MEDIABLAB DAILY DIGEST MAY 30: ROLLING STONE GATHERS WRIT FOR TOPLESS PICS;MUGABE MEDIA MADNESS
May 29th 2008 14:34
PROPOSED HEALTH WARNINGS ON CAR ADS IN EUROPE STRONGLY ATTACHED BY MEDIA GIANTS WHO ARE FEARFUL OF LOSING AD REVENUE
EU Observer reports that Europe's media giants have attacked proposals to enforce environmental cigarette-packaging-style 'health warnings' on car advertising in newspapers and magazines.
The European Publishers' Council, which represents major publishers and broadcasters, have warned that such advertising regulations, if adopted, threaten the freedom of the press.
“Advertising is vital to maintaining a vibrant, independent and diverse media landscape in Europe and car advertising accounts for up to 20 percent of advertising revenues,” European Publishers' Council chairman Francisco Pinto Balsemao.
If adopted, says the European Publishers' Council, the health warnings will lead to car companies taking their advertising elsewhere – to sporting events or concerts, as cigarette companies did when print advertising restrictions were imposed on the tobacco industry in the 1990s.
Currently under discussion, the new rules are expected to be unveiled by the commission by the end of the month. The commission has opted to move on car advertising following almost a decade in which manufacturers have widely flouted the 1999 directive, which required that adverts include information that is ‘easily legible and no less pronounced than the main part of the advertising message' and ‘easily understood, even when read briefly.'
NEW CEO FOR XINHUA FINANCE AS FREDY BUSH MOVES UP THE LADDER
Marketing magazine reports that Xinhua Finance in Shanghai has promoted Jae Lie to ceo of the company, succeeding Fredy Bush, who has been named executive vice-chairman while remaining as ceo of XFMedia.
Lie joined Xinhua Finance in 2000, and has served as director, coo, and president of the company.
He said he will continue to work with Bush and build on links that exist between Xinhua Finance and XFMedia to enhance shareholder value for both companies.
Fredy Bush founded of Xinhua Finance Media and has been ceo from 2001.
She said she will remain very much involved in strategy and government relations for Xinhua Finance.
CHINESE JOURNALIST’S FAMILY PREVENTED FROM ATTENDING PRESS FREEDOM AWARDS IN SWEDEN
Editor and Publisher reports that the wife and daughter of Li Changqing, the Chinese journalist awarded one of the world's most prestigious press freedom prizes, have been prevented from flying to Sweden to accept the honor on his behalf.
The Paris-based World Association of Newspapers reports that Bao Dinling and Li Sidi were briefly detained and questioned at Beijing Airport by police who confiscated their passports.
Li is to be awarded the Golden Pen at the opening ceremonies of the World Newspaper Congress and World Editors Forum before 1,800 newspaper publishers, chief editors, and other media execs.
Changqing, a reporter and deputy news director of the Fuzhou Daily in Fujian Province, was unable to obtain a passport. In February, he was released after serving a three-year sentence for ‘fabricating and spreading false information' after he disclosed an outbreak of dengue fever before the health officials in his home town alerted the public.
Chinese authorities have also ordered a boycott of the World Newspaper Congress and World Editors Forum by Chinese media representatives.
SPECIALIST YOUTH INTERNET CHANNEL LAUNCHED IN SOUTHEAST ASIA
AdMax Network in Southeast Asia has launched a specialist youth unit, called Youth Channel, for advertisers targeting young internet users.
Paul Srivorakul, AdMax Network managing director told Marketing Magazine, "With the Youth Channel, advertisers can now reach multiple youth audiences simultaneously, whilst enjoying the flexibility to target specific consumer profiles by content, geographies, and time of day; thus, delivering tailored ads,"
The company said Youth Channel will reach more than five million online youths across Singapore, Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, the Philippines and Vietnam.
Youth channel includes social networking, entertainment, shopping, gaming and sports sites from throughout Southeast Asia.
CONCERN BY THAI TV PROGRAM PRODUCERS OVER NEW RADIO AND TV ACT PROVISIONS
The Bangkok Post reports that Thailand’s television program producers are concerned about their ability to manage commercial airtime, as the new Radio and Broadcasting Act requires licensed TV station operators to manage airtime slots for commercial purposes by themselves.
According to the Bangkok Post, “This meant that program producers would be unable to rent airtime from the broadcasters as they do currently, said Jamnan Siritan, president of the Radio and Television Broadcasting Professionals Federation.”
The law, which took effect in March, opens opportunity for content providers to sell their content to new media outlets including satellite TV, the internet and mobile channels, according to Joompol Rodcumdee, a lecturer in Communication Arts at Chulalongkorn University.
Article 9 of the law requires commercial TV operators to manage airtime slots on their own, and that could affect program producers across the board by forcing them to become only content providers. Currently, they can rent airtime from TV stations and earn advertising income.
This could be a burden for broadcasters too because they would have to shoulder high production costs instead of letting program producers share the risks.
THREE SKY NEWS JOURNALISTS STILL IN CUSTODY IN ZIMBABWE
Zimbabwejournalist.com reports that three media personnel employed by Sky News were still in custody five days after their arrest following an application on May 28 for further detention by police in Esigodini in Matabeleland South Province.
In terms of the Zimbabwean Constitution, any person who is arrested by the police should appear before a Magistrate as soon as possible but within 48 hours of the arrest.
The three who were arrested on 23 May would therefore have been expected in court on 28 May 2008 but their arrest coincided with a weekend followed by a public holiday on 26 May.
The three consecutive days were therefore not counted in computation of the forty-eight hour period. Sky News, BBC and CNN are among some of the foreign news organisations banned from reporting in Zimbabwe.
No charges have been preferred against the three whose names are still to be revealed.
They are likely to face charges under Zimbabwe 's repressive Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act and the Broadcasting Services Act.
FORMULA ONE BOSS BEGINS LIBEL ACTION AGAINST NEWS OF THE WORLD OVER NAZI ORGY CLAIMS
Formula one motor racing boss Max Mosley has begun a libel claim in France over a claim in a Sunday newspaper in Britain that he took part in a Nazi-themed orgy.
The News of the World alleged Mosley joined five prostitutes in a five-hour sex party, and published a video of the alleged encounter in a basement flat in Chelsea.
Mosley is already suing the News of the World in the UK for breach of confidence, unlawful invasion of his privacy, and misuse of private information, with a trial expected in July.
The new case claims defamation and invasion of privacy against the paper and members of its staff including its editor in chief.
Mosley, 67, son of the former British fascist leader Sir Oswald Mosley, has accepted he visited the prostitutes, but denies there were Nazi overtones to what happened.
AMERICAN MEDIA RAPIDLY LOSING INTEREST IN IRAQ WAR
American Journalism Review reports that for long stretches over the past 12 months, Iraq virtually disappeared from the front pages of US newspapers and from the nightly network newscasts.
It seems the American press and the American people have lost interest in the war.
During the first 10 weeks of 2007, Iraq accounted for 23 percent of the newshole for network TV news. In 2008, it plummeted to 3 percent during that period. On cable networks it fell from 24 percent to 1 percent, according to a study by the Project for Excellence in Journalism.
The numbers also were dismal for the country's dailies.
A daily tracking of 65 newspapers by the Associated Press confirms a dip in page-one play throughout the country. In September 2007, the AP found 457 Iraq-related stories (154 by the AP) on front pages, many related to a progress report delivered to Congress by General David Petraeus, the top US commander in Iraq.
Over the succeeding months, that number fell to as low as 49.
A spike in March 2008 was largely due to a rash of stories keyed to the conflict's fifth anniversary, according to AP senior managing editor Mike Silverman.
In March 2008, only 28 percent of Americans knew that 4,000 military personnel had been killed in the conflict, according to a survey by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press.
Eight months earlier, 54 percent could cite the correct casualty rate.
TV news was a vivid indicator of the declining interest. The three broadcast networks' nightly newscasts devoted more than 4,100 minutes to Iraq in 2003 and 3,000 in 2004. That leveled off to 2,000 annually. By late 2007, it was half that, according to the Tyndall Report.
American Journalism Review asked, “Why the dramatic drop-off? Gatekeepers offer a variety of reasons, from the enormous danger for journalists on the ground in Iraq, to plunging newsroom budgets and shrinking news space. Competing megastories on the home front like the presidential primaries and the sagging economy figure into the equation. So does the exorbitant cost of keeping correspondents in Baghdad.”
ZIMBABWE’S MUGABE CAN’T READ NEWSPAPERS BECAUSE HIS VISION IS POOR – ASKS EDITORS TO INCREASE FONT SIZE
Newzimbabwe.com reports that President Robert Mugabe's vision is so poor that he cannot read newspapers, Information Minister Sikhanyiso Ndlovu unwittingly disclosed.
Ndlovu told state media editors at a briefing last week that Mugabe had complained that he really wanted to read papers about what was happening in the country, but could not because the print was “the size of ants”, and asked the minister to tell editors to increase the font size.
Ndlovu took the president's message to the editors.
"We could not believe it when the minister said the president had told him to ask us to increase the size of the font. We all looked at each other amazed at what he had just said. We could not hold ourselves and openly giggled about it," said an editor who attended the briefing.
Herald editor Pikirayi Deketeke suggested to Ndlovu that perhaps he did not understand what Mugabe was referring to – he said the president may have been referring to adverts by the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission, which were in even smaller print.
Ndlovu replied, “No, the president clearly said he could not read stories in the Herald. Once when he wanted to read a story on page two about Movement for Democratic Change and Zimbabwe African National Union- Patriotic Front, he failed. He called me and said ‘Sikhanyiso what is this? Yibunyonyo (It's ants)’.”
BAILED PHILIPPINE RADIO BROADCASTER STILL JAILED FOR REPORTING THAT THE PARLIAMENTARY SPEAKER WAS SEEN RUNNING NAKED FROM A HOTEL
Despite posting bail, Philippine radio broadcaster Alex Adonis, of dxMF Bombo Radyo, remains in detention, despite the Davao regional court saying he could be freed.
He was sentenced last year to four and a half years in prison for "slandering" a member of parliament.
Adonis' colleagues, who helped him post bail, went to Davao prison on May 26, hours after Davao regional court Judge George Omelio had ordered him released on bail of 73 euros A$119).
But prison governor Benjo Tesoro told them he would not be freed until "higher correctional authorities" had been officially informed.
The National Union of Journalists of the Philippines called on justice minister Raul Gonzales and national prisons chief Oscar Calderon to "rectify the error" that had "deprived Adonis of his constitutional rights." The union supported a request to the Supreme Court by Adonis' lawyer, Harry Roque, asking it to rule on the legality of the journalist's continued imprisonment.
A complaint was filed jointly by Adonis, the National Union of Journalists of the Philippines and the Center for Media Freedom and Responsibility at the end of last month to the UN High Commission on Human Rights condemning the "criminal" nature of the country's defamation law.
Lawyer Roque also asked for Adonis' trial to be reviewed by the Davao regional court in the light of a Supreme Court memorandum on January 25 this year recommending that judges fine rather than imprison people for defamation.
Adonis was sentenced in his absence on January 31 last year for "slandering" MP Prospero Nograles, the speaker of parliament and an ally of President Gloria Arroyo, by saying he had been seen fleeing naked from a Manila hotel after being caught by his reported paramour's husband.
Adonis was due for release on bail on December 11 last year after serving the minimum part of his sentence, but remained in prison because of a new complaint filed against him by the woman mentioned in his commentaries.
FINANCIAL TIMES APPOINTS NEW ASIA EDITOR TO OVERSEE DEVELOPMENT OF ASIA EDITION
The Financial Times has appointed former Daily Telegraph foreign editor Alec Russell as world news editor and promoted David Pilling to Asia editor.
Pilling, the Tokyo bureau chief, will move to Hong Kong, to oversee the print and online development of the Financial Times Asia edition and the paper's editorial operation in the region.
The Guardian reports that he will also write a weekly column on the Financial Times op-ed page, and features on China, India, Japan and the Asia region.
Pilling succeeds Victor Mallet, who will become the Madrid bureau chief.
Meanwhile, Alec Russell will move to London to be world news editor, after two years as the FT's Johannesburg bureau chief.
Before that he spent three years as the Daily Telegraph's Washington bureau chief and was previously the paper's foreign editor.
Russell was one of four Daily Telegraph correspondents axed in a single day in 2006 by executive foreign editor Con Coughlin as part of a restructuring of the paper's foreign operations.
Russell will replace James Lamont, who is moving to New Delhi to become South Asia bureau chief.
GERMANY’S PAY-TV COMPANY PREMIERE TAKES “PROPHYLACTIC” MEASURE TO PROTECT AGAINST POSSIBLE MURDOCH TAKEOVER
Reuters reports that German pay-TV broadcaster Premiere has received no signal that large shareholder News Corp plans to bid for the whole company
But it has hired investment banks just in case.
A spokesman said. "It's a prophylactic measure. The banks could also advise us on other matters."
Premiere, in which Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. has built up a 25 percent stake this year, has hired UniCredit and Morgan Stanley as advisers.
US ROLLING STONE COPS A WRITE FOR PHOTO OF TWO TOPLESS WOMEN KISSING A MAN
The Chicago Sun-Times reports that Wenner Media's Rolling Stone magazine in the US is being sued by two Chicago women for publishing a photo in which they appear topless while kissing a man.
The women are seeking unspecified damages for the "reckless disregard" for their feelings and harm to their reputations
The Chicago women were topless, kissing a man, and they say the publication of that picture in the May 2007 issue was humiliating.
The two filed suit on Friday and claimed that since the picture appeared, both say they've endured "mental suffering and anguish," while also having their "good name and reputation" damaged.
MURDOCH’S MOTHER WINS CASE AGAINST AUSTRALIAN TAX COMMISSIONER
The Sydney Morning Herald reports that Rupert Murdoch’s mother Dame Elisabeth Murdoch won’t have to pay tax on a multi-million dollar payment after a successful Federal Court appeal against the tax office.
Dame Elisabeth, 99, had received the A$85 million payment in 1994 after alleged breaches in relation to four of the family trusts set up by her late husband Keith Murdoch and administered by her son Rupert Murdoch.
The alleged breaches involved the trusts' invested in News Corporation shares which paid lower dividends than other blue-chip stocks.
The tax office classified the payment as taxable income.
But this week Federal Court judges ruled that the 2007 decision of the Administrative Tribunal had incorrectly classified the lump sum payment as income instead of capital.
The taxation commissioner was also ordered to pay Dame Elisabeth's court costs.
AUSTRALIAN JOURNALISTS UNION INCENSED OVER FAIRFAX MEDIA’S EXCLUSION OF STAFF EARNING MORE THAN $100,000 FROM UNION-NEGOTIATED PAY RISES
Australia’s Fairfax Media has claimed to have adopted one of the Rudd Government's "underlying principles" as the rationale for excluding staff earning more than $100,000 from union-negotiated pay rises.
The Australian newspaper reports that the Media, Entertainment and Arts Alliance, representing 1200 journalists and photographers, is so incensed that its acting federal secretary Mark Ryan wrote to Employment and Workplace Relations Minister Julia Gillard last week urging her to sort out Fairfax management.
Ryan called on Gillard to make it clear that the company's approach was inconsistent with Labor policy detailed before the federal election in November last year.
But it didn't stop there: Ryan blamed Gillard for creating an opening that allowed Fairfax to decree 350 staff earning more $100,000 a year would cease to be covered by pay rises fromc ollective bargaining under Labor's so-called Forward with Fairness industrial relations policy.
Ryan said in his letter to Gillard, “Nothing could be more bizarre and distasteful than a Labor government achieving such a result. The fact that the company is able to seek to drive a wedge among its employees and our members is solely due to the watering down of Forward with Fairness by the August 2007 document."
WESTERN AUSTRALIAN NICHE MAG PUBLISHER LOOKING FOR JOINT VENTURE WITH MAJOR PUBLISHER TO FUND NATIONAL LAUNCH
Western Australia's largest independent niche-magazine publisher, David Hogan is seeking a joint venture with leading Australian media groups for his Scoop Publishing business.
He is seeking the joint venture to help fund the launch of interstate editions of his 14 luxury titles.
Hogan told The Australian newspaper, "We're willing to give up majority equity share and (would consider) selling it outright. But I would like to keep a hand in it. The business model is very strong. We have proved a state-based luxury magazine title, done with other titles based around a single brand, can work."
Hogan started Scoop in 1997 with $40,000, four staff members and one title, local lifestyle glossy Scoop Magazine.
The business now has 46 staff members; posts annual revenues of about $6.5 million; and publishes 13 titles, all under the Scoop brand, including industry-based annuals such as WA's Best Kitchens & Bathrooms, homes and fine arts quarterly InSite and six biannual editions of its Scoop Traveller series, covering WA, NSW, Queensland, South Australia, Victoria and the Northern Territory.
Magazine No.14, Scoop Functions and Venues, will be launched next month.
YAHOO TO OFFER REAL-TIME US STOCK QUOTES TO 19.5 MILLION USERS
Yahoo plans to offer real-time stock quotes to 19.5 million users of its finance web pages.
Data will be provided by Bats Trading Inc., the Kansas City, Missouri-based company that's become the third-largest US equity market.
Google and rival web sites from Microsoft Corp and Time Warner Inc's America Online provide quotes with more than a 10-minute delay and charge users for real-time data.
Yahoo says it provides more than 2 billion stock prices a month.
Mark Interrante, general manager of Yahoo! Finance, said, “The time compression in market trading has just been extraordinary. At this point, 15 minutes is so far off the time scale of people working in the markets that it almost feels like yesterday.''
MEASURING AUDIENCE MEASURERS: THREE US BROADCASTERS CLAIM SYSTEMATIC FAILURE IN ARBITRON’S PEOPLE METER METHODOLOGY
Followthemedia reports that three of America’s notable broadcasters – Cox Radio, Spanish Broadcasting System, and Inner City Broadcasting – “have gone on the offensive against what they consider systemic failures in Arbitron’s Personal People Meter methodology.”
Arbitron, the de facto monopoly supplier of radio audience measurement in the US, has been trying to launch its electronic measurement system to all US markets.
Cox, SBS and Inner City want the launch halted until Arbitron gains accreditation in more than one market. Cox and Inner city have taken out full page ads in US media trade publications to make their case. SBS has hired a public relations consultant.
MEASURING AUDIENCE MEASURERS: NIELSEN NET RATINGS IN AUSTRALIA QUESTIONED OVER REPORTS OF STRATOSPHERIC READERSHIP INCREASE OF NEWSPAPERS ONLINE
Australian’s Crikey.com reports more “More reason to doubt the worth of Nielsen Net Ratings.”
Two weeks ago Nielsen released figures that showed astronomical increases in the readership of newspapers online.
The Nielsen figures showed the Sydney Morning Herald’s average monthly unique browsers were up 66 percent to 4.4 million year on year. The Age was up 55 percent to 2.9 million, The Herald Sun up 145 percent, the Telegraph up 155 percent and the Courier-Mail up 142 percent.
But Hitwise, the leading provider of intelligence on how the internet is used, has released its own figures, which show that while traffic to news and media print websites is growing strongly it is not by anything like the percentage increases recorded by Nielsen.
Hitwise says traffic to newspaper websites overall has grown by 17.6 percent year-on-year. The leading Australian news and media print websites in April 2008 were Sydney Morning Herald with 14.25 percent share; followed by The Age at 0.39 percent; Herald Sun at 5.81 percent; The Daily Telegraph at 3.62 percent; and The Australian at 3.4 percent.
Nielsen measures unique browsers which, may or may not equate to individuals. Figures can be boosted when a single person uses several different computers to access a site several times during the day.
Hitwise uses a “patented methodology” to capture online usage, and naturally enough they are not going to release the details.
Crikey said, "While direct comparisons with other measurement systems are problematic, there must surely be some explanation for the wide disparity.”
On May 22, The UK Guardian reported, “web measurement standards for the UK's national newspaper websites are to be reviewed after rival publishers questioned Telegraph.co.uk's dramatic recent traffic growth, adding 6.3 million unique users in two months.
This meteoric unique-user growth culminated in Telegraph.co.uk overtaking guardian.co.uk as the UK's most popular national newspaper website in figures for April released today by the web traffic measurement body ABCe.
Prompted by concerns raised by rival newspaper groups the Joint Industry Committee for Web Standards, which advises ABCe on its measurement methods, has today agreed to a review of the tools and standards that publishers use to record web traffic.
MEASURING AUDIENCE MEASURERS: THAILAND MEDIA AGENCY GROUP WANTS ACCURACY OF NIELSEN TV RATINGS CHECKED
Thailand’s advertising industry is to check the reliability of the Nielsen Media Research television ratings, which directly influence advertising rates, according to the Media Agency Association Of Thailand.
The association also aims to become a self-regulating body for the industry and build customer confidence in media buying, its president Paichit Thienthong said.
The Bangkok Post reported that the association was established last October, and has 15 media agencies, which hold a combined market share of 80 percent in the media buying business, as its members.
One of the association’s key projects this year is to monitor the work of AGB Nielsen Media Research (Thailand).
Wisarn Sirijantanon, the association's director, said some television program ratings had raised a lot of questions and doubts. When ratings were doubtful, media agencies found it difficult to plan media buying for their clients as they may have doubts as well.
He said, “That's why there should be a neutral party to prove the ratings again and we're eager to do that. We intend to hire a neutral organisation to recheck the reliability of TV ratings conducted by Nielsen within this year and the outcome will be released early next year.”
The association is also studying ways to develop a rating tool for digital and mobile media as their popularity has been growing significantly.
MEASURING AUDIENCE MEASURERS: NIELSEN IN US NOW TO MEASURE AUDIENCES ON 200 TOP MOBILE WEB SITES
Online Media Daily reports that the Nielsen Co in the US has just launched a new service extending its @Plan online audience profiling system to mobile phones.
Mobile @Plan is aimed at helping marketers reach their target audiences on handheld devices by supplying lifestyle and demographic information for 200 top mobile web sites.
With 48 million US wireless subscribers accessing the internet over their phones, the mobilewWeb represents a significant new consumer platform for marketers to tap into, according to Nielsen.
Launched 10 years ago, the @Plan service encompasses more than a thousand points of information including leisure activities, life events, media usage and purchases across categories such as travel, auto and finance.
Through Mobile @Plan, travel marketers, for example, would now be able to learn that 43 percent of mobile web users have vacationed by air in the last 90 days and that American Airlines is their favorite airline. And visitors to the mobile sites of automotive properties such as Edmunds and Car and Driver are more than twice as likely to have traveled to vacation in the last 90 days.
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