MEDIABLAB DAILY NEWS DIGEST DEC 12: CNN, FAIRFAX, BBC
December 11th 2007 23:56
A Compendium of news posts since noon yesterday by Peter Olszewski for MediaBlab via Dow Jones' Factiva.
CNN NOW INCREASES ITS PRESENCE IN THE UNITED ARAB EMIRATES
CNN continues its new strategy of increasing its news-gathering operation globally.
Having just finished expanding its Indian presence (see MediaBlab archive) it is now doing the same in the United Arab Emirates.
It has opened a bureau in Abu Dhabi's media zone and expanded its presence in Dubai. The Guardian reports, “The company has also made two key appointments: Wilf Dinnick, a former Middle East correspondent for ABC News, becomes an international correspondent for CNN and Samson Desta, formerly a supervising editor on CNN's international desk, becomes bureau chief.
WILL CONRAD BLACK BE CONRAD KHAKI OR CONRAD ORANGE IN PRISON?
The western media is, understandably, is making a big play of the Conrad Black jailed story, right down to the minutiae of how much he will earn in prison and what he will be wearing.
The New York Post, for example, says, “On March 3, he must report to prison, where he will be strip-searched, forced to give a DNA sample, and fitted for an orange jumpsuit. He could end up cleaning toilets or mopping floors, both prison jobs start out paying about 12 cents an hour. “
But Andrew Clark in the Guardian has him dressed in khaki and possibly earning a little more, “The popular perception of prisoners clad in orange jumpsuits is something of a misnomer - in most federal prisons, inmates wear khaki-coloured trousers and a shirt. They are required to work, typically earning between 12 cents and 40 cents an hour. Jobs include preparing food, plumbing, cleaning, warehousing or - for a select few - shelving books in the prison library.”
Australia’s Planet Wall Street doesn’t address the colour of Black’s prison garb issue or his prison salary, but gives an apocalyptic and fevered forecast of hell in prison for Black.
Planet Wall Street says, “The media has made much of the suggestion by Judge St Eve that Lord Black do his time as easy as possible even assuming her recommendation he spend his time at Coleman federal Correction Facility in Florida. Less has been said of the fact the decision, of where and how he does his time is entirely in the hands of the Federal Bureau of prisons in Grand Rapids Texas.
”He will not be immediately sent to any comfortable residence, in fact he may never enjoy a moments comfort of safety in the years he will serve.”
DRUNKEN DEMONSTRATING DWARVES, OSAMA A FAN OF MAD, AND OTHER SILLY SEASON MEDIA FACTS
The raid on Osama Bin Laden’s Afghan headquarters uncovered 27 copies of Mad magazine.
This email was sent to BBC Bristol last week staff – “Dear All, If you will be going away for an extended break over Christmas/new year, please can you let me know your contact details so that we can ensure that you are sent any redundancy update information. Many thanks."
Most unusual media demonstration this year was during the Russian winter with a big dwarf demo outside Echo Radio station to protest at a DJ who had been comparing dwarfs to mice on-air.
Meanwhile, Russian dwarves hired to play elves in Hollywood alleged-comedy Fred Clause engaged in hard-drinking and brawling.
Popbitch's favourite Bloomberg political correspondent – Phil Kuntz, formerly The Wall Street Journal's deputy money & investing.
Australia's number-one fugitive, once dubbed by police as the drug dealer to the stars, has been captured in Holland after three years on the run. He once dated former TV current affairs host, journalist Naomi Robson who said last year that she was involved in a relationship with the supergrass without knowing he was a conman and drug dealer.
Australia now will be the only geographic operation in the global Murdoch empire not directly run by a Murdoch.
In the list of ceos of Forbes 400 companies, there’s not an MBA until number 22.
London transit authorities clear about 9.5 tons of free newspapers out of the Underground each day on just three of its 12 routes.
INDIA’S ESPN STAR SPORTS LAUNCHES NEW SOCCER MOBILE PHONE CONTENT SERVICE
India’s ESPN Star Sports has launched Star Sports Mobile, a mobile content service that is an extension of Mobile ESPN that was launched across multiple markets in Asia Pacific in May 2006.
Exchange4media said, “The new service will feature exclusive Arsenal and Liverpool Football Club content along with many other innovative features. It is available through WAP and can be downloaded from www.espnstar.com.”
Star Sports Mobile will be available across all mobile service providers, and the cost of downloading will be operator-specific. The service will provide goal and match video highlights, archive video clips, video interviews with players, club ring tones from leading football clubs like Arsenal and Liverpool, wallpapers of players and STAR Sports presenters, and Java Games.
It will also include video highlights covering opinions, instructional tips and the latest online game reviews from Star Sports programmes like Ace by Sony Ericson, Engine Block, Golf Focus, Game and Top Corner.
IPC RELAUNCHES MARIE CLAIRE WEB SITE IN THE UK
Online Journalism News reports that IPC Media has relaunched its woman's magazine Marie Claire’s website in the UK with a greater emphasis on news and interactivity.
The revamped site has introduced a community section to house its blogs, forums and planned competition, and has added a lifestyle news and editorial section. The expanded news section has also added a user comment function.
CONRAD BLACK A POOR NEWSPAPER PROPRIETOR IN AUSTRALIA, SAYS FORMER FAIRFAX EDITOR
High profile Australian finance writer Alan Kohler and part-owner of the new Business Spectator website wrote an article for Crikey.com contrasting the judicial treatment of two rich law-breakers who happened, for a while, to be neighbours on Central Park in New York – Conrad Black and Australia’s tycoon Richard Pratt.
Kohler wrote, “Black was sentenced to 6½ years in prison for having improperly taken $6.1 million in fees out of his company, Hollinger Inc, and for obstructing justice. Pratt was fined $36 million, and did not go to jail, after admitting that he conspired to defraud his customers of something like $400 million through an illegal cartel with his competitor Amcor.
“In October 2005, before Black was charged, police seized the US$8.5 million in proceeds from the sale of his Park Avenue, New York, home.
“Pratt still maintains an apartment at the top of the Sherry-Netherland Hotel on 5th Avenue, just around the corner, for when he visits his Staten Island recycling factory.
“Such are the vagaries of justice, I suppose.”
Conrad Back spent time in Australia as a newspaper proprietor, but Alan Kohler was far from impressed by his performance.
Kohler wrote, “He was a poor proprietor of John Fairfax during my time as editor of The Age in the early 1990s, and my one meeting with him involved an interminable lecture on the Napoleonic wars. If he had any insights to offer about the management of newspapers, they were not forthcoming.”
WORLD DIVIDED 60-40 ON IMPORTANCE OF A FREE PRESS
World opinion is divided on the importance of having a free press, according to a poll conducted for the BBC World Service.
Of those interviewed, 56 percent thought that freedom of the press was very important to ensure a free society. But 40 percent said it was more important to maintain social harmony and peace, even if it meant curbing the press's freedom to report news truthfully.
Pollsters interviewed 11,344 people in 14 countries for the survey. In most of the 14 countries surveyed, press freedom (including broadcasting) was considered more important than social stability. The strongest endorsement came from North America and Western Europe, where up to 70 percent put freedom first, followed by Venezuela, Kenya and South Africa, with over 60 percent.
In India, Singapore and Russia, by contrast, more people favoured stability over press freedom. In those countries, around 48 percent of respondents supported controls over the press to ensure peace and stability.
Some developed countries which strongly believed in press freedom were critical of their own media's honesty and accuracy. In the US, Britain and Germany, only around 29 percent of those interviewed thought their media did a good job in reporting news accurately.
ISRAEL’S NEW JOURNALISM BILL COULD DEAL FATAL BLOW TO FREEDOM OF PRESS
The Israeli Press Council said on Sunday that it would be filing a formal rebuttal to Interior Minister Meir Sheetrit's new journalism bill.
Ynet reported, “The council's objections are mainly directed at section 7 of the bill, which would allow district courts to either halt or completely stall a newspaper's publication, should it prove to have compromised Israel’s security or national welfare.
The duration and restrictions put on newspapers cited under the bill would be at the court’s discretion alone, as the publishers would have no right to appeal the court’s decision.
Ynet said, “In the absence of a constitutionally defined freedom of speech act in Israel, the right and its observance derives from one legislative act defining the guidelines under which the State can shut down newspapers.”
The council claims that the bill could potentially hand a fatal blow to freedom of the press in Israel.
PMP ADVISES OF CARRY FORWARD TAX LOSSES OF $190 MILLION AFTER TAX AUDIT
Listed printing and media services company PMP Ltd said the Australian Taxation Office had completed its audit of its group affairs.
PMP confirmed that no tax, general interest charges or penalties have been levied on the group following the audit.
As a result of the settlement reached between PMP and the tax office, it has carry forward income tax losses as at June 30, 2007 of $190 million for offset against its future income, an increase of $143.5 million from the amount recognised in the financial statements for 2007.
PMP will therefore recognise a tax benefit of $43 million (tax effect) against its 2008 profit after tax. PMP’s deferred tax asset balance in relation to tax losses increases by $43 million to $57 million (previously $14 million) in its financial statements.
MARTHA STEWART COMPANY SHUTS DOWN ITS BLUEPRINT MAGAZINE FOR 25 TO 39 YEAR OLD WOMEN
Martha Steward Living Omnimedia Inc in the US will discontinue publishing Blueprint magazine on a stand-alone basis after the January/February issue.
The company said it will produce Blueprint as focused special-interest issues within the home category, which it will introduce to brides-to-be through its Martha Stewart Weddings magazine.
Bluelines, the Blueprint blog, will continue and the company expects to increase Blueprint digital content across its Web sites.
Blueprint is a lifestyle magazine geared to women ages 25 to 39, a younger target audience than the company's flagship Martha Stewart Living and Everyday Food publications.
REUTERS ONCE ASKED TO PAY FOR THE PRIVILEGE OF THE INTERNATIONAL HERALD TRIBUNE USING AND ‘BRANDING’ ITS CONTENT
Reuters, dumped a couple of months ago by CNN, have come back with a deal with the International Herald Tribune as announced in MediaBlab (see archive).
While financial details have not been disclosed, it could involve a simple deal based on sharing ad revenues as Reuters has done with web sites for pages where Reuters’ material is used.
But, as Followthemedia points out, that, “didn’t work out too well because the web sites whenever they could placed ads on pages not covered by the Reuters agreement, although surely the International Herald Tribune would not dream of doing likewise with its print edition!”
Followthemedia recalled that 15 years ago an International Herald Tribune executive asked them how much they were prepared to pay for the privilege of the paper running their stories with their byline as such.
The executive apparently said, “How much is Reuters going to pay the International Herald Tribune for daily billboarding your stories to the rest of the world?”
Followthemedia said, “What he meant in great earnest was that Reuters received a lot of branding from its stories run on the front page of the Intentional Herald Tribune and the Tribune figured that branding deserved remuneration. It didn’t happen then, but perhaps a sign of things to come?”
LEGAL FIRM’S FEES QUESTIONED BY JUDGE IN AUSTRALIA’S MARATHON C7 MEDIA CASE
Australia’s Seven Network appeared before judge Ronald Sackville yesterday to fight the last costs claim from the long-running monumental C7 case in which Seven claimed a host of media rivals conspired to cause the collapse of its pay-TV channel C7.
Seven has already spent about $140 million on a failed Federal court battle and had since lodged an appeal against the decision.
But the Australian Financial Review reported yesterday that Justice Sackville decide it would be more sensible to resolve the last aspects of litigation before the appeal actually starts.
Seven agreed to pay all respondents costs except telco Telstra which wants Seven to pay $16 million of the $20.7 million it spent to defend the case.
Seven only wants to pay $8.7 million of Telstra’s costs and produced an expert who yesterday gave evidence that only 30 percept of Telstra’s solicitors’ costs could be justified.
One leading legal firm billed Telstra 33,000 lawyer hours during the case, as well as work done by a host of other legal people.
The Australian Financial Review said that Justice Sackville asked the legal firm who it had engaged two experts who charged $210,000 to give advice on maters never pleaded by Seven.
“Why would you engage experts to deal with a non-pleaded case? That’s why you engage lawyers,” he said.
Justice Sackville reserved his decision on costs but hopes to hand it down before year-end.
NEW YORK TIMES WEB TRAFFIC GOES GANGBUSTERS WITH ALL-CONTENT-FREE MODEL
Since the New York Times shed the last vestige of its online pay-to-subscribe system, its traffic has been going gangbuster.
TechCrunch reports that according to comScore, it gained 7.5 million readers worldwide from the end of August through the end of October, 64 percent jump to a total of 19.4 million.
Worldwide monthly page views surged 52 percent in that time period to 181 million.
Other major news outlets saw gains as well during the American autumn period, but nothing compared to the New York Times.
BusinessWeek.com had 4.4 million readers in October, WSJ.com had 3.6 million, (with a subscriber wall), and Wired.com had 3.2 million.
HONG KONG TO OUTSTRIP US FOR THE FIRST TIME IN AD SPEND PER CAPITA IN 2008
Media buying network GroupM is predicting an 11 percent growth in advertising spend in 2008, up from 8 percent this year, with the buoyant economies of China and Hong Kong driving the growth.
A new study from media buying network GroupM titled This Year, Next Year, predicts that advertising spend in the Asian region will increase 11 percent, with growth from China up 28.8 percent, from 18.8 percent this year.
Marketing reports that he GroupM forecast follows recent comments from Patrick Stahle, ceo of Aegis Media Asia Pacific, who tipped a 9.5 percent growth in ad spend around Asia in 2008, driven largely by growth in digital media and the Chinese economy.
The GroupM report said, "We expect Hong Kong to return the highest per-capita media spend this year, at US$568 million, displacing long term leader the US with US$537 million. Both are well ahead of Western Europe, which is expected to turn in US$284 million."
Online growth in China is tipped to jump 58.1 percent, with the Hong Kong online ad market up 25 percent.
GroupM Futures director Adam Smith, who oversaw the study, said, "The main geographic contributors to growth next year are predicted to be China, with 21 percent of all new money, and Russia and Brazil with each contributing 6 percent."
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