Week 5: The Newspaper Industry Flashcards
(42 cards)
Newspapers:
printed products created on a regular (weekly or daily) basis and released in multiple copies.
Newspapers did not exist before Johannes Gutenberg invented the printing press in the mid- 1440s.
Adversarial press:
press that has the ability to argue with the government.
the penny press
aimed at the “common man combined with fast printing-press technology and cheap paper to encourage the growth of a new kind of newspaper – the penny press – beginning in the 1830s.
newspaper Dailies:
newspapers that are published in newsprint every day, sometimes with the exception of Sundays.
newspaper Weeklies:
newspapers that are published in newsprint once or twice a week.
chain ownership in newspapers
Daily newspaper chains: with only a few exceptions, daily newspapers tend not to have competition from other printed dailies; most of the dailies in the US are owned by a few larger firms.
Weekly newspapers have been somewhat less affected by the enormous challenges daily newspapers have been experiencing. Why?
They have found topics or audience areas which they can cover easily. Four topics stand out:
Three geographic ones: coverage of neighbourhoods within cities, of suburbs, and of rural areas.
The fourth area focuses on certain types of people – specific ethnic, racial, occupational or interest communities.
Alternative, weekly newspaper
a paper written for a young, urban audience with an eye for political and cultural commentary.
Shoppers, weekly newspaper
free, nondaily newspapers, typically aimed at people in particular neighbourhoods who might shop at local merchants and designed primarily to deliver coupons and advertisements, though they may carry some news or feature content.
what is Circulation in newspapers? What are the main concerns today with Circulation?
(the number of paying subscribers) is not the same as readership. Some copies tend to be shared by a few or even many people, and newspapers try to convince advertisers their readership (the number of people who actually go through the paper) is quite a bit higher than their circulation.
Although distribution of physical newspapers still makes the most money for their firms, many newspaper companies reach readers in digital form: through websites, mobile apps, Twitter feeds, etc.
Two main concerns:
1) Whether young people will stop reading printed papers because they are so heavily involved in electronic media;
2) Whether young people or anyone else will pay for digital newspapers enough so that newspapers can survive, as their printed versions decrease in importance and the amount of advertising they receive online is not enough to support staffs of professional journalists.
what is Pass along rate: in newspapers?
the amount of sharing between people of a newspaper copy.
in what 2 ways do Newspapers generate revenue? What percentages of revenue were they historically, and how have they changed?
advertisements and circulation
Advertising is by far the dominant source of money. Historically, daily newspapers have received between 75%-80% of their revenues in this way, with around 90% for weekly newspapers.
This percentage for daily newspapers has dropped in the digital age: while circulation money is holding steady (many newspapers have increased their subscription fees), advertising money has dropped significantly, so the percentage received from circulation is larger today.
What are Freestanding inserts (FSIs) in newspapers?
pre-printed sheets that advertise particular products, services or retailers.
What is Cost per thousand readers or cost per mil (CPM) in newspapers? How does this allow comparison between different ad media?
the basic measurement of advertising efficiency in all media; it is used by advertisers to evaluate how much space they will buy in a given newspaper or other medium and what price they will pay.
Advertisers often compare CPM of different media, so newspapers must compete not only with other newspapers but other media as well, like radio and TV.
What is Retail Advertising?
local retail advertising is carried out by establishments located in the same geographic area as the newspaper in which the ad is placed. Some of these advertisers may be parts of national chains, but the purpose of such ads is to persuade people to shop in the local outlets. Retail advertising is the most important of the three main areas of newspaper advertising.
What is Classified advertising?
the second most lucrative type of newspaper advertising. Newspapers usually sell classified ad space by the line to people who want to offer everything from houses to beds to bikes. The recent drop in this type of advertising has a lot to do with the rise of online real estate, auto and general classified sites, especially free ones like Craigslist. They provide users with continually updated information, interactivity and immediate responsiveness that papers cannot match.
Classified ad: short announcement for a product or a service that is typically grouped with announcements for other products or services of the same kind.
What is National advertising?
airline and cruise line ads are often national purchases. Political ads and movie ads also often fit the “national” tag. In co-op advertising, manufacturers or distributors of products provide money to exhibitors in order to help the exhibitor cover the costs of promoting a particular product.
National ad: advertisement placed by large national and multinational firms that do business in a newspaper’s geographic area.
As for advertisers who do come to the newspaper’s website, they insist on paying far less per thousand readers than they would pay in the print edition. Why?
They can do that because the competition for ads online among websites is so fierce that it had driven prices down drastically. The upshot is that even when newspapers attract more people online than they do offline, the amount of money they make advertising to them is far lower.
In the context of newspapers, what are the two meanings of “Editorial”?
- the creation of opinion pieces by the firm’s editorial writers
- all non-advertising matter in the paper
Advertising-editorial ratio
set by the publisher, this ratio determines the balance between the amount of space available for advertisements and the amount of space available for editorial matter in one issue of a newspaper
News hole
the number of pages left over and available for editorial matter (based on the number of pages needed for advertisements).
Editor:
the executive in charge of all the operations required to fill the news hole.
Managing editor
individual who coordinates the work of the sections (or departments) within the newspaper.
In a daily urban newspaper, typical departments might be sports, lifestyle, entertainment/leisure, business, TV, city news, real estate etc. Each department has someone assigned to it, though there are some who cover a variety of topics within their department. They may cover events in the city hall, crime, college athletics, movie reviews etc.
General assignment reporters:
newspaper reporters who cover a variety of topics within a department.