New Role for Joanna Coles, the Post’s Growing Digital Ad Business, Schibsted’s Consolidation, Apple Announcements, TFP CEO Margot Knorr Mancini: The Video Boom, TFP’s Infographic Pick of the Week
Welcome to Technology for Publishing’s roundup of news and tips for media industry pros! This week, we’re sharing stories about Joanna Coles’ new role as chief content officer of Hearst Magazines, The Washington Post’s digital ad revenue numbers, the tech and product team consolidation at Scandinavian publisher Schibsted, announcements at Apple’s recent press conference, and more.
- Cosmopolitan Editor in Chief Joanna Coles was appointed chief content officer for parent company Hearst Magazines, replacing retiring editorial director Ellen Levine. Former Cosmo executive editor Michele Promaulayko will return to take over for Coles. Promaulayko previously served as EIC at Rodale’s Women’s Health and Yahoo Health. Seeing herself as the magazine’s “brand steward” during her tenure, Coles has “emerged as the face of Hearst Magazines,” a WWD post said, noting her many public appearances, new television show launches, and her recent appointment to the board of Snapchat, among other endeavors. “Joanna is a powerhouse modern editor. She has strengthened the thought leadership of Cosmopolitan and established deep relationships with major players in advertising, technology, entertainment, and government,” said David Carey, president of Hearst Magazines.
- According to a leaked memo, The Washington Post’s annual digital ad revenue is now hitting the “nine-figure” range, a bright spot among doom-and-gloom projections for the online news business in general, Digiday reported. Although the Post’s financial position hasn’t been made public since Amazon’s Jeff Bezos took the company private three years ago, chief revenue officer Jed Hartman said in the memo, “We are a growing business,” noting total ad revenue rose year over year with a 48% jump in digital ad sales through August. Further, native advertising jumped 275%, followed by programmatic (up 92%), and video (up 82%). In contrast, the article said The New York Times showed a 7% decline in digital ad revenue in its most recent quarter and for all of last year reported only $197 million in digital ad revenue.
- Another publisher doing just fine in the digital advertising business is Scandinavian media giant Schibsted. A Nieman Lab article said the publisher of titles including the Norwegian Aftenposten and Swedish Aftonbladet is finding considerable success with online classified ads, which now account for about 40% of its total revenue. But to continue its growth—and maintain its independence from platforms like Facebook—Schibsted is consolidating all of its tech and product teams across titles into a global organization geared toward efficiently creating and scaling news products and publishing tools across its various publications. “Everything that is the foundation of what our news products need to stand on is managed by one team with one purpose now, rather than multiple teams with slightly similar objectives, to avoid duplicating efforts,” said product management VP Espen Sundve.
- At its press conference on Wednesday, Apple officially unveiled the iPhone 7 and 7 Plus, along with the Apple Watch Series 2, among other announcements. The big buzz, of course, is the lack of an earphone jack, aligning with Apple’s release of Airpods, a set of wireless headphones. TechCrunch offered a rundown on everything, reporting that in addition to now being water and dust resistant, the new iPhone models feature a longer battery life, new stereo speakers, and a dual camera system (7 Plus). It said the big enhancement to the Apple Watch is that it’s now water resistant, and with the upcoming OS update, it will offer many more health-related features. All of this, however, elicited a yawn from New York Times tech reporter
On the Technology for Publishing Blog
- Don’t miss TFP CEO Margot Knorr Mancini’s article on the video boom and how publishers are meeting the challenges of scale, cost, and monetization.
- TFP’s Infographic Pick of the Week: Is your social media content profitable? Our infographic pick lays out five steps to determine return on investment from your social campaigns.
- InDesign CC Tip: Monica Murphy’s latest tip explains Publish Online Analytics, a service that provides publishers with valuable information about the documents they publish online.
Photo: WWD
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Posted by: Monica Sambataro
