Media News - Monday, August 04, 2008

Murdoch to invest €64 million in India TV

Rupert Murdoch's Star Group Ltd. will invest $100 million (64,230,200.04 EUR) to launch six new regional television channels in India, Murdoch announced today. Speaking at a press conference in India's financial capital, Mumbai, Murdoch said the group would roll out the expansion over the next year. Star currently operates 17 channels in India, including some regional channels, catering to India's many different ethnic groups. Murdoch arrived in India July 30 and met with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Sonia Gandhi, head of the ruling Congress party, before traveling to Mumbai for meetings with Star Group executives. He is expected to leave later Monday. The Star Group, which is owned by News Corp., broadcasts over 60 television services in 10 languages to more than 300 million viewers in 53 Asian countries. (Business Week)

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Metro launches digital edition

Associated Newspapers’s national free newspaper Metro today launched a web-based e-version of the 1.36 million distribution title giving readers customised content based on their preferences. The service is designed for people who could not pick up a copy of that day’s newspaper from its hundreds of distribution bins and vendors in bus, train and tube stations in 16 UK cities. Metro sends an e-mail to users inviting them to see the paper as it was printed and lets them customise the kind of news and features they like, bookmark and download pages. In January Metro launched websites for readers to upload and share their own content – Memusic, a music sharing site, and MEview, a YouTube-style video sharing platform. (UK Press Gazette)

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Hispanic mags in the US post ad gains, but not all are thriving

Among Hispanic media, the magazine category is posting double-digit ad-revenue gains, but not every title is growing, and some, such as Tu Ciudad and Estylo, an 11-year-old, bilingual Latin entertainment and style magazine whose final issue was June 2008, are closing. Even so, ad spending in Spanish-language magazines grew 14.2 percent in the first quarter of 2008, way ahead of the 0.8 percent growth for US magazines overall, according to TNS Media Intelligence. In 2007, growth was about 10 percent. One Hispanic-magazine category that shows promise is parenting. According to Ruth Gaviria, executive director of Meredith Corp.'s Meredith Hispanic Ventures, publisher of the leading Spanish-language parenting title, Ser Padres (To Be Parents), one in four US births is to a Hispanic mother. Also aiming at parents, the Walt Disney Co. started its first Spanish-language magazine in July with a tempting demographic: Disney en Familia will be mailed quarterly to 350,000 Hispanic families with children. Gilbert Davila, Disney's VP-multicultural marketing and the magazine's publisher, said the first 68-page issue has more than 20 ad pages, from Kmart, Sears, Wal-Mart Stores, McDonald's Corp., State Farm and Disney divisions. Ad rates are $26,000 (16,699.88 EUR) a page. The biggest Hispanic magazine, People en Español, did a promising website relaunch last year, but print ad revenue is suffering, down 10.9 percent in the first half of 2008, according to TNS. In 2007, the monthly magazine's ad revenue was up just 1.7 percent. (Advertising Age)

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Advertising campaign cashes in on Medvedev

The bold letters on the billboards read: www.medvedev.ru. Scrutiny, however, reveals that the billboards are not promoting the new president but a clinic offering "The Best Health in Russia." The ad campaign makes Igor Medvedev, the head of the Igor Medvedev International Health Care Center, one of the first businesspeople to tap into President Dmitry Medvedev's name to try to attract business. It signals the possible start of a new wave of copycat branding following the emergence of Putin-branded products during the popular presidency of Vladimir Putin. Igor Medvedev said he acquired the web address upon opening his clinic in 2003, back when Dmitry Medvedev was not yet linked with the government. Using the president's name has proved to be a smart business decision in Russia, advertising executives said. Restaurants where Putin has eaten often have hung plaques reading, "We hosted Putin." The Kristall distillery started producing Putinka vodka on 1 Nov., 2003. It now occupies third place in sales among all vodka brands in Russia. It seems that owners of the vodka brand are keeping a close eye on politics. After Putin became prime minister this May, the Promimpeks company, which owns the rights for Putinka, filed an application with the state patent office to register the trademark Putinka Ministerskaya. Sergei Tsaturyants, co-owner of SQ Media Advertising and a specialist in star branding, said the Medvedev brand name could find success on alcohol, some foods and cigarettes, but only if the products were affordable for the average buyer. (Moscow Times)

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Newspaper wants TV, loses €275 million

Dutch publisher Telegraaf Media Group will very likely record the highest losses in its existence this year. The publisher is obliged to buy shares in ProSiebenSat1 for a fixed price of €377 million although the shares are in fact worth €275m less. The publisher of Dutch leading newspaper de Telegraaf, free daily Spits and several local newspapers, entered into a deal with private equity funds KKR and Permira last year to buy the shares within one year for an agreed upon price. The deal was done after TMG sold its share in SBS and got 12 percent of the new ProSiebenSat1 in return. TMG wanted to stay in the TV-business, according to the management who called the deal a ’strategy’. (Financieele Dagblad) Last year the second Dutch publisher PCM (paid papers Volkskrant, NRC, Trouw and AD; free daily DAG) lost around €350m (less assets and more debts) after private equity firm Apax Partners ‘ruled’ the company for three years. Third Dutch publisher Wegener was sold to David Montgomery’s Mecom in 2007 and was told that the margins had to be raised and more than 400 people had to go for a start. Together these publishers control around 90 percent of the Dutch paid newspaper market (75 percent of the total market). (Newspaper Innovation)

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Egyptian press dwells on Facebook arrests

The arrest of dozens of young Egyptians over their use of the social networking website Facebook dominated local newspapers during this past week Government and opposition-controlled publications differed on the issue, with the government-run newspapers arguing that the arrest was an important step in helping to rectify the national image abroad."Thirty members of the so-called 6 April Youth Movement -- formed on the popular social networking website Facebook and named after the 6 April strike -- met in the headquarters of the Ghad Party in Alexandria to show solidarity with its jailed leader, Ayman Nour," Egypt's Al Ahram reported. But the Daily News Egypt – the country's leading English daily – reported that those arrested remain in custody without officially being charged. "The group of 14, all in their early 20s, were singing patriotic songs and flying the Egyptian flag on the occasion of the anniversary of the July 23 revolution when they were arrested on Sidi Beshr beach in Alexandria," the Daily News reported. The government's next action on the issue is not yet clear, but the arrests will remain contentious among Egyptians in the weeks ahead. (Africa en Ligne)

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