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(11/06/07 4:42am)
NEW YORK – Dick Parsons will depart as CEO of Time Warner Inc. at the end of the year, five years after taking the helm of the world’s largest media conglomerate and rebuilding its stature following a disastrous merger with AOL.\nParsons, who is 59, will be replaced Jan. 1 by the 55-year-old Jeff Bewkes, a former head of HBO who is currently the company’s chief operating officer, Time Warner said Monday. Parsons will stay on as chairman.\nThe CEO changeover had been widely expected. Parsons’ contract runs through next May, but Bewkes has been groomed as Parsons’ successor for the past several years.\nInvestors will be looking to the company’s third-quarter earnings announcement and conference call on Wednesday for clues about Bewkes’ plans for leading the company.\nParsons, one of the most prominent black executives in corporate America, has spent much of his tenure repairing the damage from Time Warner’s agreement in 2000 to be acquired by the pioneering Internet company AOL.\nThe grand synergies promised by the deal never materialized, and the company later faced, and settled, shareholder lawsuits and federal investigations stemming from shady accounting practices at AOL.\nParsons did much to regain the faith of Wall Street, and successfully fended off a challenge from the activist investor Carl Icahn in 2006 to break up the company.\nHe pared the company’s debt and sold off several businesses, including Warner Music Group and a book publishing business, to clarify and streamline the company’s structure, which had been criticized as unwieldy.\nHowever investors remain frustrated that the company’s stock is still stuck at around the same level as it was five years ago, when Parsons took the helm.\nExpectations will now focus on Bewkes, a highly-regarded and energetic executive who helped build HBO into a premier media brand, to take action to reinvigorate the stock.\nShortly after the official announcement of Bewkes’ appointment, the company’s shares were up 21 cents to $18.09.
(09/18/07 4:00am)
NEW YORK – If you’re not plugged into the Internet, you still have to buy an entire newspaper even if you only want to do the crossword puzzle. But online, that and other stand-alone features are increasingly popping up all over the Web.\nNow you can get The New York Times crossword on a customizable page from Google Inc.,or you can test your “Times IQ” on a Facebook application that launched last week. The Washington Post even offers a gizmo to view top photos or gauge your political leanings.\nThese pullout Web modules are commonly called “widgets,” and they’re one of the fastest-growing trends on the Internet, especially since Facebook opened up its user platform to outside software developers in late May.\nFor newspapers, widgets represent a huge opportunity to draw in new readers and to boost their brands throughout the Internet.\nYet they mark a fundamental change in approach for papers accustomed to selling news, entertainment and information only in prepackaged bundles. With widgets, newspapers are sending some of their content out into the world in piecemeal fashion and allowing users to share them with their friends – for free.\nGoogle, Yahoo Inc. and Microsoft Corp. all offer large varieties of such modules – in some cases they’re called “gadgets” instead of “widgets.” In the four months since the popular online hangout Facebook opened up its platform, outside software developers have created some 2,000 applications.\nKeenly mindful of steady declines in newspaper circulation and advertising, several newspapers are seeing widgets as a way to reach out to new, and especially younger, users online – those who might not otherwise come to the paper’s main Web site destination.\nAnd the widgets that they’re making aren’t necessarily clones of what you’d see in the paper. The Washington Post just launched a photo-viewing application and one that keeps track of issues most often brought up by the 2008 presidential candidates.\nEarlier, the Post wrote a Facebook application called “The Compass,” in which users take a short survey to gauge their political leanings and then compare results with their friends whom they invite to take the quiz.\nJim Brady, the executive editor of WashingtonPost.com, says widgets can boost a newspaper’s brand online, refer new readers back to the site and perhaps generate revenues through sponsorship deals.\nTraditionally, newspapers and other Web sites have first and foremost tried to drive traffic back the main destination so they can sell more advertising, the way a TV network, magazine or newspaper might do in the non-virtual world.\nBut as people spend more time within networks of their own creation, such as on MySpace (owned by Rupert Murdoch’s media conglomerate News Corp.), Facebook or personalized Web pages with Yahoo or Google, newspapers are bringing pieces of their content to the users.\n“Web reality has kicked in, and it’s hard to get people to your site,” Brady says. “You have to throw a lot of fish hooks out there” to attract new readers.\nFor newspapers, breaking off pieces of their content and coming up with playful applications like online quizzes could be even more monumental than their first forays onto the Web a decade or so ago.\nThe New York Times is still in the early days of widget development, with just a handful launched so far, but many more are in the works.\n“Some of the most fun meetings we have are when we’re sitting around and brainstorming what kinds of widgets we can create,” says Vivian Schiller, the general manager of NYTimes.com.\nAs for getting a traditional media outlet to embrace the newest Web boom, Schiller said that “whatever cultural or institutional barriers to this are long gone.”\nSchiller and others say widgets are no flash in the pan, since they harness the biggest change currently going in online behavior. “It’s both reflecting and accelerating the personalization of the Web,” Schiller says.\nAs for making money, well, that’s still a matter of some discussion. The Wall Street Journal says it’s building traffic to its main site by allowing users to embed WSJ.com video elsewhere, but the paper hasn’t yet signed up advertisers for its first widget.\nAlthough the advertising model remains undefined, many marketers find the idea intriguing.\n“It’s a natural link between information and entertainment, which is a sweet spot for newspapers,” says David Verklin, chief executive of Carat Americas, a major ad-buying firm. “It’s a wonderful delivery strategy for the newspapers to deliver the information they’re gathering anyway.”
(03/27/07 4:00am)
NEW YORK – Having already blossomed as a newspaper, Web site and book publisher, The Onion – perhaps the most dominant provider of fake news anywhere – is bringing its brand of humor to the hot medium of the moment: online video.\nThe dispatches on the Onion News Network, which goes live Tuesday, aren’t likely to be causing much missed sleep at CNN and Fox News Channel – unless those outlets start covering fake news stories like Civil War re-enactors being dispatched to Iraq.\nBut on the Web, The Onion will be going up against several others who have already established themselves in comedy video, including Comedy Central’s “The Daily Show with Jon Stewart.”\nMuch of that awareness, however, came from unauthorized clips being viewed on Google Inc.’s YouTube, something that Comedy Central’s parent company Viacom Inc. is suing YouTube over for $1 billion.\nSean Mills, the president of the closely held company that runs The Onion, says he has “some tolerance” for unauthorized use of clips and is optimistic the company will reach a mutually beneficial arrangement with YouTube.\nClips from the Onion News Network will also be available for free downloads on Apple Inc.’s iTunes store, and Mills said the company is in talks with other Web companies about possible distribution deals.\nIn the meantime, The Onion wanted to give its audience as much flexibility as possible, and will allow features that are popular on video-sharing sites such as allowing Web publishers to embed clips into their blogs.\n“We want as many people to see our news reports as possible,” Mills said. “We can work out a deal with YouTube when they’re ready.”\nThe Onion’s network will start out with two new video clips per week, supported by ads. An in-house staff of eight people will work on the videos, which have a professional look to them despite the buffoonery being discussed, such as a top-level technology executive who is forced to sell his estate and take a job managing a TGI Friday’s after his job goes to an illegal immigrant.\nScott Dikkers, one of the founders of The Onion who returned about two years ago and is now its editor, says the company is frequently approached with offers to do television shows but so far has turned them all down.\n“What makes The Onion what it is is that it’s a totally uncensored voice. If you go through a network filter, you get a totally different vibe,” Dikkers said. “I don’t need someone to tell me what I can’t do.”\nWhile the subject matter of the videos is sure to be funny, based on samples reviewed ahead of the launch, it’s also a real business that a number of advertisers have already signed up for, including Dewar’s Scotch, Hyundai and Red Stripe Beer. Mills said he expects the online video operation to become profitable by the end of the year.\nAll this comes as The Onion’s print publications continue to expand. In early April it will launch an edition in Washington, its 11th, bringing its total weekly circulation to just over 700,000. The Washington Post Co. is providing printing, distribution and help with advertising sales in the Washington edition in exchange for a share of revenue.\nIts print publications remain profitable, but The Onion is moving more and more toward the Web, where it now draws about 60 percent of its advertising revenue versus 40 percent from print, about the reverse of where it was four years ago, Mills said.\nAnd while The Onion is happy to indulge its audience with a lot of flexibility over how and where to view its new video product online, its patience isn’t unlimited.\n“If 98 percent of viewing is on YouTube, we need to figure out how to support that,” Mills said. “I think they’re motivated to make it work for people like The Onion who make the content.”
(11/15/05 3:58am)
NEW YORK -- Newspaper publisher Knight Ridder Inc., under pressure from its largest shareholders, said Monday it would consider selling the company and other steps to boost shareholder value.\nThe San Jose, Calif.-based publisher of The Miami Herald, The San Jose Mercury News and 30 other newspapers said it would work with longtime financial adviser Goldman Sachs and Co. to explore a possible sale and other options.\nKnight Ridder also said it had changed its bylaws to allow shareholders to submit proposals at its annual meeting, currently scheduled for next April, and also to nominate directors.\nIn a prepared statement, Knight Ridder said there was no assurance there would be a transaction. The company also said it didn't intend to provide any updates on the process "unless and until" its board has approved a specific transaction. A company spokeswoman declined to comment beyond the written statement.\nLast week, Knight Ridder's largest shareholder, Private Capital Management LP of Naples, Fla., threatened to nominate its own slate of directors at the newspaper publisher's next annual meeting after receiving only a "limited response" to the "serious concerns" it and other shareholders had raised about the company.\nPrivate Capital Management owns 19 percent of Knight Ridder and has significant stakes in other publicly held newspaper publishers. PCM first agitated for a sale of Knight Ridder in early November, and its call was soon seconded by Knight Ridder's No. 3 shareholder Harris Associates LP, a Chicago-based money manager. Harris has an 8.2 percent stake in Knight Ridder.\nA third shareholder, Southeastern Asset Management Inc., which holds 8.9 percent of Knight Ridder, has also said it would take a more active role in considering future options for the company.\nNewspaper stocks have fallen out of favor with investors because of concerns about waning advertising and circulation as more people go online for news. Rising costs for newsprint and the consolidation of big newspaper advertisers like department stores have also affected the newspaper business. However, they remain generally profitable.\nGiven the dismal view that many investors have of the newspaper business, it is unclear how many bidders will emerge for Knight Ridder.\nKnight Ridder's shares had been down 20 percent this year before PCM's initial broadside against the company in early November, in line with several other major newspaper publishers. \nTony Ridder, Knight Ridder's CEO, sent a memo to the company's staff Monday with questions and answers about the announcement, including assurances that employees would not lose their vested pension benefits if there is a change in control.\n"During this period of exploring strategic alternatives, we will continue business as usual," Ridder said. "But we also will continue to be mindful of expenses in what continues to be a difficult revenue environment."\nKnight Ridder is the second-largest newspaper publisher in the country, after Gannett Co.
(11/18/03 5:58am)
NEW YORK -- Under heavy pressure from investors, Conrad Black will step down as chief executive of Hollinger International Inc., publisher of the Chicago Sun-Times. The company will be put up for sale after an internal investigation found that fees had been improperly paid to Black and other senior executives.\nSeveral other executives are also leaving Hollinger as part of a management shake-up the company announced early Monday. David Radler resigned as the company's president and as publisher of the Sun-Times and Mark Kipnis resigned as general counsel.\nBlack will officially retire as of Friday and remain non-executive chairman of Hollinger to oversee the sale process. He will also continue as chairman of The Telegraph Group Ltd., a wholly owned Hollinger subsidiary, and as head of Hollinger Inc., the Toronto-based parent company of Hollinger International.\nHollinger said it has retained the investment bank Lazard LLC to explore a sale of the company or one or more of its newspapers. In addition to the Sun-Times, the company publishes The Daily Telegraph in London and The Jerusalem Post.\nHollinger acknowledged that an ongoing internal review revealed that Hollinger's parent company, Black, Radler and two other executives received a total of $32.15 million in unauthorized payments in connection with the sale of several community newspapers.\nAll of the executives except one have agreed to repay Hollinger what they owe, with interest, the company said. The fourth, executive vice president J.A. Boultbee, was fired, Hollinger said.\nAccording to the company, Black and Radler each received about $7.2 million in unauthorized payments; executive vice presidents Peter Y. Atkinson and Boultbee each received about $600,000. The executives could not be reached for comment.\nThe company said Black also has agreed to seek the repayment of $16.55 million paid to Hollinger Inc., where he is the majority shareholder.\nBlack's office in Toronto referred calls to vice chairman Daniel W. Colson, who did not return a call seeking further comment. In a statement, Black said that "the present structure of the group clearly must be renovated." Black said he would cooperate with Hollinger's investigative committee to "resolve corporate governance concerns."\nBlack has been under pressure from investors for months over the fees, which were described as "non-competition" payments made as part of the sale of several newspapers in the United States and Canada.\nBlack has defended the fees, which are intended to ensure that a seller will not re-enter the markets of the properties he is selling. But shareholders have questioned why the payments went directly to the executives rather than the company.\nBlack, who renounced his Canadian citizenship and now holds the title Lord Black of Crossharbour in England, clashed with angry shareholders at the company's annual meeting in May as they criticized Hollinger's management and executive pay.\n"Like all fads, corporate governance has its zealots, and its tendency to excess," Black said at the time.\nInvestors welcomed news of the shakeup, pushing Hollinger International's shares up $2.40, or nearly 20 percent, to $15.90 on the New York Stock Exchange.\nLast Friday, Hollinger informed the Securities and Exchange Commission that it could not file its quarterly report on time because it was investigating questions raised by shareholders.\nIn its statement, Hollinger said that a pair of committees had found that some of the payments had been unauthorized and that the company's public disclosures about them had been "incomplete or inaccurate in some respects."\nGordon A. Paris has been named interim president and CEO of Hollinger, with his election as CEO to take effect Friday. Paris is currently a director of Hollinger. Vice chairman Colson will take on the additional job of chief operating officer.\nHollinger also owns The Spectator magazine in Britain and a large number of community newspapers in the Chicago area.\nSoutheastern Asset Management Inc., a major shareholder of Hollinger Inc., declined to comment on the changes, and a call to Tweedy, Browne Co., a shareholder that had pressed for changes, was not returned.