Steve Ladurantaye

Long seen as the source of future growth of Canadian newspapers, digital advertising sales are slowing to a crawl just as publishers need the revenue the most.

Print advertising is falling as large national companies reduce their ad budgets and turn to online services, and publishers have worked to develop digital strategies to replace the lost revenue. But advertisers have opted to direct more money toward advertising services offered by companies such as Google Inc. and Facebook Inc., which offer advertisers the ability to reach tens of millions of possible customers, albeit in a less targeted way than news agencies.

Full story at the Globe and Mail 

DATE:             May 7, 2012

TO:                  All Toronto Star and Star Media Group Staff

FROM:            John Cruickshank

RE:                  Introduction of Star Content Studios

I am pleased to announce the formal launch of Star Content Studios, a new initiative designed to provide content services to external clients and to handle commercial content within Star Media Group properties. The team that has developed Star Content Studios is led by Ed Greenspon, Vice President Business Development, and Cathrin Bradbury, Director, Content Development for SMG.

The need to create this new group within Star Media Group is obvious.

Increasingly, advertisers and marketers are seeking innovative content marketing solutions to extend their level of engagement beyond conventional advertising. Content marketing spending in Canada is estimated at between $700 million and $1 billion annually, with companies increasing the use of their own websites and social media properties to tell stories related to their brand.

Importantly, as I have said in the past, the newsroom should not be distracted from its core mission of reporting on major news events, investigations and features.

That’s why, unlike other media outlets, we have designed Star Content Studios as an approach that will keep commercial content outside the newsroom. Star Content Studios offers full digital and print services, from editorial and video content for a brand’s website to highly focused social media messaging.

It can create magazines, video campaigns, advertorials, tablet apps, catalogs and annual reports. It will provide services primarily in five areas, namely content marketing, cause marketing and corporate social responsibility, corporate communications, social media and thought leadership.

Today, many people see themselves as a publisher, but few have the editorial skills and discipline that the seasoned editors at Star Content Studio have. The tagline for Star Content Studios is “Authentic Storytelling.” It’s meant to capture a key point of differentiation as we market this content expertise.

We firmly believe that Star Content Studios will be an important source of revenue for Star Media Group. Already, Star Content Studios has worked successfully with several major external organizations, including the Heart and Stroke Foundation of Canada.

In the coming weeks, Star Content Studios will launch several initiatives, including a stand-alone website at starcontentstudios.com, a social marketing strategy, external communications and special events. We will soon hold staff presentations for all interested SMG employees at which we will provide more detailed information about Star Content Studios.

Please join me in welcoming the Star Content Studios team and wishing them great success.  

Things just got worse at Yellow Media Inc., with the company’s executives warning investors that digital ads aren’t making up for the losses piling up in its printed phonebooks division.

With its share price near zero and bond holders thinking out loud about what it might take to privatize the company to recoup at least some of their investments, Yellow Media said late Monday that the business is worth far less than they believed only a few months ago as it recorded a $2.9-billion impairment charge.

“During the quarter, we noted changes in our revenue trends affecting our long-term projections,” the company said in regulatory filings released late Monday. “Specifically, we now believe online revenue growth will be slower than previously anticipated and print decline will be steeper based on a more rapid and enduring change than previously anticipated.”

Full story in the Globe and Mail

Postmedia Network Inc.  will shutter its breaking-news wire service and sign back up with The Canadian Press in a bid to save money and shift the news organization’s focus toward opinion writing and local news.

The newspaper chain – which is struggling with $516-million in debt and lost $11-million in the most recent quarter – said it will cut 25 out of 58 jobs in its Postmedia News division. The Ottawa-based division was founded in 2007 and provide breaking news stories to the chain’s 10 daily papers, which include the National Post, Ottawa Citizen and Calgary Herald.

The full story from the Globe and Mail 

Postmedia has made a strategic decision to refocus the Postmedia News operation. This will result in the restructuring of Postmedia News and exit us from the wire service business. This also means we will say goodbye to some of our colleagues at Postmedia News – this is the most difficult part of such a decision and our gratitude and best wishes are with them.

In 2007 the previous company severed ties with Canadian Press (CP) in order to bring wire service requirements in-house and to build a proprietary international wire service business. It was the right decision at that time.
Since then, much has changed for our company and our industry. The way commodity news, such as international, breaking news and general interest health and lifestyle issues, is consumed is changing and no longer requires us to cover all of it directly.

After careful consideration the decision has been made to enter into an agreement with CP to provide our newspapers with international and breaking news content from CP and AP (Associated Press).
Many of the things we had originally hoped to achieve in leaving CP we have achieved, and will retain, in the new agreement – better sharing and exchange of our content across our properties and control over our original content for example.

Owning an in-house, full-service newswire business and managing the production and distribution of commodity news no longer supports our strategy. We will continue to operate an Ottawa Bureau with national beat writers providing content to our publications. Our Ottawa Bureau will no longer be focused on the commodity pieces (committee meetings, day to day happenings) but allow for more fulsome reporting and commentary on national politics.

We will also continue to share stories across our network through Postmedia News – it will no longer serve to manage and distribute commodity news to our newspapers or serve third party clients.

This puts our content development focus squarely on our core competencies: distinct voices including Blatchford, Cole, Coyne, Den Tandt, Fisher, Maher, and local issues covered by our award-winning teams of local journalists along with distinctive reporting, commentary and analysis on national and international matters.

From a content perspective, the only thing that changes is the source of commodity news stories that run in our newspapers – it will change from Postmedia News to CP or AP. We will continue to exchange Postmedia original content across our network as before.

This is an important move to focus our efforts and resources on what we do best and move away from areas where we cannot compete. Managing and producing commodity news is not a strategic benefit for our business. We remain strongly committed to delivering what our audiences and advertisers expect from us – exceptional content and programs.

Sun News host Robert Menzies on Newstalk 1010, lamenting a media that will run stories about Toronto Mayor Rob Ford’s weight but not about lifestyle issues surrounding his one-time opponent George Smitherman’s “lifestyle.”