Media Story | App sales soar in 2012

• ·         Tablets and smartphones given as presents make Christmas Day and Boxing Day the two most lucrative days of the year for app sales
• ·         This month, industry analyst Canalys claimed that in the first 20 days of November, Apple's US App Store generated $120m (£75m) of app revenues,
• o   With 25 publishers accounting for half of that.
• ·         24 of those 25 companies make games (including the likes of Zynga, Electronic Arts and Angry Birds publisher Rovio)
• ·         Analysts suggested in August that two-thirds of Apple store apps had never been downloaded
• o   more than 400,000 unwanted apps.
• ·         Popular "freemium" games which are free to download but make money through in-app purchases of virtual currency or items.
• ·         Angry Birds has set a template that other games hope to follow – generating app store riches, followed by real world revenues from toys and merchandise.
• ·         Apps have not saved the newspaper industry just yet, but three of the 10 most lucrative iPad apps on the UK App Store in 2012 belonged to newspapers: the Times, Telegraph and Guardian.
• ·         Magazine app - UK-based Future currently grossing $1m of sales from its digital editions.
• ·         Apps have been important for the growth of online TV services such as Netflix and Hulu
• ·         In the UK, 24% of programme requests to the BBC's iPlayer now come from handheld devices.
• ·         Apple is the leading company that makes the post money from apps.
• ·         The company said in June it had paid $5bn to app-makers since its App Store launched in 2008.
• ·         Individually, most apps still fail. But collectively, they are colossally successful at building the fortunes of the App Store's owner.

Cover Work 19/12/12

The Daily closes shop: why the news app was doomed from the start

·         The paywall: Rupert Murdoch (News Corp) has charging for content as a religion.

o   He says people should pay for his products 

·         He turned his Times from an internet presence of note into a footnote because he insisted upon putting it behind a wall.

·         The Daily - Murdoch wanted to prove that he could start and we would buy a news product online

o   He may have forgotten It costs money to charge money.

·         It was calculated that The Daily would need to net at least 750,000 subscriptions – 1m when accounting for cancellations - to break even on an operating basis

o   With a share of sales going to Apple on the iPad

·         In the end, it reached 100,000 subscribers, not nearly enough to compensate for a reported $30m in development cost and $500,000 per week burn rate.

·         The Daily wasn't much worth paying for. Though it looked quite nice and its content was competent, that content was all-in-all just news and news is a commodity available for free in many other places. 

·         product "isn't unique enough".- Ditto The Daily.

·         the new company had to start cleaning up its books, getting rid of money-losing ventures. The Daily was the first to go.

Print in 2013: Newspapers cut costs and seek tablets of salvation

• Just over £1bn is forecast to be spent on national newspaper advertising, 9% less than 2012 and nearly two-thirds less than the £2.55bn in 2005.
• Attention will be on Murdoch's plan to spin off News Corporation's newspaper and book publishing assets from his more lucrative film and TV businesses, which will result in more pressure to address the £1m-a-week losses a week at the Times
• the publisher of the Guardian is planning to cut 68 journalist posts in order to help reduce its editorial budget by £7m, after a £44.2m loss in the year to the end of March
• There will be a relentless battle between cost-cutting and product investment and development," - Douglas McCabe
• The new business will face major changes, but scrapping the papers' online paywall is not likely to be one of them.
• Other potential sellers are Russian billionaire Lebedev, who is looking for an investor to share the losses at the Independent and Independent on Sunday, and Financial Times
• Lebedev might consider the same for one of the market's few bona fide success stories, the cut-price 20p national i
• The i has done well and imagine what would happen at 1m-plus copies a day out there... A better read than The Metro
• The magazine market will face a projected 7% slide in ad revenue and there has been no growth since 2005; like newspapers, magazines have to get to grips with digital strategy.
• Sales of the top 100 magazines have plummeted by 31% from about 31m to 21m over the last decade
• huge sales expected this Christmas, 2013 should be the year of the tablet.
• "The key will be tablets and how publishers get to grips with monetising [them], - Jo Blake
• New chief executive Simon Fox will be hoping that the revitalisation is not derailed by the allegations of phone hacking reaching beyond News International.

BBC and ITV apologise to Lord McAlpine for sex abuse allegations

• The BBC and ITV have apologised to Lord McAlpine at the high court for "disastrously" and falsely linking him to allegations of child sex abuse.
• The BBC and ITV have already agreed to pay the Tory peer damages of £185,000 and £125,000 plus legal costs respectively.
• McAlpine, the former Conservative party chairman, took action against the BBC over a bungled Newsnight report in early November that falsely linked him to an allegation of child sex abuse.
• The following week, Phillip Schofield brandished a list of senior Tory politicians allegedly linked to child sex abuse live on air during ITV1's This Morning.
• "Notwithstanding that the allegations against him had finally to be shown to be false, Lord McAlpine understandably remained extremely hurt and distressed by the broadcast."
• Ian Felstead, the solicitor representing ITV, apologised unreservedly to McAlpine, but said neither Schofield nor the broadcaster had intended to make the allegations.
• Andrew Reid (McAlpines Solicitors), said the legal costs paid by the BBC and ITV amount to nearly £200,000 in total, on top of the damages payments amounting to £310,000.
• nearly 1,000 Twitter users had written to McAlpine to apologise for tweets that falsely linked him to allegations of child sex abuse.

Twitter active users pass 200 million

• Twitter now has more than 200 million active users around the world
• 10 million of those in the UK 
• Its rapid growth as a social media tool.
• Twitterati has shot up from 140 million in May,
• major events such as the presidential election in the US and the Olympics converting more people from passive to active users
• ore than 500 million registered users worldwide, the figures show that more than half of those with a Twitter account prefer not to tweet themselves.
• Mobile growth is also catching on with 60% using smartphone apps – in the UK 80% of active users are using their phones to access content.
• “There are now more than 200M monthly active @twitter users. You are the pulse of the planet. We're grateful for your ongoing support!" – Tony Wang
• UK was the fourth biggest Twitter nation, beaten only by the US, Brazil and Japan.
• June 2012 the top three cities by number of tweets were Jakarta, Tokyo and London. Manchester came in as the second most active city in the UK.
• ielsen research shows 36% of 35 to 54 year-olds and 44% of 55 to 64 year-olds use their tablets while watching TV.

What I learn from...

Kirti and Sasha’s presentation:

·         Tabloid newspapers such as The Sun use gimmicks to appeal to their audience

·         Prince granted British tabloid – The Mail on Sunday – exclusive rights to distribute his new album as a freebie

o   Direct marketing

·         BskyB is the largest pay TV broadcaster in the UK and Ireland with over 11 million subscribers

Elliot’s presentation:

·         Newspapers need to adapt to meet the demands and needs of the consumers

o   Blumer and Katz theory

·         Sky Go was launched in 2006

o   Allows sky customers to view on demands and on the go

o   Rival to Netflix

·         The Times are introducing a subscription

o   Quality

o   Price

o   Mobility

·         This impacts the audience as it;

o   Meets the needs of consumers

§  Maslow’s hierarchy of needs

o   Gives readers a sense of brand loyalty

·         Tablets are a way of monetizing the web

Ahmed’s Presentation:

·         News Corps revenue is $32.7 billion dollars

o   Mainly from films

·         It is predicted there will decline in newspaper sales

o   In 2013 there will be a 9% decrease in newspaper sales

o   This is predicted to cost over £1 billion

Media News | Instagram seeks right to sell access to photos to advertisers

·         This move annoyed many social media users

·         One likened it to a "suicide note" - New York-based photographer Clayton Cubbit

·         "Eventually we'll figure out a way to monetise Instagram." - Facebook's vice-president of global marketing solutions Carolyn Everson 

Mentions in Terms of Use

·         "We may share your information as well as information from tools like cookies, log files, and device identifiers and location data with organisations that help us provide the service to you... (and) third-party advertising partners."

·         "To help us deliver interesting paid or sponsored content or promotions, you agree that a business may pay us to display your username, likeness, photos, in connection with paid or sponsored content or promotions, without any compensation to you," 

·         The updated policy will not change how it handles photo ownership or who is able to see a user's pictures

·         It has also triggered a backlash among social media users

·         One user tweeted: "Good bye #instagram. Your new terms of service are totally stupid and nonsense. Good luck playing with the big boys."

·         New policies could deal a blow to Facebook's reputation and alienate some users.

·         "Every time Facebook has altered their privacy policy it has led to a backlash and they've been forced to retreat. They tamper with people's privacy at a cost. People are very upset." - Richard Holway, chairman of TechMarketView

·         "It's a barefaced tactic that Facebook and Instagram have taken, and one that will likely meet with many challenges, legally and ethically. - Alan Pelz-Sharpe, research director at 451 Research

This shows how internet and social media website are now being created and run for monetization rather than recreation or socialising – what it’s primarily run for. Furthermore, this also reinforces the view point that it dominant companies – such as Facebook – that dominate the internet, countering the view that the internet is democratic.

Cover Work | News Articles

News Corps Publishing arm to focus on losses at Times and Sunday Times

·         losses at the Times and Sunday Times

o   £1m a week

o   A priority for News Corps soon separating public division

·         The deficits

o   May stem largely or possibly exclusively from the daily title

o   Tolerated for a long time by Murdoch but they have the financial muscle to absorb the losses

·         The fact that the publishing company is smaller means that individual newspapers will be in greater focus with investors

o   This excludes News Corps more profitable film and TV businesses

·         Some say; it may be necessary to reduce losses

o   But efforts have proceed delicately due to1981 undertakings signed by Murdoch which bound him to “preserve the separate identities of the Times and Sunday Times”

·         News Internationals high profile problems mean that company is skeptical of it is able to win political approval to mean that the company is sceptical as to whether it would be able to win political approval to see the undertakings watered down to allow widespread seven-day working.

·         argue that the economic circumstances for newspapers have changed.

o   Two smaller competitors are also loss-making.

§  Guardian News & Media, which lost £44.2m last year, is trying to cut 68 editorial jobs

§  The Independent lost £18m in its last full financial year

·         Policing the Murdoch undertakings is a responsibility for the six "independent national directors" of Times Newspapers Holdings

·         The independent directors are also in place to ensure that "each of the two editors would be free to make his own decision on matters of opinion and news and each would be free to disagree with the other and with any other newspaper in which Mr Murdoch may have an interest".

This shows that newspaper businesses are seeing the decline in newspaper sales - this is primarily due to the increase in new and digital media. It is evident that Murdoch sees this as a threat and it aiming to resolve the issue.

Sunday Times's circulation falls below 900,000 for the first time

·         Fell by just under 1% month-on-month in November

·         had an average weekly circulation of 894,992 in November, a 7.51% year-on-year fall, according to the latest Audit Bureau of Circulations figures published on Friday.

·         best month-on-month performer in a quality Sunday market where all titles lost sales was the Observer

o   down 0.77% (October)

·         Guardian News & Media's Sunday title was, however, the worst year-on-year performer

o   sales down 11.46% compared to November 2011

·         The Sunday Times has been flirting with falling below the 900,000 mark since about September

·         News International was one of a number of newspaper groups to stop bulk copies in 2009

o   grounds that it artificially inflates circulation as consumers receive them for free.

·         The Sunday Telegraph which reported a 2.9% month-on-month fall, 432,315, a 7.11% year-on-year decline.

·         The Sun on Sunday crept closer to falling below the 2m sales mark, with average weekly circulation falling to 2,009,282 in November

·         The worst performer in the tabloid market was Daily Star Sunday

o    fell 5.35% to 368,268

·         Sales have fallen 44.66% year-on-year, as like other Sunday tabloids the title has seen its 2011 circulation boost resulting from the closure of the News of the World ebb away.

·          

The Sun - Sunday edition

Headline circulation: 2,009,282

Month-on-month change: -1.39%

Year-on-year change: n/a

Overseas: 36,930

Mail on Sunday

Headline circulation: 1,732,385

Month-on-month change: -1.03%

Year-on-year change: -12.32%

UK and Ireland paid-for circulation: 1,570,192 (90.6% of total)

Overseas: 87,147

Bulks: 75,046

Sunday Mirror

Headline circulation: 1,036,457

Month-on-month change: -2.62%

Year-on-year change: -41.12%

Overseas: 18,544

Sunday Express

Headline circulation: 481,009

Month-on-month change: -1.66%

Year-on-year change: -26.94%

Overseas: 13,584

The People

Headline circulation: 445,594

Month-on-month change: -1.80%

Year-on-year change: -44.35%

Overseas: 14,942

Daily Star Sunday

Headline circulation: 368,268

Month-on-month change: -5.35%

Year-on-year change: -44.66%

Overseas: 6,878

Sunday Times

Headline circulation: 894,992

Month-on-month change: -0.97%

Year-on-year change: -7.51%

Overseas: 39,441

Bulks: 9,317

Sunday Telegraph

Headline circulation: 432,315

Month-on-month change: -2.90%

Year-on-year change: -7.11%

Overseas: 10,086

The Observer

Headline circulation: 236,179

Month-on-month change: -0.77%

Year-on-year change: -11.46%

Independent on Sunday

Headline circulation: 118,383

Month-on-month change: -1.20%

Year-on-year change: -11.06%

UK and Ireland paid-for circulation: 62,548 (52.8% of total)

Overseas: 437

Bulks: 55,399

UK newspaper advertising facing bleak forecast for 2013

·         UK newspaper advertising market is set to get even worse next year

o   national titles forecast to face an almost 9% decline

·         slight improvement in the outlook for regional newspapers in 2013

·         A second year of double-digit ad decline will see advertising in this sector also dip below the £1bn mark for the first time.

·         2005 the regional newspaper advertising market was worth more than £2.5bn

·         The market is set to get worse, with Group M's prediction back in the summer of a 5% year on year fall in 2013 now downgraded to an 8.6% decline.

·         Total national newspaper advertising market revenue fall from £1.19bn this year to £1.09bn in 2013, according to Group M.

·         advertising at national titles is forecast to fall 9% year-on-year, to £928m, the first time it has fallen below £1bn.

·         Total spend on regional newspaper advertising is projected to fall from about £1.09bn this year to £971m at the end of next year.

·         Regional print is [already] in trouble but there is a widespread advertiser perception that the problem, in display anyway, is even more serious than it is already," said Group M. …One certainty is that it could do with more demand."

Powerpoint

PARTICIPATION DEBATES – THE MEDIA AND DEMOCRACY

·         Has Web 2.0 and the explosion in social networking really opened up new opportunities for democracy?

WHAT IS DEMOCRACY?

·         A form of government in which all eligible people have an equal say in decision making

·         System of government used in most countries in the world except one-party states such as China, dictatorships such as Libya and non-symbolic monarchies such as Saudi Arabia.

·         The X Factor as an example: in the 2010 series, 15,488,019 million votes were cast by viewers to decide the outcome of the programme.

o   an example of media democracy at work

·         Pre-digital era, there were very few ways in which audiences could make their voices heard.

·         Digital revolution and Web 2.0 have given users the opportunity to communicate ideas globally through the use of social networking

o   Series Six, winner Joe McElderry was held off the crucial Christmas No.1 spot in the British charts by ‘foul-mouthed rockers’ Rage Against The Machine.

§  Half a million Facebook users joined an anti-X Factor campaign to protest at the state of the modern music industry

·         The uprisings in Egypt and Libya couldn’t have happened without the use of Twitter and Facebook

·         It was probably the mobile phone and its evolution into a convergent device that enabled these uprisings

o   Could communicate on the move and keep one step ahead of the authorities

·         in the countries now experiencing this ‘Arab Spring’, access to mobile technology and the internet is still limited to a relatively small elite

·         Not yet seen true democracy through the media.

·         Internet has empowered its users by giving them unparalleled instant and almost unmediated access to unfolding news stories

o   This had bypassed the hegemonic institutions that control the dominant media discourses in society

·         Blogging is another way that the media are becoming more democratic.

o   Blogs have as much access to global audiences as Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation

§  July 2011 the most popular blog was not FailBlog or PerezHilton but The Huffington Post, a well-respected political blog with 54 million monthly readers.

·         Some of the most significant events of the last ten years have been communicated by ordinary people who just happened to be in the right place at the right time

o   For example the iconic video footage of the attack of 9/11

·         Citizen journalism can do is provide eyewitness accounts and subjective angles on stories to complement the work of professional news organisations.

·         We have entered a new age when audiences are producers and the traditional power structures are being forced to listen.