Content for nothing

Online advertising is more popular than ever, and represents an ever-increasing slice of the media revenue pie. But as media properties grow their online audience, advertising revenues have seen their margins slashed.

Daniel Lyons at Newsweek points out that The Huffington Post, top dog of online media, will earn approximately $30 million in revenue this year. That's despite having five times the audience of The Washington Post.

As a comparison, the Washington Post recorded over $45 million in profit for Q1 of 2009. Their revenue? $1.17 billion. That's for the quarter, not the year.

Lyons reports that Michael Wolff, founder of Newser.com, has had his online advertising fall by 20% in terms of CPM value. Even as the overall audience grows, the value of each individual reader is falling.

Compounding the problem is that few readers seem to value online content. According to USC's Digital Future study, exactly zero percent of respondents showed any willingness to pay for online content. And doubly vexing, most were unhappy with online advertising too.

Jolie O'Dell at Mashable.com analyzes the results.

“Such an extreme finding that produced a zero response underscores the difficulty of getting Internet users to pay for anything that they already receive for free,” says Jeffrey I. Cole, the Annenberg School’s director of the Center for the Digital Future.

So what's the solution? Paywalls? As the source of online content shrinks with every reporter laid off or masthead shuttered, online purveyors like Yahoo! and AOL have attempted to fill the void with in-house content. But is Yahoo's acquisition of Associated Content really equal to professional journalism? Is an article written by "anyone" (so says AC's About Us page) which cost the company $5 and was written to capitalize on the latest Google Trend, really a substitute for in-depth coverage of current events?

What do you think?

Guild reaches deal in NY

PoynterOnline is reporting that the Guild has reached a "tentative agreement" with Time Inc. The three-year contract provides Guild members yearly pay increases and additional job security, and in return Time Inc. will have greater flexibilty in assigning work to employees. Specific details of the contract will be released after the deal is ratified by Guild members.

Guild President Bill O’Meara said he was “extremely pleased that we could come to an amicable agreement with the company, despite the challenging times facing the print industry."

“I believe our agreement gives Time Inc. the sort of flexibility that is going to be required to insure its success in this rapidly changing world of communications,” O’Meara said. “And, in return, Time Inc. has given our members an added measure of job security."

LAPC honors SoCal journalists

The 2010 Los Angeles Press Club SoCal Journalism Awards included members of both our Daily News and Press-Telegram units, and we'd like to congratulate not only the winners, but everyone in each newsroom for producing the quality journalism that's so vital to local communities.

Tracy Manzer and Kelly Puente shared top honors in the Hard News category, followed by Press-Telegram reporter Greg Mellen in second place.

Read the article

In sports, the Daily News' Jon Gold was recognized for his coverage of Skid Row's Midnight Mission basketball team.

Read the article

In photography, our members again grabbed the spotlight. For news photography, Jeff Gritchen took first place, followed by David Crane. Honorable mention went to Stephen Carr.

Features photography honors went to John McCoy, and second place went to Mike Baker. Brittany Murray received honorable mention.

Sports photography was also capped by the DN's John McCoy, followed by Stephen Carr in second place and Hans Gutknecht with an honorable mention.

We tried to find the photos to showcase them here, but it's been difficult to locate them. We'll update the post if we can track the pictures down.

Again, congratulations to all our winners on a job well done. You, and the rest of your newsrooms, deserve it all. Bravo!