not as badly as some parts of the country.

Watch out for the word could!

Press Release: Peace

2009-12-29T12:08:00.000-08:00

Just a daft thought but maybe peace would be nice,. maybe even a little bit of love.
Happy New Year♠

Press release: rage against the machine

2009-12-16T05:18:00.000-08:00

Modern media is a funny old game. Can you imagine back in the 70s trying to get a campaign on the go to stop Gary Glitter or Slade getting to number one.

Thanks to Facebook someone has launched a campaign to get the early 90s angry rockers to number one ahead of Xfactor winner Joe.

To date they are making a decent stab at it. Although they probably will not manage it they have still managed to rattle Simon Cowell.

Just think what you would have had to do in the 70s - write a zillion letters, go on a Jarrow style march, print a million leaflets, write letters to every newspaper in the country, shout at passers by, etc. Even then it would amount to bot all!

Now if you get the mood of the zeitgeist right you are on to a winner. 500,000 plus followers on the facebook site - it really is amazing. Now all they need is to flog them something.

Newspapers have their facebooks sites and yet they don't seem to manage them or do anything with them to stimulate readership figures.

What they need is some young guns with some uber-knowledge - what ever that is.

Press Release: Is little news dead?

2009-12-08T07:15:00.000-08:00

I don't know about you but my news judgement is being affected by bigger macro matters. A lady was on the BBC news talking about how we should be worried about stereptyping girls and boys with pink and blue colours.

For a start I have heard the story a thousand times (life's a re-write) but secondly it just does not seem important when we at war, in a deep recession and our heads of states are meeting to try and avert the end of the world.

General news suddenly makes no sense. A bit like after an earthquake when everyone gets an attack of what'sthepoint-ism.

And no - I don't know the answer!

Press Release: Newspapers and PR

2009-12-07T12:06:00.000-08:00

When I was a lad.....no honestly! When I was lad on newspapers in "the old days" it was rare to use a press release unless it had come from a major organisation - police, fire, council, utility.

The press releases went on a pile until fillers, or grout as it was sometimes known, were needed to fill the space around the major stories.

Sadly today, and I speak as a PR, newspapers rely on press release fodder to fill the papers. A lot of PROs are ex-journos so the quality of the average press release has gone up in my opinion. But it is a pact with the devil. At the end of the day the PR is there to protect reputation and enhance the standing of their client. With police or local authority they are there to firefight and "communicate". The client is always number one.

We used to have a joke in the newsroom way back that a story was "too good to check"! It was tongue in cheek of course but now stories supplied by PRs on a regular basis drop in to the paper without a thorough check. The releases are taken as 100% reliable. While I am not saying that blatant untruths are peddled it does raise the temptation to exaggerate a tad.

Journos should question everything they receive. The lines are blurring and it is Joe Public who suffers. There's never been a better time to get away with something.

Press Release: handshake

2009-12-02T12:26:00.000-08:00

The art of the handshake. Does it mean anything anymore? What's it for? Where does it come from? Do we like doing it? mmmm. Not really. let's wave instead!!

press release: Murdoch grunts and google parps

2009-12-02T12:23:00.000-08:00

Wow. Just goes to show that the news dinosaur Murdoch still has a roar. His rant about free news on the internet seems to have hit home with Google with their latest announcement that they plan to limit ranking all free news.

Could this be the beginning of a new partnership. Has google got into bed with Rupert? Makes you wonder.

Reports in the Media Guardian say Google is to allow publishers of paid for content to limit the amount of free access internet users have to their websites from Google News.

The move comes after Murdoch's recent rant against google running aggregate news for free. Theft as he put it!

However, Google say publishers would be able to charge for their content and still make it available via Google following the changes announced. Mmmmm. We'll see.....

Press release: Rolling news

2009-11-23T10:52:00.000-08:00

Rolling news is just getting too daft. Too many hours of broadcast time and not enough people to do it. The journos are so busy standing there talking endlessly to camera that they don't have the time to do a proper journos job - ie check the facts, pull the story together. Instead its rambling hyperbole to dress up the same pictures as there is not enough staff to get the latest.

Just look at the flood story. The same pics endlessly repeated, the same rolling news reporter spewing out the same endless words on every quarter hour.

Where's the story behind the story. The only development comes when the police, fire, ambulance etc release a press statement. Where's the contacts? Where's the exclusives? Drone drone drone..........

Press release: Free papers

2009-11-18T05:15:00.000-08:00

Surely the time has come for regional papers to grasp the nettle and go free like the Evening Standard. Some of the readership figures kicking around are staggering. I don't think advertisers realise how few people are reading them.

I won't pick on anyone but imagine a local daily paper that sold say 70k copies on average a day 20 years ago. The chances are that the figure is now more like 35 to 40k and the graph is down.

To fight back against the internet they need to cover everything that moves at a local level and go free. Distribute to all the newsagents who give it away. They can charge a higher fee than they used to for delivery and they get the kick back of people coming in the shop.

Advertisers will love. Struggling newspapers can get back on the agenda of national brand advertisers who will not go near a paper unless its shifting 50k a day.

They should do it now instead of re-arranging deck chairs on the titanic.

Press Release: Petrol

2009-11-17T04:05:00.000-08:00

At last a paper has picked up the petrol price story again. The story dropped off the agenda when prices went down a bit but now they are more than when the papers were going nuts about it. It looks like 1.10 a litre by next week. The Daily Mail has finally picked up the baton.

The Sun could have done it and used as an example of how crap the country is to hit Brown instead of their clumsy handling of the "letter" story which was a classic example in how to kick your own arse. Brown came out well - even rank and file soldiers were impressed that a serving PM could be bothered to handwrite their own letter!

Hopefully the petrol story will get some mileage - get it - and shame the oil companies and petrol retailers! Damn well shame!!!!

Press Release: Gordon Brown

2009-11-12T01:59:00.000-08:00

Gordon Brown took a hammering over the soldier letter the other day. Harshly in my view. The Sun stitched him up good and proper. At the end of the day he hand-wrote the letter which is more than most ministers would do.

He made a genuine error and The Sun went to town. Recording the private telephone follow-up conversation was also bang out of order. They made capital out of a grieving mother.

Press Release: Paying for online news

2009-11-05T06:03:00.000-08:00

Murdoch admits the plan by News International to start charging for online content is falling behind. The plan was to start charging in June 10 - not a chance.

No surprise really. When they do their hit rate will fall off a cliff. He is talking to other news organisations about doing it together which is the only way will manage it.

Should be interesting to see how Joe Public takes to it. Meanwhile News Corp announced a surge in profit thanks to the TV stations performing well in the US.

The longer the recession the more we sit on our backside and watch TV! No wonder pubs and restaurants are feeling the pain.

2009-11-04T04:04:00.000-08:00

Days like today are when we need the BBC. What commercial station, especially radio, would give so much airtime over to debate the latest on MPs expenses. News on commercial radio stations is virtually non-existent. Skeleton staff run a few soundbites on the hour with bought-in news from agencies. The beeb may not be perfect but with local newspapers losing their investigative bite through poor resources its up to them to have a go.

Sadly the beeb cut back a lot of its regional programming last year so there is less investigative work being done. But something is better than nothing.

Press release: Poor posties

2009-10-22T08:43:00.003-07:00

The striking posties are getting an interesting treatment in the media. Time and time again I have heard it on the radio that they are striking for failing to modernise. That is surely a matter of debate rather than fact. While Royal Mail would argue it is about modernisation I am sure workers would argue that it is about changing working practices.

In reality it may be about modernisation but it is a word that should only be used if the report can demonstrate it surely? What is modernisation and how will it benefit the business?

Press Release: price of the papers.

2009-10-20T08:11:00.000-07:00

You know what. In this day and age of internet news for free the newspapers had better get real and cut the cost of their product.

The price war of the Daily Star and The Sun in the UK proves that in general we think we are paying too much for a daily newspaper in an age where you can pic up a Metro for free.

The 20p Daily Star has led to an astonishing 17% rise in sales over the last year, although that pace is running out of steam. The Sun registered a rise as it followed suit in slashing prices.

If newspapers can get the maths right and offer high quality independent journalism, not just rehashed PA, they may get back on track despite the internet. The Sunday Times manages to perform well at two quid a shout but you get a library full of supplements and words that can take you all week to read so you could argue its value for money.

Maybe newspapers do not have to follow the Metro and Evening Standard route and go free - just reduce the price and keep quality high. Not that easy in a recession of course!!!

PRESS RELEASE: national newspaper sales

2009-10-20T07:44:00.000-07:00

More worrying signs about the slow death of newspapers. The latest UK sales figures make grim reading.
Comparing six month figures for 2008 April-to-September with those for 2009 April-to-September is enough to make editors weep.

The numbers show a 3.61% fall in the overall daily newspaper market and a 5.92% fall in the Sunday market over the latest six months and respective falls of 2.49% and 5.47% in 2008.
The Daily Mirror took a 6.61% whack last year and has just lodged a 9.37% drop. Ouch! The Independent looks doomed with a 4.32% drop hurtling to 16.53% fall.
These sort of figures are unsustainable in the long term with advertisers looking increasingly to other markets but bizarrely on-line ad revenues have stiffed. Where's the money going!!!!!

Press release: will newspapers die?

2009-10-16T02:11:00.000-07:00

It's a fair question. They are certainly very sick. The way circulation and ad revenues are going they are heading for intensive care.

Once powerful regional newspapers are reduced to puppy dogs steering clear of stories that might upset a big advertiser. Journalists are being laid off. Hurrah you might say, but whose is going to expose the bad boys in future?

As newspapers wither we lose a bit of democracy. Yes we might have the all powerful web but newspapers wielded a power that could change policy and pull people into line.

Local newspapers that once sold 100,000 are slipping down towards 60,000. National newspapers that sold three million are now down to two and the graph is heading down. Rumours abounded that the worlds oldest Sunday newspaper The Observer was going to be closed down and recently the London Standard announced it was going free!

The internet is taking its toll. Younger readers don't care about holding a paper unlike oldies like me. As cost are cut quality goes down.

The market still does not know where its going. The web moves so fast. News International are threatening to start charging for their web services. If they do others may follow. But there is still too much free news - the BBC for example.

For the business looking to promote itself the strategy is simple. Create good news content and get it online as much as possible to point visitors to your website. The website needs to be up to speed but get them there.

The days of a nice press release in the local paper making ripples are numbered. It is still worthwhile at the moment but businesses need to have one eye on the future.

Press Release: Showbiz Sun

2009-10-14T02:20:00.000-07:00

Interesting to see that The Sun are sticking with the 20p cover price offer. I wonder how many readers from the likes of the Daily Mail are taking a punt and seeing what the old red top has to offer. The Daily Mail has done well over the last few years to pull in a young-ish 30 something professional femail readership but I bet some have been tempted to dabble in The Sun for 20p compared to 50p.

With this in mind I think The Sun are making a mistake in not upping their serious news content. Not too serious but just a bit more of the news to water down the showbiz overkill. It seems the tabloids are no longer in competition with other newspapers but in competition with the showbiz mags. Even the Mail, which tries to keep itself composed, slips into showbizzy tabloid coverage. Far too often there's the pic of the actress with no make up and a rather weak story on Robbie Williams dodgy or not so dodgy (depending on your view) live return on X Factor.

More news please!

Magazines feeling the pinch

2009-10-09T05:41:00.000-07:00

Until recently glossy magazines were riding high despite the creep of the internet. While newspapers wilted under pressure mags remained bouyant.

The party is now over it seems with the news that Conde Nast is set to lose out on a billion dollars in ad revenue this year - a billion dollars! Immediate surgery will see four titles close plus surviving titles will have to make big cuts.

That's a big hit that will send shock waves through the glossy market. It seems the only way forward is for niche magazines ran on a skeleton staff.

Specialist websites and blogs thrive in users but still online revenues are relatively small - surely this has to change.

Tories and the press

2009-10-07T03:20:00.000-07:00

Cameron and Georgie have taken a massive gamble. Their strategy of saying nothing was paying off! Now they have said something and said something fairly unpopular. Refreshing in many ways that they have actually told it how it is. The press however are going to have fun with this - on both sides. Labour will be pressed to show its hand now but equally the first move by the Tories has them labelled as salary freezing killjoys.

The Daily Mail were fairly soft on him although the word austerity was written huge on the front page! It will be interesting to see how the right wing press play it as the week rolls out.

The Sun meanwhile used the gamble word but will go soft on him as they have just pledged their support to the Tories.

Suddenly politics got mildly interesting. Suddenly in a world of consensus politics we have a choice! The next election could get interesting.

Film Review

2009-10-02T05:46:00.001-07:00

Over the course of the last few days I have read three reviews of Ricky Gervais's new film and guess what? They were all exactly the same.

That's because the reviews are supplied by the Press Association. There was a day when local newspapers had their own reviewer who would give you a trusted view.

More dosh for PA but less choice for the rest of us!