Sunday 14 June to Friday 19 June, 2009

America East Coast Study Tour: New Revenue Models for Newspaper Companies

At a time of hyper competition and declining advertising revenues, newspaper companies around the world are exploring new business models beyond the traditional advertising and subscription models. The World Association of Newspapers will host a week-long study tour in New York and Washington, DC to inspire the development of new revenue models.
Among the topics of discussion will be new advertising models, pricing models, online subscriptions, non-profit funding, membership models, emerging digital advertising units, à la carte subscription models such as iTunes, cooperatives, bundling, third-party partnerships and more.
Participants will learn from a variety of media companies representing a host of business models, including:

-  Google, with its AdWords keyword search business

-  Bloomberg, with its multimedia subscription model

-  Wall Street Journal, with its aggressive print and Web advertising bundling and    subscriptions

-  Interactive Advertising Bureau, which explores new digital advertising units and builds guidelines to make the units easy to buy by ad agencies and advertisers (tbc)

-  Mochila, which provides publishers with tools to sell articles a la carte subscriptions, like iTunes

-  Associated Press, with a newspaper membership cooperative model, also distributes content to aggregators such as Google and sells advertising

-  Reuters, which develops new content channels such as video and mobile, monetizes content with advertising, and also charges business clients such as newspapers and corporations for usage

-  ProPublica, a non-profit newsroom producing journalism through third-party donations

-  WashingtonPost, which makes more than 15 percent of its revenues from digital advertising, and more than 50 percent of its revenues from Kaplan, an educational book publisher

-  Gannett and USA Today, America's largest newspaper company and most circulated newspaper, respectively, makes about 15 percent of its revenues with digital advertising, including its fast-growing mobile channel (tbc)

In addition to media companies, the tour will feature expert perspectives on emerging and growing revenue channels, including:

o  A panel discussion of emerging revenue opportunities with experts Mike Webb, editor of ProPublica; Jeff Jarvis, professor at the City University of New York and popular media blogger at buzzmachine.com; Jay Rosen, professor at NYU and popular blogger at PressThink.com

o  Presentations and discussion about emerging revenue model case studies across the United States by executives at the Newspaper Association of America, at the new Newseum venue, an interactive museum devoted to the newspaper business.

Sunday, 14 June

Arrive at the hotel, midtown Manhattan

20:00  Dinner

Monday, 15 June   

8:30  - Walk to Reuters
About Reuters
Reuters, the news  and media division of Thomson Reuters is the world's largest international  multimedia news provider touching more than 1 billion people a day. Reuters  provides unbiased business, financial, national and international news to  professionals via Thomson Reuters desktops, professional publications,  conferences and the world's media organizations, as well as directly to  affluent business professionals through reuters.com and other digital  platforms.

9:30 - 10:15  -  Reuters Business in the Americas, US Market Dynamics and  Innovation
Presenters: Ric Camacho, Vice  President Digital Syndication, Reuters Media & Sebastian  Laver, Business  Director US West Coast, Reuters Media

10:15 - 11:00  -  Creating Opportunities in Turbulent Times
Presenter  - Andrew  Meagher,  Global Head - Real Time Financial Publishing ,  Reuters

11:00  - 11:15  -  break

11:15  -  12:00  -  Narrowcasting - The Future Connection With The  User
Presenters: Chris Cramer, Global Editor -  Multimedia,  Reuters & Mike Stepanovich, Managing Editor, Reuters  Insider

12:00  -  12:45  -  Reuters Labs - a Secret  Weapon in the Battle for Innovation
Presenter: Andrew  Lister, Vice President  - Technology Strategy, Reuters  Media   

Host: Jim Kennedy, Vice President and Director of Strategic Planning

The international news agency will describe their news cooperative business model, convergence strategy and organizational structure.  Participants will tour AP's new multimedia facilities, hear about their new membership fee structure and their story tagging scheme to help members monetize targeted products.
 
16:00  -  18:00   Interactive Advertising Bureau

The IAB is comprised of more than 375 leading media and technology companies who are responsible for selling 86% of online advertising in the United States. The IAB educates marketers, agencies, media companies and the wider business community about the value of interactive advertising. Working with its member companies, the IAB evaluates and recommends standards and practices and fields critical research on interactive advertising.

Host and CEO, Randall Rothenburg, and other IAB executives including Jermaine Griffin, Manager of Industry Services, and: Joe Laszlo, Director of Research, will explore best practices to explore growth in interactive advertising at newspaper companies with statistics and case studies.   

19:30  Dinner


Tuesday, 16 June

09:00  -  12:00  Panel of speakers (at hotel)  -  Three experts will explore new business models for the newspaper industry.
   
-  Jay Rosen, professor at NYU and PressThink blog publisher, provokes his students and readers to ponder new ways to fund journalism
http://journalism.nyu.edu/pubzone/weblogs/pressthink/2009/03/26/flying_seminar.html

-  Beth Frerking, AME for partnerships,  Politico
Frerking will speak about Politico's  ad-supported model for this full-fledged political news  operations

-  Mike Webb, editor of ProPublica, the philanthropy-funded not-for-profit newsroom, is living proof that new revenue models to fund investigative journalism work
http://www.propublica.org/

12:00  Lunch

14:00  -  15:30  Bloomberg

Host: Karen Toulon, New York bureau chief

The multimedia business network uses a combination of subscription and advertising revenue models on its TV, radio, Web and print networks. Participants will learn about a new model to approach converged sales.   

16:30  -  18:30  Google

Host: Andrew Madden, Strategic Partner Development
The search engine company's advertising headquarters are based in New York. The company is actively seeking newspapers to join its AdWords search advertising networks, and the newspaper companies that have joined have made millions collectively.
 
19:30  Dinner

Wednesday, 17 June

09:00  -  12:00   Mochila

Mochila is an online marketplace for syndicated content from hundreds of the world's newspapers and content providers. The marketplace includes millions of high-quality, rights-managed articles, photos and videos covering everything from breaking domestic and international news to feature stories on topics such as health, business, entertainment, fashion, sports, science, tech and more. Models include the "iTunes" a la carte subscription model plus targeted advertising opportunities enabled by sponsored sections, widgets and micro-sites.

Host: Benjamin Chen, CEO, who will be accompanied by Carolyn Bekkedahl, President and Chief Revenue Officer, and Jason Oliver, VP for Professional Services

12:00  Lunch

Afternoon:  Dow Jones & Company/Wall Street Journal

Participants will hear about WSJ's subscription strategy, and its success with print-Web sales packages. Participants will learn about sales techniques, sponsorship sales and organisational strategies that have made Dow Jones one of the leaders in digital revenue making.

Speakers and topics include:

- Brian Quinn: Print/online ad sales and video advertising

- Almar Latour, Editor in Chief, WSJ.com

- Daniel Bernard, GM, WSJ.com: The paid content model and the "Open House" sponsorship model

- Product development managers will speak about new revenue streams such as widgets, RSS, mobile


Late afternoon:  Participants take train from Penn Station to Washington, DC   
Check into hotel, Washington   
   

Thursday, 18 June

09:00  -  11:30  Washington Post

Washington Post Newsweek Interactive is one of the most successful Internet advertising players, making more than 15 percent of their newspaper company revenues with digital revenues, diversified interactive advertising, sponsorship and membership models.

09:00  -  09:30  -  Introductions and tour
 
09:30  -  11:00  -  Presentations about organisational structure, sales techniques, targeted products and how to seize opportunities to sell digital advertising.  

Lunch

Afternoon:  Newspaper Association of America at Newseum

Presentations, discussion, followed by dinner

Newspaper Association of America: Audience Aggregation is the buzzword for American media companies today. Participants will learn about efforts by American newspaper companies to combine multiple print and digital publications on one advertising sale. Also called the "portfolio" strategy, audience aggregation has become a popular tactic because it offers advertisers an extended reach into the local marketplace, and provides a one-stop advertising buy across media. Participants will hear case studies and best practices in the audience aggregation strategy.   

Friday, 19 June

09:00  -  13:00  USAToday and Gannett

Host: Josh  Resnik, vice president and general manager of Gannett Digital  Media Network

Gannett is one of the leaders in digital advertising  sales, with its flagship, USA Today, and dozens of community online newspapers  across the United States. Participants will learn about the company's  cross-media advertising strategy, its news and information network strategy to  extend to an estimated 100 online communities and 25 million people, and its  new mobile advertising network strategy.    

End of Study Tour 

   
* Please note that the Study Tour is in English only. We can only accept 25 participants, so applications will be processed on a first-come first-served basis. Price includes all domestic traveling and transfers, hotel accommodation in carefully selected 4 and 5 star hotels and all meals. Flights to and from the United States are not included.