Publishing News: March 2, 1999
Amazon.com Sales
Ingram
Hearst
Pearson
New York Times Co. to Buy Interest in TheStreet.com
EBook Standards Meeting
Book Point of Sale Information
Cambridge University Titles On Demand
Reader's Digest Outlines Growth Strategy
Adobe Systems Introduces Next Generation of Page-Layout Software
Langenscheidt Acquires Hammond Brand
Mirror Group
Amazon.com Sales
Amazon.com’s sales grew to $610MM from $147MM and are now at an annual run rate over a Billion dollars according to company executives. The net loss for the period was $124MM vs $31MM last year. Since last year, not only has Amazon.com continued to explosively sell books but the company has added CD’s and videos to the mix. Additionally, the company also expanded into Germany and the UK during the same period. Sales in ‘expansion’ areas accounted for 25% of total fourth quarter sales. Company President Jeff Bezos confirmed his company’s plans to aggressively invest in the business even more than they had in the past which will no doubt translate into continued operating losses for the company.
Source: Publishers Weekly, 2/1/99
Ingram
YoungSuk Chi has been promoted to COO of the Ingram Book Group and will report to Mike Lovett the President and CEO of the Ingram Book Group
Source: Publishers’ Weekly 1/25/99
Hearst
Hearst Book Group which includes Avon, Hearst, Morrow and at least 21 other imprints saw sales surpass $200MM according to Publishers’ Weekly. During the year Hearst had six titles on the best seller lists and also saw increases in back list sales.
Source: Publishers’ Weekly 1/25/99
Pearson
Pearson Education announced an agreement with Versaware Technologies to convert textbooks into electronic form. Apparently, Versaware has developed a system that reduces the time and expense of convertion into a variety of formats. Versaware is also denying that it is about to be purchased by Barnes and Noble although they admit to a number of discussions on strategic partnerships.
Publisher’s Weekly 2/15/99
New York Times Co. to Buy Interest in TheStreet.com New York Times Co. said it will pay $15 million in cash and services for a minority equity stake in TheStreet.com, an online provider of financial and investment news and commentary.
Simultaneously, Michael Golden, vice chairman of New York Times Co., was nominated to serve on TheStreet.com's board. New York Times Co. also said it was discussing opportunities for strategic alliances with TheStreet.com.
Source: The Wall Street Journal 02/23/99
EBook Standards Meeting
The Open Book Standards committee met to review a draft for proposed standard file formats based on SGML and XML for electronic book devices. The meeting was hosted jointly by eBook manufacturers Softbook Press and Nuvo Media. The current specifications are open to review (as an evaluator) for comment and review. It is expected that the specifications will be published to the public sometime in the next three months.
Source: Publisher’s Weekly 2/15/99
Book Point of Sale Information
Publishing Solutions Inc., a White Plains N.Y. company announced it is has agreed with Barnes & Noble and Penguin Putnam to pilot a book POS system. This system is designed to track and forecast book sales at the retail level. As the results become known the company plans to expand the system to a wider group of retailers.
Source: Publishers’ Weekly 2/15/99
Cambridge University Titles On Demand
Lightling Press the Ingram affiliated on demand printer announced that they have joined with Cambridge University Press (CUP) to offer a number of CUP titles on demand. Initially Lightning will offer 113 titles, however if all goes well up to 500 additional titles may be added to the selection. CUP has chosen recently discontinued titles which are still receiving orders and company sources commented that their current order fulfillment system keeps track of orders for out of print titles. Lightning Press now has over 1800 titles in it’s digital library which can be printed in lots as low as one unit.
Source: Publisher’s Weekly 2/15/99
Reader's Digest Outlines Growth Strategy Thomas O. Ryder, chairman and CEO of The Reader's Digest Association, Inc. today outlined a five-point growth strategy for the company in a speech to financial analysts and company employees. The key elements of the growth strategy include: - Dramatically expanding the company's presence in five targeted areas of intense consumer interest -- home, health, family, finance and faith -- that offer high growth potential and suit the company's brand. - Selling products and services beyond publishing that fit with the Reader's Digest brand in the five targeted areas, initially focusing on health and financial services. - Continuing geographic expansion, by entering new countries and expanding offerings in countries where the company already has a presence. - Developing new channels -- including direct response TV and non-sweepstakes mail -- to market existing and new products and services. - Making the Internet an integral part of all the company's business by investing in high quality website development, enhancing current sites and creating new ones.
In the call Ryder also spoke of efforts – to date largely successful – to reduce monetize assets and that these had produced over $300MM. This money together with an additional investment pool of $100MM would be used to fund the above investment activities. There will be a concentration on the internet as a mechanism to extend their strength in direct response. There was no mention of the proposed deal/joint venture with Time Life. The companies may still be discussing some consolidation but it remains to be seen if anything comes of it.
Source: Businesswire 2/25/99
Adobe Systems Introduces Next Generation of Page-Layout SoftwareAdobe Systems introduced the vaunted ‘Quark Killer’ application this week in Boston. The desk top publishing package named InDesign was previewed six months ago under the name K2 and is based on a new open object oriented architecture that is highly extensible. With the introduction of InDesign, Adobe is aggressively taking on Quark’s core market in desk top publishing software; however with over 70% market share in key publishing and advertising markets Adobe will face an up hill battle convincing production managers and designers to make the switch. There are a number of advantages however to making the switch – number one is you don’t have to deal with Quark’s renowned cavalier attitude to customer service as well as their errant product migration strategy. Additionally, Adobe’s other products are mainstays in publishing and advertising offices and InDesign has been developed to work seamlessly with Photoshop, Illustrator and Acrobat. Quark does not interface with these products which has caused process silos and inefficiencies. A flexible, fully digital workflow is, according to Terry Rosen, director of information technology at Ogilvy & Mather New York, essential for companies looking to succeed in a global market, where concepts and materials have to be shared effortlessly across thousands of miles. "Adobe InDesign delivers a truly integrated creative tool kit. The software offers a familiar interface and the same approach to page layout and design as Photoshop and Illustrator, which means our art directors and studio artists can hit the ground running with it. With InDesign, we can also output ads directly to PDF for review, approval, and transmission. It's this type of unified workflow that lets us move ideas to production faster, and better support our clients worldwide," said Rosen.
Quarks’ reaction to the news was muted – although they have yet to announce a strategy for the current generation of products.
Source: Businesswire 3/2/99
Langenscheidt Acquires Hammond Brand Hammon Inc, a US based map and cartography publisher has been purchased by German based Langenscheidt Publishers, Inc. The 98-year old Hammond, celebrated for its old world tradition of cartography, has enjoyed a reputation in recent years for its advances in mapmaking technology. In 1992, it published the world's first completely digitized world atlas: The Hammond Atlas of the World. This atlas garnered awards for graphics, accuracy and innovation, as did its most recent edition, published in 1998, which pioneered computer-generated tints depicting land elevations and ocean depths. Terms were not disclosed.
Source: Businesswire 3/2/99
Mirror Group
The Mirror Group rejected the most recent offer from regional UK publisher Trinity. The last bid valued the company at approximately $1.5Bill. The combination of stock and cash was insufficient in the view of the board and additional bids are expected. Mirror group has faced turmoil over the past several months regarding it’s future. David Montgomery the Mirror CEO was removed by the board recently in a board room shake up and the company is now being run by a temporary CEO. Since the living large days of Bob Maxwell (was he pushed?) the company has fought to recover it’s once UK market dominance while at the same time managing the debt imposed by Maxwell’s unique style of financial accounting. Maxwell if you recall stripped the pension funds of this operation to ‘plug the leaks’ (pun very much intended) in his rapidly sinking business empire. Many of those pensioners were required to return to work.
Source: NYT 3/2/99
Tuesday, March 02, 1999
Tuesday, February 16, 1999
2/16/99: ReedElsevier, Harpercollins, Bertelsmann,
Publishing News: 2/16/99
Newcomb leads race for Reed Elsevier CEO
Children's Television Workshop Signs Agreement Random House Inc.
Tina Brown’s Talk Magazine
Trinity opens due diligence on Mirror
HarperCollins Announces Plans to Acquire the Ecco Press
Bertelsmann expects JV with Havas in 2 weeks time
Coopers & Lybrand pays $5.4MM in Maxwell case
Newcomb leads race for Reed Elsevier CEO
Don’t be surprised to see ex Simon & Schuster CEO Jon Newcomb made Chairman and CEO of UK/Dutch publishing giant Reed Elsevier. Industry sources peg him as the leading candidate for the job which has essentially been vacant for five months.
Children's Television Workshop Signs Agreement Random House Inc.
Children's Television Workshop (CTW), the multimedia educational company that created "Sesame Street," has agreed a long-term development agreement with Random House Inc. CTW has also agreed to pursue television production initiatives with Random House, whose parent company Bertelsmann AG has extensive broadcast channel and programming holdings in Europe. As of July 1, the Random House Children's Media Group will build on its long-term relationship with CTW and "Sesame Street" books by adding new formats such as storybooks, color and activity books, and workbooks for publication and distribution in the United States and Canadian markets. By further expanding and combining its own 30-year-old publishing program with Random House to include these new formats, CTW will be able to create a more visible and synergistic presence at retail for its books as well as a stronger, more broadly integrated publishing program. Both companies will explore developing books from CTW television properties other than "Sesame Street" and creating television programming based on book properties whose dramatic rights are held by Random House Children's Media Group
Source: Businesswire 2/11/99
Tina Brown’s Talk Magazine
Miramax Films and Hearst Magazines announced today that they have entered into a joint-venture agreement to publish Talk, a new general interest monthly magazine edited by Tina Brown. The magazine will debut in August with the September, 1999 edition. Under the terms of the agreement, Hearst Magazines, the world's largest publisher of monthly magazines, will take a 50 percent joint-ownership stake in Talk magazine and assume certain management responsibilities including circulation and manufacturing management, as well as newsstand distribution and subscription fulfillment through its subsidiaries Hearst Distribution Group, Inc. and Communications Data Services. Miramax's Talk Media will be responsible for editorial content, advertising sales and marketing. Talk magazine, which will premiere with a circulation of 500,000, will be a provocative and topical publication offering commentary, criticism, reporting, opinion and profiles. In July of last year, Miramax Films established Talk Media in conjunction with Tina Brown and Ron Galotti to publish Talk magazine, produce television programming and publish books.
Source Businesswire 2/11/99
Trinity opens due diligence on Mirror
TRINITY, the UK's largest regional newspaper group, has begun due diligence at the Mirror Group in preparation for a second assault on the embattled newspaper company later this month. The news comes only days after it emerged that Regional Independent Media, publisher of the Yorkshire Post, was likely to revise its £913 million cash offer for the Mirror over the next few weeks. However, many believe the new bid will not be much higher than the 200p a share already offered. It is understood that over the past two days Trinity has been given access to a "data room" containing commercially sensitive information about the Mirror, whose national newspaper titles include The Mirror and The People. Trinity is believed to have seen the commercial data for only 24 hours, and has already requested more detailed information. However, Trinity is not expected to make a bid for the Mirror immediately, because it feels it needs to look further into the finances of the company. Those close to the situation believe a bid is more likely over the next few weeks. The bidding battle for the Mirror has already resulted in a bloody boardroom coup at the company, which saw the dramatic resignation of David Montgomery as its chief executive last month.
Source: Financial Times 2/15/99
HarperCollins Announces Plans to Acquire the Ecco Press
Jane Friedman, President and CEO of HarperCollins Publishers today announced that HarperCollins will purchase The Ecco Press, one of the country's most prestigious literary publishers. The acquisition will become effective as of July 1. The Ecco list includes such critically acclaimed authors as John Ashbery, Paul Bowles, Italo Calvino, Gerald Early, Richard Ford, Louise Gluck, Robert Hass, Zbigniew Herbert, Bobbi Ann Mason, Cormac McCarthy, Nobel Laureate Czeslaw Milosz, Joyce Carol Oates, and Tobias Wolff. In addition, Halpern will publish his first books with HarperCollins starting in January, 2000.
Source: Businesswire 2/16/99
Bertelsmann expects JV with Havas in 2 weeks time
German media giant Bertelsmann AG expects to complete a joint venture deal on specialist publishing with France's Havas within the next two weeks. A spokesman for Bertelsmann's specialist publishing unit said the deal entailed a 50-50 joint venture with the aim of making international acquisitions together. In a related issue, the spokesman also said that Bertelsmann's takeover of the Springer scientific publishing house had been approved by the European Union cartel authorities. The acquisition increases the value of Bertelsmann's trade publishing activities to 1.5 billion marks ($859.6 million) from 625 million marks
Source: Reuters 2/16/99
Coopers & Lybrand pays $5.4MM in Maxwell case
Coopers & Lybrand has paid fines and costs of $5.4MM for failings in its role as auditor of most of the companies controlled by the late Robert Maxwell, a British accounting watchdog said on this week. Maxwell died in November 1991 (fell off his boat), leaving behind a business empire riddled with debts and huge holes in the pension funds of his companies, including Mirror Group Newspapers which Maxwell owned at the time.
Source: Reuters 2/16/99
Newcomb leads race for Reed Elsevier CEO
Children's Television Workshop Signs Agreement Random House Inc.
Tina Brown’s Talk Magazine
Trinity opens due diligence on Mirror
HarperCollins Announces Plans to Acquire the Ecco Press
Bertelsmann expects JV with Havas in 2 weeks time
Coopers & Lybrand pays $5.4MM in Maxwell case
Newcomb leads race for Reed Elsevier CEO
Don’t be surprised to see ex Simon & Schuster CEO Jon Newcomb made Chairman and CEO of UK/Dutch publishing giant Reed Elsevier. Industry sources peg him as the leading candidate for the job which has essentially been vacant for five months.
Children's Television Workshop Signs Agreement Random House Inc.
Children's Television Workshop (CTW), the multimedia educational company that created "Sesame Street," has agreed a long-term development agreement with Random House Inc. CTW has also agreed to pursue television production initiatives with Random House, whose parent company Bertelsmann AG has extensive broadcast channel and programming holdings in Europe. As of July 1, the Random House Children's Media Group will build on its long-term relationship with CTW and "Sesame Street" books by adding new formats such as storybooks, color and activity books, and workbooks for publication and distribution in the United States and Canadian markets. By further expanding and combining its own 30-year-old publishing program with Random House to include these new formats, CTW will be able to create a more visible and synergistic presence at retail for its books as well as a stronger, more broadly integrated publishing program. Both companies will explore developing books from CTW television properties other than "Sesame Street" and creating television programming based on book properties whose dramatic rights are held by Random House Children's Media Group
Source: Businesswire 2/11/99
Tina Brown’s Talk Magazine
Miramax Films and Hearst Magazines announced today that they have entered into a joint-venture agreement to publish Talk, a new general interest monthly magazine edited by Tina Brown. The magazine will debut in August with the September, 1999 edition. Under the terms of the agreement, Hearst Magazines, the world's largest publisher of monthly magazines, will take a 50 percent joint-ownership stake in Talk magazine and assume certain management responsibilities including circulation and manufacturing management, as well as newsstand distribution and subscription fulfillment through its subsidiaries Hearst Distribution Group, Inc. and Communications Data Services. Miramax's Talk Media will be responsible for editorial content, advertising sales and marketing. Talk magazine, which will premiere with a circulation of 500,000, will be a provocative and topical publication offering commentary, criticism, reporting, opinion and profiles. In July of last year, Miramax Films established Talk Media in conjunction with Tina Brown and Ron Galotti to publish Talk magazine, produce television programming and publish books.
Source Businesswire 2/11/99
Trinity opens due diligence on Mirror
TRINITY, the UK's largest regional newspaper group, has begun due diligence at the Mirror Group in preparation for a second assault on the embattled newspaper company later this month. The news comes only days after it emerged that Regional Independent Media, publisher of the Yorkshire Post, was likely to revise its £913 million cash offer for the Mirror over the next few weeks. However, many believe the new bid will not be much higher than the 200p a share already offered. It is understood that over the past two days Trinity has been given access to a "data room" containing commercially sensitive information about the Mirror, whose national newspaper titles include The Mirror and The People. Trinity is believed to have seen the commercial data for only 24 hours, and has already requested more detailed information. However, Trinity is not expected to make a bid for the Mirror immediately, because it feels it needs to look further into the finances of the company. Those close to the situation believe a bid is more likely over the next few weeks. The bidding battle for the Mirror has already resulted in a bloody boardroom coup at the company, which saw the dramatic resignation of David Montgomery as its chief executive last month.
Source: Financial Times 2/15/99
HarperCollins Announces Plans to Acquire the Ecco Press
Jane Friedman, President and CEO of HarperCollins Publishers today announced that HarperCollins will purchase The Ecco Press, one of the country's most prestigious literary publishers. The acquisition will become effective as of July 1. The Ecco list includes such critically acclaimed authors as John Ashbery, Paul Bowles, Italo Calvino, Gerald Early, Richard Ford, Louise Gluck, Robert Hass, Zbigniew Herbert, Bobbi Ann Mason, Cormac McCarthy, Nobel Laureate Czeslaw Milosz, Joyce Carol Oates, and Tobias Wolff. In addition, Halpern will publish his first books with HarperCollins starting in January, 2000.
Source: Businesswire 2/16/99
Bertelsmann expects JV with Havas in 2 weeks time
German media giant Bertelsmann AG expects to complete a joint venture deal on specialist publishing with France's Havas within the next two weeks. A spokesman for Bertelsmann's specialist publishing unit said the deal entailed a 50-50 joint venture with the aim of making international acquisitions together. In a related issue, the spokesman also said that Bertelsmann's takeover of the Springer scientific publishing house had been approved by the European Union cartel authorities. The acquisition increases the value of Bertelsmann's trade publishing activities to 1.5 billion marks ($859.6 million) from 625 million marks
Source: Reuters 2/16/99
Coopers & Lybrand pays $5.4MM in Maxwell case
Coopers & Lybrand has paid fines and costs of $5.4MM for failings in its role as auditor of most of the companies controlled by the late Robert Maxwell, a British accounting watchdog said on this week. Maxwell died in November 1991 (fell off his boat), leaving behind a business empire riddled with debts and huge holes in the pension funds of his companies, including Mirror Group Newspapers which Maxwell owned at the time.
Source: Reuters 2/16/99
Monday, February 01, 1999
2/1/99: McGrawHill, Primedia, HoughtonMifflin, Dow Jones,
Publishing News: February 1, 1999
The McGraw-Hill Companies Reports 15% Increase in 1998 Earnings
Internet sales Gain at WH Smith
EarthWeb Announces Online Publishing Deals with Seven Leading Book Publishers
Primedia's 1998 Annual Sales Grow to $1.5Billion
Houghton Mifflin Company Reports 1998 Fourth-Quarter and Full-Year Results
EU Probes FT/Dow Jones/Knight Ridder 1996 deal
Mirror Group CEO is Out
The McGraw-Hill Companies Reports 15% Increase in 1998 EarningsThe McGraw-Hill Companies today reported a 15.1% increase in diluted earnings per share to $3.35 for 1998 compared to $2.91 in 1997. Net income for the year grew to $333.1 million and revenue increased 5.5% to $3.7 billion. Excluding an extraordinary loss and other one-time items, diluted earnings per share were $3.37 and net income was $335.4 million.
Educational and Professional Publishing: Revenues in this segment increased 3.0% to $1.6 billion in 1998 and operating profit improved by 7.7% to $202.1 million. Excluding the write-off for CEC in 1998 and the facilities charge in 1997, operating profit increased 11.1% and operating margin improved to 13.5%. "Revenue in the seasonally slow fourth quarter increased 1.9% to $344.7 million and operating profits climbed by 26.0% to $22.4 million. Despite a lighter adoption schedule in the elementary school market in 1998 and challenging comparisons created by a 25.4% increase in revenue last year, our elementary-high school operations produced a 7.6% gain in revenue to $831.5 million. Outstanding results at Glencoe/McGraw-Hill, our secondary school publisher, SRA/McGraw-Hill, our supplementary publisher, and CTB/McGraw-Hill, our testing division and a better than expected performance by the School Division all contributed to this record. Glencoe produced market-leading performances in math and social studies, scoring well with multi-media programs in both adoption states and open territories. SRA/McGraw-Hill and the School Division combined to take 34% of the California reading market in the second year of the adoption and led the market after two years with a 35% share. The School Division's social studies program also performed well, helping it to overcome a disappointing performance in math. In Higher Education, solid results with both the front and backlists combined to produce a 7.0% gain in revenue to $359.4 million. Revenue for the Professional Publishing Group declined by 4.8% to $429.5 million, reflecting the continuing weakness at CEC. Softness in the Asia-Pacific markets also held back International Publishing operations, although our Spanish-language programs in Mexico and Spain showed solid gains.
Source: Businesswire 1/26/99
Internet sales Gain at WH Smith
British retailer W.H. Smith Group on Wednesday reported a modest sales increase over Christmas and New Year, but saw orders surge at its newly-acquired Internet Bookshop. The Internet Bookshop, the online bookseller Smith bought last July for 8.8 million pounds ($14.54 million), saw sales jump by 70 percent to 1.7 million pounds since September 1 last year, with orders up 170 percent in December. The firm's shares have been swept along on a wave of Internet fever, sparked by investors scouring the UK stock market for Internet plays, which look cheap against U.S. cyber-stocks like rival online bookseller Amazon.com and search engine Yahoo!. Home electronics retailer Dixons, owner of Internet service provider Freeserve, has been the main beneficiary so far. It shares have surged some 70 percent since Freeserve's success first became apparent in November, boosting Dixons' market value by some three billion pounds. Analysts said there has been intense speculation about how Smith might expand its online business, including rumors it might do its own ``Freeserve.'' When Smith bought Helicon it said this marked another step along the way in developing its electronic commerce business and said it would reveal more about Internet plans in the spring.
Source: Reuters 1/27/99
EarthWeb Announces Online Publishing Deals with Seven Leading Book Publishers EarthWeb announced today that it has entered into agreements with seven leading Information Technology (IT) publishers to provide the complete text of their technical books on EarthWeb's ITKnowledge. The deals give EarthWeb licensing rights to over 3,000 technical books for its subscription-based online library of IT information. The ITKnowledge roster of publishers comprises many of the most respected companies in the technical publishing industry including: IDG Books Worldwide and its imprints, M&T Books and IDG Books; Macmillan Computer Publishing and its imprints, Hayden, Macmillan Technical, New Riders, Que, Sams, Waite Group Press and Ziff-Davis Press; The Coriolis Group and its Coriolis and Ventana imprints; Wordware Publishing; CRC Press and its Auerbach and St. Lucie Press imprints; 29th Street Press (formerly Duke Press); and ASP Publishing.
ITKnowledge (http://www.itknowledge.com) is EarthWeb's first subscription service and contains the largest online collection of technical books for IT professionals.
Source: PRNewswire 1/26/99
Primedia's 1998 Annual Sales Grow to $1.5Billion
Primedia reported annual sales rose to $1.53 billion, up 26.3%, and EBITDA, rose 15.6% to $323.1 million. According to company sources the company will strengthen our market positions as we accelerate organic growth through market penetration, international expansion and new products, particularly delivered via the ultimate targeted medium - the Internet." Some of PRIMEDIA's brands include Seventeen, HPC Apartment Guides, Horticulture, IntelliChoice, Telephony, Channel One Network and Weekly Reader. During the week there was some media speculation which referred to Primedia as a potential acquition target. The management group which sold Petersens have loads of cash and will apparently be looking to repeat their success.
Source: Businesswire 1/28/99
Houghton Mifflin Company Reports 1998 Fourth-Quarter and Full-Year Results Houghton Mifflin Company today reported results for the fourth quarter and full year 1998. Net sales in 1998 reached a record $861.7 million for the full year compared to $797.3 million in 1997, an increase of 8.1%. Income from operations was $40.8 million, or $1.40 per fully diluted share, compared to $42.7 million, or $1.48 per diluted share, in 1997. The 1998 results included $.07 per share of operating losses attributable to the Company's July 1998 acquisition of Computer Adaptive Technologies, Inc. and a $.02-per-share charge for the cost of the Company's unsuccessful bid for a portion of Simon & Schuster's publishing assets. Net income for 1998 was $63.6 million, or $2.19 per fully diluted share. This result included other earnings related to the Company's investment in INSO Corporation (INSO) totaling $28.4 million after tax, a $2.0 million after-tax loss on the disposition of certain long-term investments, and a $3.5 million charge for in-process research and development. Net income in 1997, including special items related to INSO totaling $7.2 million, was $49.8 million, or $1.73 per fully diluted share.
Source: Businesswire 1/28/99
EU Probes FT/Dow Jones/Knight Ridder 1996 deal The European Commission said on Friday it was probing a 1996 agreement between Financial Times Information Ltd, Dow Jones Information Publishing Inc and Knight Ridder Business Information, now called Dialog Corp Plc, to set up an electronic database for financial information. The European Union's competition watchdog said in a notice published in the bloc's Official Journal that the agreement was filed for regulatory clearance in June 1997. It added that it could fall under EU regulation 17 which bans anti-competitive agreements and abuse of a dominant position. The Commission called on interested parties to comment within a month. FT Information is controlled by Pearson Plc. Dialog was created in 1997 by the merger of M.A.I.D. Plc and Knight-Ridder Information Inc. The three financial news service providers agreed in September 1996 to cooperate to develop and maintain a new worldwide electronic database for historical business and financial information, the Commission said in the short notice.
Source: Businesswire 1/29/99
Mirror Group CEO is Out
As reported last week, disgruntled investors acted out their threats this week by requesting the resignation of chief executive David Montgomery. Institutional investors cited under-performance and “poor strategic decisions by its senior management” as reasons for the action. Chief among these were management’s decision to invest in the Independent newspaper and establish its Live TV subsidiary.
Source: Financial Times 1/29/99
The McGraw-Hill Companies Reports 15% Increase in 1998 Earnings
Internet sales Gain at WH Smith
EarthWeb Announces Online Publishing Deals with Seven Leading Book Publishers
Primedia's 1998 Annual Sales Grow to $1.5Billion
Houghton Mifflin Company Reports 1998 Fourth-Quarter and Full-Year Results
EU Probes FT/Dow Jones/Knight Ridder 1996 deal
Mirror Group CEO is Out
The McGraw-Hill Companies Reports 15% Increase in 1998 EarningsThe McGraw-Hill Companies today reported a 15.1% increase in diluted earnings per share to $3.35 for 1998 compared to $2.91 in 1997. Net income for the year grew to $333.1 million and revenue increased 5.5% to $3.7 billion. Excluding an extraordinary loss and other one-time items, diluted earnings per share were $3.37 and net income was $335.4 million.
Educational and Professional Publishing: Revenues in this segment increased 3.0% to $1.6 billion in 1998 and operating profit improved by 7.7% to $202.1 million. Excluding the write-off for CEC in 1998 and the facilities charge in 1997, operating profit increased 11.1% and operating margin improved to 13.5%. "Revenue in the seasonally slow fourth quarter increased 1.9% to $344.7 million and operating profits climbed by 26.0% to $22.4 million. Despite a lighter adoption schedule in the elementary school market in 1998 and challenging comparisons created by a 25.4% increase in revenue last year, our elementary-high school operations produced a 7.6% gain in revenue to $831.5 million. Outstanding results at Glencoe/McGraw-Hill, our secondary school publisher, SRA/McGraw-Hill, our supplementary publisher, and CTB/McGraw-Hill, our testing division and a better than expected performance by the School Division all contributed to this record. Glencoe produced market-leading performances in math and social studies, scoring well with multi-media programs in both adoption states and open territories. SRA/McGraw-Hill and the School Division combined to take 34% of the California reading market in the second year of the adoption and led the market after two years with a 35% share. The School Division's social studies program also performed well, helping it to overcome a disappointing performance in math. In Higher Education, solid results with both the front and backlists combined to produce a 7.0% gain in revenue to $359.4 million. Revenue for the Professional Publishing Group declined by 4.8% to $429.5 million, reflecting the continuing weakness at CEC. Softness in the Asia-Pacific markets also held back International Publishing operations, although our Spanish-language programs in Mexico and Spain showed solid gains.
Source: Businesswire 1/26/99
Internet sales Gain at WH Smith
British retailer W.H. Smith Group on Wednesday reported a modest sales increase over Christmas and New Year, but saw orders surge at its newly-acquired Internet Bookshop. The Internet Bookshop, the online bookseller Smith bought last July for 8.8 million pounds ($14.54 million), saw sales jump by 70 percent to 1.7 million pounds since September 1 last year, with orders up 170 percent in December. The firm's shares have been swept along on a wave of Internet fever, sparked by investors scouring the UK stock market for Internet plays, which look cheap against U.S. cyber-stocks like rival online bookseller Amazon.com and search engine Yahoo!. Home electronics retailer Dixons, owner of Internet service provider Freeserve, has been the main beneficiary so far. It shares have surged some 70 percent since Freeserve's success first became apparent in November, boosting Dixons' market value by some three billion pounds. Analysts said there has been intense speculation about how Smith might expand its online business, including rumors it might do its own ``Freeserve.'' When Smith bought Helicon it said this marked another step along the way in developing its electronic commerce business and said it would reveal more about Internet plans in the spring.
Source: Reuters 1/27/99
EarthWeb Announces Online Publishing Deals with Seven Leading Book Publishers EarthWeb announced today that it has entered into agreements with seven leading Information Technology (IT) publishers to provide the complete text of their technical books on EarthWeb's ITKnowledge. The deals give EarthWeb licensing rights to over 3,000 technical books for its subscription-based online library of IT information. The ITKnowledge roster of publishers comprises many of the most respected companies in the technical publishing industry including: IDG Books Worldwide and its imprints, M&T Books and IDG Books; Macmillan Computer Publishing and its imprints, Hayden, Macmillan Technical, New Riders, Que, Sams, Waite Group Press and Ziff-Davis Press; The Coriolis Group and its Coriolis and Ventana imprints; Wordware Publishing; CRC Press and its Auerbach and St. Lucie Press imprints; 29th Street Press (formerly Duke Press); and ASP Publishing.
ITKnowledge (http://www.itknowledge.com) is EarthWeb's first subscription service and contains the largest online collection of technical books for IT professionals.
Source: PRNewswire 1/26/99
Primedia's 1998 Annual Sales Grow to $1.5Billion
Primedia reported annual sales rose to $1.53 billion, up 26.3%, and EBITDA, rose 15.6% to $323.1 million. According to company sources the company will strengthen our market positions as we accelerate organic growth through market penetration, international expansion and new products, particularly delivered via the ultimate targeted medium - the Internet." Some of PRIMEDIA's brands include Seventeen, HPC Apartment Guides, Horticulture, IntelliChoice, Telephony, Channel One Network and Weekly Reader. During the week there was some media speculation which referred to Primedia as a potential acquition target. The management group which sold Petersens have loads of cash and will apparently be looking to repeat their success.
Source: Businesswire 1/28/99
Houghton Mifflin Company Reports 1998 Fourth-Quarter and Full-Year Results Houghton Mifflin Company today reported results for the fourth quarter and full year 1998. Net sales in 1998 reached a record $861.7 million for the full year compared to $797.3 million in 1997, an increase of 8.1%. Income from operations was $40.8 million, or $1.40 per fully diluted share, compared to $42.7 million, or $1.48 per diluted share, in 1997. The 1998 results included $.07 per share of operating losses attributable to the Company's July 1998 acquisition of Computer Adaptive Technologies, Inc. and a $.02-per-share charge for the cost of the Company's unsuccessful bid for a portion of Simon & Schuster's publishing assets. Net income for 1998 was $63.6 million, or $2.19 per fully diluted share. This result included other earnings related to the Company's investment in INSO Corporation (INSO) totaling $28.4 million after tax, a $2.0 million after-tax loss on the disposition of certain long-term investments, and a $3.5 million charge for in-process research and development. Net income in 1997, including special items related to INSO totaling $7.2 million, was $49.8 million, or $1.73 per fully diluted share.
Source: Businesswire 1/28/99
EU Probes FT/Dow Jones/Knight Ridder 1996 deal The European Commission said on Friday it was probing a 1996 agreement between Financial Times Information Ltd, Dow Jones Information Publishing Inc and Knight Ridder Business Information, now called Dialog Corp Plc, to set up an electronic database for financial information. The European Union's competition watchdog said in a notice published in the bloc's Official Journal that the agreement was filed for regulatory clearance in June 1997. It added that it could fall under EU regulation 17 which bans anti-competitive agreements and abuse of a dominant position. The Commission called on interested parties to comment within a month. FT Information is controlled by Pearson Plc. Dialog was created in 1997 by the merger of M.A.I.D. Plc and Knight-Ridder Information Inc. The three financial news service providers agreed in September 1996 to cooperate to develop and maintain a new worldwide electronic database for historical business and financial information, the Commission said in the short notice.
Source: Businesswire 1/29/99
Mirror Group CEO is Out
As reported last week, disgruntled investors acted out their threats this week by requesting the resignation of chief executive David Montgomery. Institutional investors cited under-performance and “poor strategic decisions by its senior management” as reasons for the action. Chief among these were management’s decision to invest in the Independent newspaper and establish its Live TV subsidiary.
Source: Financial Times 1/29/99
Monday, January 25, 1999
1/25/99: McGrawHill, Readers Digest, Thomson, Pearson,
Publishing News: January 25th
Mirror Group For Sale
Hirschberg Goes to McGraw Hill
Reader's Digest in Talks with Time Warner
Franklin Also to Sell Rocket ebook Content On Its Website
WH Smith’s Web Efforts
International Thomson Publishing Announces Marketing Venture with VarsityBooks.Com
Pearson Hangs Out the For Sale Signs
Mirror Group For Sale
Mirror Group Newspapers confirmed on Monday that they had received a 200 p per share all cash offer for the company from Regional Independent Media which is backed by venture cap firm Candover. The deal values Mirror Group at STL900MM ($1.4Billion) and Mirror spokesmen confirmed that it would be presented to the board for approval. The current bid exceeds a prior bid by Trinity Media which was to be funded by equity. Things are expected to hot up this week as some of the Mirror Group board of directors have expressed doubts as to the independence of Mirror Group CEO David Montgomery. Some board members believe he is predisposed to bids where he can retain executive management.
Source: Financial Times
Hirschberg Goes to McGraw Hill
The McGraw-Hill Companies today named Henry Hirschberg group president, Higher Education,
Professional and International Publishing, where he will help lead the publishing group's growth agenda. Hirschberg brings more than 25 years of editorial and international publishing experience to his
position. Most recently, he was president of the Higher Education Group for Pearson plc's education
division. Prior to Pearson's recent acquisition of Simon & Schuster, Hirschberg held various positions
at Simon & Schuster, including senior vice president, president of the Higher Education group, and
president of the International Publishing Group. Formerly, he was managing director of Prentice Hall's
U.K. operations and executive editor, where he managed editorial responsibility for computer and
business books. Hirschberg began his career as a sales representative at Prentice Hall in Europe in
1972.
Source: Businesswire Jan. 14, 1999--
Reader's Digest in Talks with Time Warner
Sources close to the companies tell Business Week that Reader's Digest and Time Warner Inc. are discussing a deal to combine Reader's Digest with several Time Inc. publications and direct-marketing businesses. Under the structure being contemplated, Time Warner would become an equal partner with the foundations that now control 72% of the publisher's voting shares. Public shareholders would own a yet-to-be-determined stake. Reader's Digest CEO Thomas O. Ryder, who joined the company last May, would continue as the company's CEO with Time Inc. CEO Don Logan as chairman, the magazine reports. Time Warner, Ryder, and the foundations won't comment on the talks.
Source: Businesswire, Jan. 14, 1999
Franklin Also to Sell Rocket ebook Content On Its Website
Franklin Electronic Publishers, Inc. (NYSE: FEP) and NuvoMedia, Inc. announced an agreement by which Franklin will distribute the Rocket eBook to consumer electronics retailers. The Rocket eBook is the world's first handheld electronic reader capable of downloading digital books from online bookstores. With the NuvoMedia strategic alliance, Franklin becomes one of the first full-service eBook retailers operating on the Internet. Under terms of the agreement, Franklin will also publish and sell content in the RocketEdition(TM) format on its own website -- http://www.franklin.com. RocketEditions are encrypted titles that readers can purchase and download onto their PC for transfer to the Rocket eBook. The Franklin Rocket eBook will be available in spring 1999 with a retail price under $500, and will be sold through leading consumer electronics stores, computer chains and office superstores. Prices for RocketEditions will be comparable to discounted prices for printed books. Franklin will offer RocketEditions on its website beginning in mid-1999. Participating publishers include Addison Wesley Longman, HarperCollins, Harvard Business School Press, Henry Holt and Company, Inc., Macmillan Computer Publishing USA, McGraw-Hill Publishing, Penguin Putnam Inc., Random House, Inc., Simon & Schuster, and St. Martin's. Many of these publishers, including HarperCollins, McGraw-Hill, and Macmillan, already license their works to Franklin for its handheld electronic products
Source: RNewswire 1/3/99
WH Smith’s Web Efforts
Shares in Britain's biggest bookseller, WH Smith Group Plc, hit a record high on Friday, fuelled by hopes for its nascent Internet division. The high street chain, viewed in the past as an unexciting investment, was lifted by news of its 5.6 million pound ($9.28 million) acquisition of Helicon Publishing Plc, a small loss-making provider of reference material. The deal may have been tiny but the market latched on to it as evidence that WH Smith could be a new British Web star and the stock soared to a peak of 675 pence before easing back to end six percent higher at 626-1/2p. Last July the firm bought the Internet Bookshop for 8.8 million pounds to launch its Internet strategy and Chief Executive Richard Handover said the latest purchase highlighted the group's focus on growing its online business.
Source: Reuters 1/15/99
International Thomson Publishing Announces Marketing Venture with VarsityBooks.Com
International Thomson Publishing (ITP), one of the world's largest educational publishers, has entered into a strategic marketing partnership with VarsityBooks.com (www.varsitybooks.com), the leading online college textbook seller. The goal of both businesses is to increase student awareness of how affordable and convenient it is to purchase their course books online. The agreement consists of joint marketing efforts between the ITP sales force and VarsityBooks.com to educate professors and students on the new, more affordable way to buy new textbooks through the VarsityBooks.com Web site. In return, ITP expects additional sales of new textbooks through the Internet. VarsityBooks.com offers customers a selection of 400,000 titles at discounts up to 40 percent, as well as flat-rate shipping at $4.95, no matter how large the order. Students can use the site's powerful search engine to locate textbooks, then use its state-of-the-art encryption system for secure transactions. Presently, VarsityBooks.com offers comprehensive booklists for more than 50 of the largest colleges and universities across the country. This featured list of universities is growing rapidly and is expected to triple in upcoming semesters. The VarsityBooks.com Web site also includes a "mega" search engine, to allow anyone access to the large discounts while purchasing their books.
Source: PRNewswire 1/19
Pearson Hangs Out the For Sale Signs
Pearson plc the international media group, is to put a number of its reference and business & professional publishing operations up for sale. The businesses are Jossey-Bass; the General and Library Reference businesses of Macmillan publishing; Master Data Center; Prentice Hall Direct; Appleton & Lange; and the Bureau of Business Practice. In 1997, these businesses made, in total, sales of some $250 million. They were acquired by Pearson last November as part of its $4.6 billion dollar acquisition of the Simon & Schuster education, reference and business & professional operations. Pearson has merged the Simon & Schuster education businesses with Addison Wesley Longman to create Pearson Education, the world's leading educational publishing business. Macmillan Computer Publishing and Macmillan Digital Publishing also form part of the new Pearson Education business.
Source: PRNewswire 1/25/98
Mirror Group For Sale
Hirschberg Goes to McGraw Hill
Reader's Digest in Talks with Time Warner
Franklin Also to Sell Rocket ebook Content On Its Website
WH Smith’s Web Efforts
International Thomson Publishing Announces Marketing Venture with VarsityBooks.Com
Pearson Hangs Out the For Sale Signs
Mirror Group For Sale
Mirror Group Newspapers confirmed on Monday that they had received a 200 p per share all cash offer for the company from Regional Independent Media which is backed by venture cap firm Candover. The deal values Mirror Group at STL900MM ($1.4Billion) and Mirror spokesmen confirmed that it would be presented to the board for approval. The current bid exceeds a prior bid by Trinity Media which was to be funded by equity. Things are expected to hot up this week as some of the Mirror Group board of directors have expressed doubts as to the independence of Mirror Group CEO David Montgomery. Some board members believe he is predisposed to bids where he can retain executive management.
Source: Financial Times
Hirschberg Goes to McGraw Hill
The McGraw-Hill Companies today named Henry Hirschberg group president, Higher Education,
Professional and International Publishing, where he will help lead the publishing group's growth agenda. Hirschberg brings more than 25 years of editorial and international publishing experience to his
position. Most recently, he was president of the Higher Education Group for Pearson plc's education
division. Prior to Pearson's recent acquisition of Simon & Schuster, Hirschberg held various positions
at Simon & Schuster, including senior vice president, president of the Higher Education group, and
president of the International Publishing Group. Formerly, he was managing director of Prentice Hall's
U.K. operations and executive editor, where he managed editorial responsibility for computer and
business books. Hirschberg began his career as a sales representative at Prentice Hall in Europe in
1972.
Source: Businesswire Jan. 14, 1999--
Reader's Digest in Talks with Time Warner
Sources close to the companies tell Business Week that Reader's Digest and Time Warner Inc. are discussing a deal to combine Reader's Digest with several Time Inc. publications and direct-marketing businesses. Under the structure being contemplated, Time Warner would become an equal partner with the foundations that now control 72% of the publisher's voting shares. Public shareholders would own a yet-to-be-determined stake. Reader's Digest CEO Thomas O. Ryder, who joined the company last May, would continue as the company's CEO with Time Inc. CEO Don Logan as chairman, the magazine reports. Time Warner, Ryder, and the foundations won't comment on the talks.
Source: Businesswire, Jan. 14, 1999
Franklin Also to Sell Rocket ebook Content On Its Website
Franklin Electronic Publishers, Inc. (NYSE: FEP) and NuvoMedia, Inc. announced an agreement by which Franklin will distribute the Rocket eBook to consumer electronics retailers. The Rocket eBook is the world's first handheld electronic reader capable of downloading digital books from online bookstores. With the NuvoMedia strategic alliance, Franklin becomes one of the first full-service eBook retailers operating on the Internet. Under terms of the agreement, Franklin will also publish and sell content in the RocketEdition(TM) format on its own website -- http://www.franklin.com. RocketEditions are encrypted titles that readers can purchase and download onto their PC for transfer to the Rocket eBook. The Franklin Rocket eBook will be available in spring 1999 with a retail price under $500, and will be sold through leading consumer electronics stores, computer chains and office superstores. Prices for RocketEditions will be comparable to discounted prices for printed books. Franklin will offer RocketEditions on its website beginning in mid-1999. Participating publishers include Addison Wesley Longman, HarperCollins, Harvard Business School Press, Henry Holt and Company, Inc., Macmillan Computer Publishing USA, McGraw-Hill Publishing, Penguin Putnam Inc., Random House, Inc., Simon & Schuster, and St. Martin's. Many of these publishers, including HarperCollins, McGraw-Hill, and Macmillan, already license their works to Franklin for its handheld electronic products
Source: RNewswire 1/3/99
WH Smith’s Web Efforts
Shares in Britain's biggest bookseller, WH Smith Group Plc, hit a record high on Friday, fuelled by hopes for its nascent Internet division. The high street chain, viewed in the past as an unexciting investment, was lifted by news of its 5.6 million pound ($9.28 million) acquisition of Helicon Publishing Plc, a small loss-making provider of reference material. The deal may have been tiny but the market latched on to it as evidence that WH Smith could be a new British Web star and the stock soared to a peak of 675 pence before easing back to end six percent higher at 626-1/2p. Last July the firm bought the Internet Bookshop for 8.8 million pounds to launch its Internet strategy and Chief Executive Richard Handover said the latest purchase highlighted the group's focus on growing its online business.
Source: Reuters 1/15/99
International Thomson Publishing Announces Marketing Venture with VarsityBooks.Com
International Thomson Publishing (ITP), one of the world's largest educational publishers, has entered into a strategic marketing partnership with VarsityBooks.com (www.varsitybooks.com), the leading online college textbook seller. The goal of both businesses is to increase student awareness of how affordable and convenient it is to purchase their course books online. The agreement consists of joint marketing efforts between the ITP sales force and VarsityBooks.com to educate professors and students on the new, more affordable way to buy new textbooks through the VarsityBooks.com Web site. In return, ITP expects additional sales of new textbooks through the Internet. VarsityBooks.com offers customers a selection of 400,000 titles at discounts up to 40 percent, as well as flat-rate shipping at $4.95, no matter how large the order. Students can use the site's powerful search engine to locate textbooks, then use its state-of-the-art encryption system for secure transactions. Presently, VarsityBooks.com offers comprehensive booklists for more than 50 of the largest colleges and universities across the country. This featured list of universities is growing rapidly and is expected to triple in upcoming semesters. The VarsityBooks.com Web site also includes a "mega" search engine, to allow anyone access to the large discounts while purchasing their books.
Source: PRNewswire 1/19
Pearson Hangs Out the For Sale Signs
Pearson plc the international media group, is to put a number of its reference and business & professional publishing operations up for sale. The businesses are Jossey-Bass; the General and Library Reference businesses of Macmillan publishing; Master Data Center; Prentice Hall Direct; Appleton & Lange; and the Bureau of Business Practice. In 1997, these businesses made, in total, sales of some $250 million. They were acquired by Pearson last November as part of its $4.6 billion dollar acquisition of the Simon & Schuster education, reference and business & professional operations. Pearson has merged the Simon & Schuster education businesses with Addison Wesley Longman to create Pearson Education, the world's leading educational publishing business. Macmillan Computer Publishing and Macmillan Digital Publishing also form part of the new Pearson Education business.
Source: PRNewswire 1/25/98
Thursday, January 15, 1998
The Power of Content Management For Publishers
January, 1998
If there was one message repeated most often at the Seybold conference in San Francisco in September 1997, it was that publishers must fundamentally change their editorial and production processes to separate content from format in order to best take advantage of all publishing mediums. Today's book and magazine publishers traditionally produce printed product, but they do not separate the content of what they produce from the format in which it appears. Hence, they do not derive the benefit of a catalogue of content which can easily be manipulated and produced in another format. In order to take advantage of all that the on-line publishing environment has to offer, this change in philosophy is of paramount importance.
The Philosophy
The new environment which electronic and on-line publishing has created demands that publishers change their focus from a production orientation to a customer service focus. At a recent industry conference, James Lichtenburg, past vice president of the Higher Education Division of the Association of American Publishers (AAP) commented: "Why force the purchase of a single commodity, instead of providing a range of value-laden services which is required by an increasingly diverse customer?" Currently, publishers see themselves as creators of fixed and static products produced via formula on specific dates for broadly defined markets. This 'formulaic' approach to publishing will not cut it in the on-line world. More aggressive, creative companies have already realized this, such as My Yahoo, Motley Fool and others who are allowing more flexibility and added value for their users.
Traditional publishers have so far been conservative in their approach to on-line publishing. Assembly of material has become a cost bottleneck within companies as two staffs have developed to support the print product and the on-line/electronic versions. As Walter Purvis of Banta commented, "There is a mismatch between the demands of the Web and current print production workflows -- print department workflows need to be integrated with the rest of the business but enabling software doesn't allow it." According to Purvis, "What exists is a hodgepodge of cobbled together systems for content management and repurposing."
The requirements for new systems and a new process approach to how material is produced is paramount if traditional publishers expect to take advantage of on-line publishing.
"Picking Strawberries" - A Costly Problem
Where are publishers in defining the extent of their problems (or opportunities)? One of the speakers at Seybold referred to publishing content as 'stranded assets' residing on individual hard drives, in file drawers, on film, in libraries, etc. These 'assets' have been estimated to understate the value of some companies by as much as 15% (Joe Casabianca, Media Management Association). At Nestle, Inc., an internal content management study found 1,500 images (slides) of a strawberry, an ever-increasing number of photos which had been commissioned at various worldwide offices to create marketing material for their cereal. Banta cites the example of a catalogue publisher whose staff would spend 30-40 minutes to find individual selections in their paper-based catalogue (for price changes, corrections, etc.). With the creation of a new content management database, these searches now take seconds.
Lost Intellectual Capital
If you look at the material produced for a book or magazine, it is clear that the final outcome is but a minute portion of the total work produced for that product. The final book represents the top of a 'pyramid of information' and is the only real identifiable representation of the effort that went into the production of this product. Clearly, there was significant other work not catalogued which was completed during this project but which is now essentially 'lost'. Workers may have good intentions of using this unused material, but generally the cost of finding it at the appropriate time outweighs the costs of recreating it. Additionally, e-mails, meeting notes, marketing plans, budgets and forecasts, etc. - the record of the creation of the product -- are either gone or are dispersed across the enterprise and of little collective use to anyone. Artists' proofs, manuscripts and edits, photos, etc., all become 'stranded assets.' The intellectual capital lost in these instances is unmeasured -- until someone has to find something or reproduce it.
The Task
Publishers, in general, have made little progress in changing the way they produce their products. In order to take true advantage of their content, publishers will be required to develop an asset cataloguing system and a project management approach to managing publishing projects. At the 1997 Frankfurt Book Fair, the Association of American Publishers (AAP) announced an initiative to attach a 'license plate' to publishing property. This Digital Object Identifier (DOI) will identify the publisher of the property (owner), catalogue products at whatever level the publisher determines and allow for transactions of the material with payments and royalties accounted for appropriately.
The AAP will recommend how this cataloguing process should work so that all publishers use the same 'meta data' terminology and methodology. Meta data constitutes the information about the product such as the owner, royalty terms, author, artist, etc., - a list which is defined by the publisher. What is assumed in the above is that a book or title will have only one DOI number attributed to that material -- in fact, each book may have hundreds of DOI numbers associated with it. Currently, every book created by a publisher carries an ISBN (International Standard Book Number) and this is used by booksellers, publishers and others to identify the book. The DOI will allow material within that book to be identified down to the paragraph, sentence or word level. Currently, when a college professor requests permission to copy a chapter from a textbook, this becomes a nightmare for those that have to account for the transaction.
It is not always clear which of the often multiple contributors to the book wrote the chapter in question. Often, royalty rates per author differ depending on how the material was purchased, and generally the accounting for this exercise must be done manually (and often more than once). The DOI will automate this process. Publishers must think differently as to what constitutes a unit or product, moving beyond thinking of files and documents (finished books and magazines), which should be viewed as simply containers of information.
Of course, DOI and the establishment of meta data based cataloguing systems only help going forward. A big question surrounds legacy data -- how you economically use this content in a digital workflow. Digitizing legacy data is a huge expense consideration. Moreover, it is widely viewed that you will only ever need five percent of this data … unfortunately, you just don't know which five percent. Publishers are advised to consider carefully their approach to digitizing legacy data.
Reevaluation and Change
Established, traditional publishers need to augment their publishing product with service based products, unique customer driven products, database management and the ability to transact business. Product differentiation and the ability to leverage content through avenues not previously considered will be 'enabled' via new processes, making the development of new products across media and within the same media much easier. Many consumer products companies have proven that the key to brand growth is product differentiation, yet, to date, publishers have only had limited success in this area. This new content production process will have three components:
A significant by-product of this approach will also be the strengthening of publishers' brand names and images. By separating content from format, new material generated by an author or other source then resides catalogued in a database, ready to be re-purposed into a book, CD-ROM, on-line version, magazine, or produced to a printer. These changes require new project management and workflow management tools, an archiving methodology (new and legacy data), and the installation of wide area networking - Intranet solutions to allow universal access.
At the Seybold conference, Bill Gates of Microsoft stated that "not only is the cost of [technology] ownership going down, but the value [owners] are getting out of these systems is constantly rising." Publishing is a prime example of this in that the movement to a content management philosophy is the next step in the Desk Top Publishing (DTP) revolution which brought publishing companies from razor blades and mark-up pens to electronic workflows. Gates fully recognizes the competitive advantage to be gained by developing databases of digital content and says that "companies that move information around electronically will be more competitive than companies that do not." He believes that those traditional publishers who do not move in this direction now will not be around to discuss it later.
There needs to be a systematic approach to developing new processes within these companies to take advantage of new media opportunities. In the future, successful publishers will be those which view themselves as content developers and managers rather than (only) book or magazine publishers. Only with a production approach which separates the content from the format and which is supported by processes to enable the adaptation of that content into various formats as required by customers, will traditional publishers be able to take advantage of all future opportunities.
A speaker at the Seybold conference commented that "publishing currently fails to predictably satisfy customers and achieve businesses' objectives" because mass publishing is very hit or miss. Harry McQuillen, when at Macmillan Publishing Company, used to say (tongue-in-cheek) before every budget meeting that "you can never plan for bestsellers." Perhaps in the future, by building products to satisfy individual needs rather than producing products for the masses, publishing will grow more predictable. This, in turn, however, will only come from an ability to manipulate content libraries for specific purposes.
If there was one message repeated most often at the Seybold conference in San Francisco in September 1997, it was that publishers must fundamentally change their editorial and production processes to separate content from format in order to best take advantage of all publishing mediums. Today's book and magazine publishers traditionally produce printed product, but they do not separate the content of what they produce from the format in which it appears. Hence, they do not derive the benefit of a catalogue of content which can easily be manipulated and produced in another format. In order to take advantage of all that the on-line publishing environment has to offer, this change in philosophy is of paramount importance.
The Philosophy
The new environment which electronic and on-line publishing has created demands that publishers change their focus from a production orientation to a customer service focus. At a recent industry conference, James Lichtenburg, past vice president of the Higher Education Division of the Association of American Publishers (AAP) commented: "Why force the purchase of a single commodity, instead of providing a range of value-laden services which is required by an increasingly diverse customer?" Currently, publishers see themselves as creators of fixed and static products produced via formula on specific dates for broadly defined markets. This 'formulaic' approach to publishing will not cut it in the on-line world. More aggressive, creative companies have already realized this, such as My Yahoo, Motley Fool and others who are allowing more flexibility and added value for their users.
Traditional publishers have so far been conservative in their approach to on-line publishing. Assembly of material has become a cost bottleneck within companies as two staffs have developed to support the print product and the on-line/electronic versions. As Walter Purvis of Banta commented, "There is a mismatch between the demands of the Web and current print production workflows -- print department workflows need to be integrated with the rest of the business but enabling software doesn't allow it." According to Purvis, "What exists is a hodgepodge of cobbled together systems for content management and repurposing."
The requirements for new systems and a new process approach to how material is produced is paramount if traditional publishers expect to take advantage of on-line publishing.
"Picking Strawberries" - A Costly Problem
Where are publishers in defining the extent of their problems (or opportunities)? One of the speakers at Seybold referred to publishing content as 'stranded assets' residing on individual hard drives, in file drawers, on film, in libraries, etc. These 'assets' have been estimated to understate the value of some companies by as much as 15% (Joe Casabianca, Media Management Association). At Nestle, Inc., an internal content management study found 1,500 images (slides) of a strawberry, an ever-increasing number of photos which had been commissioned at various worldwide offices to create marketing material for their cereal. Banta cites the example of a catalogue publisher whose staff would spend 30-40 minutes to find individual selections in their paper-based catalogue (for price changes, corrections, etc.). With the creation of a new content management database, these searches now take seconds.
Lost Intellectual Capital
If you look at the material produced for a book or magazine, it is clear that the final outcome is but a minute portion of the total work produced for that product. The final book represents the top of a 'pyramid of information' and is the only real identifiable representation of the effort that went into the production of this product. Clearly, there was significant other work not catalogued which was completed during this project but which is now essentially 'lost'. Workers may have good intentions of using this unused material, but generally the cost of finding it at the appropriate time outweighs the costs of recreating it. Additionally, e-mails, meeting notes, marketing plans, budgets and forecasts, etc. - the record of the creation of the product -- are either gone or are dispersed across the enterprise and of little collective use to anyone. Artists' proofs, manuscripts and edits, photos, etc., all become 'stranded assets.' The intellectual capital lost in these instances is unmeasured -- until someone has to find something or reproduce it.
The Task
Publishers, in general, have made little progress in changing the way they produce their products. In order to take true advantage of their content, publishers will be required to develop an asset cataloguing system and a project management approach to managing publishing projects. At the 1997 Frankfurt Book Fair, the Association of American Publishers (AAP) announced an initiative to attach a 'license plate' to publishing property. This Digital Object Identifier (DOI) will identify the publisher of the property (owner), catalogue products at whatever level the publisher determines and allow for transactions of the material with payments and royalties accounted for appropriately.
The AAP will recommend how this cataloguing process should work so that all publishers use the same 'meta data' terminology and methodology. Meta data constitutes the information about the product such as the owner, royalty terms, author, artist, etc., - a list which is defined by the publisher. What is assumed in the above is that a book or title will have only one DOI number attributed to that material -- in fact, each book may have hundreds of DOI numbers associated with it. Currently, every book created by a publisher carries an ISBN (International Standard Book Number) and this is used by booksellers, publishers and others to identify the book. The DOI will allow material within that book to be identified down to the paragraph, sentence or word level. Currently, when a college professor requests permission to copy a chapter from a textbook, this becomes a nightmare for those that have to account for the transaction.
It is not always clear which of the often multiple contributors to the book wrote the chapter in question. Often, royalty rates per author differ depending on how the material was purchased, and generally the accounting for this exercise must be done manually (and often more than once). The DOI will automate this process. Publishers must think differently as to what constitutes a unit or product, moving beyond thinking of files and documents (finished books and magazines), which should be viewed as simply containers of information.
Of course, DOI and the establishment of meta data based cataloguing systems only help going forward. A big question surrounds legacy data -- how you economically use this content in a digital workflow. Digitizing legacy data is a huge expense consideration. Moreover, it is widely viewed that you will only ever need five percent of this data … unfortunately, you just don't know which five percent. Publishers are advised to consider carefully their approach to digitizing legacy data.
Reevaluation and Change
Established, traditional publishers need to augment their publishing product with service based products, unique customer driven products, database management and the ability to transact business. Product differentiation and the ability to leverage content through avenues not previously considered will be 'enabled' via new processes, making the development of new products across media and within the same media much easier. Many consumer products companies have proven that the key to brand growth is product differentiation, yet, to date, publishers have only had limited success in this area. This new content production process will have three components:
- Single point of entry:
A single point of access to, retrieval of, and contribution to the content database, best achieved via an Intranet solution. All material relevant to a 'project' would reside in a database including the content and work related material such as e-mails, contracts, drafts, budgets, royalty and rights information. - Uniform data entry:
Data needs to be structured or catalogued in a format which is easily understood and largely automatic. While cataloguing data at the source will be the most effective 'capture' method, it will be difficult to convince some groups to do this (especially authors). As far as possible, meta data should be associated with content automatically at the source. This methodology must also be universal (i.e., DOI) so that commerce is not impeded by confusing and conflicting catalogue methods. - 'Extrapolation':
The ability to build new products and services from the use of the content, thereby also refreshing the content. Publishers, as masters of their content, can significantly increase the value of their brand names and profit margins by facilitating product differentiation in multiple formats.
A significant by-product of this approach will also be the strengthening of publishers' brand names and images. By separating content from format, new material generated by an author or other source then resides catalogued in a database, ready to be re-purposed into a book, CD-ROM, on-line version, magazine, or produced to a printer. These changes require new project management and workflow management tools, an archiving methodology (new and legacy data), and the installation of wide area networking - Intranet solutions to allow universal access.
At the Seybold conference, Bill Gates of Microsoft stated that "not only is the cost of [technology] ownership going down, but the value [owners] are getting out of these systems is constantly rising." Publishing is a prime example of this in that the movement to a content management philosophy is the next step in the Desk Top Publishing (DTP) revolution which brought publishing companies from razor blades and mark-up pens to electronic workflows. Gates fully recognizes the competitive advantage to be gained by developing databases of digital content and says that "companies that move information around electronically will be more competitive than companies that do not." He believes that those traditional publishers who do not move in this direction now will not be around to discuss it later.
There needs to be a systematic approach to developing new processes within these companies to take advantage of new media opportunities. In the future, successful publishers will be those which view themselves as content developers and managers rather than (only) book or magazine publishers. Only with a production approach which separates the content from the format and which is supported by processes to enable the adaptation of that content into various formats as required by customers, will traditional publishers be able to take advantage of all future opportunities.
A speaker at the Seybold conference commented that "publishing currently fails to predictably satisfy customers and achieve businesses' objectives" because mass publishing is very hit or miss. Harry McQuillen, when at Macmillan Publishing Company, used to say (tongue-in-cheek) before every budget meeting that "you can never plan for bestsellers." Perhaps in the future, by building products to satisfy individual needs rather than producing products for the masses, publishing will grow more predictable. This, in turn, however, will only come from an ability to manipulate content libraries for specific purposes.
Sunday, December 28, 1997
12/28/97: Barnes Noble, Pearson, Readers Digest, Scholastic
Summary:
Sun Media Corporation IPO
Readers Digest Annual Meeting: No Family Affair
For the Kids, Scholastic Says 'So Long, SOHO'
Board Changes at Pearson plc
Starwood to sell ITT directories unit for $2.1 billion
Town & Country
Knight-Ridder, NYT Report Online Losses
Barnes & Noble, AOL Make Deal
RECENT NEWS
Sun Media Corporation IPO
TORONTO, Dec. 3 /CNW-PRN/ - Sun Media Corporation announced that it has filed a prospectus with the securities regulatory authorities in each of the provinces of Canada for a combined initial public offering and secondary offering of approximately 23 million common shares in such provinces at a price of $13.50 per share. Sun Media is the second largest daily newspaper publishing group in Canada in terms of circulation and currently publishes five daily newspapers in major urban centers in Canada (The Toronto Sun, The Edmonton Sun, The Calgary Sun, The Ottawa Sun and The London Free Press) and The Financial Post, which is 80% owned by Sun Media. Sun Media's Community Newspaper Group also publishes five daily community newspapers, 80 weekly community newspapers and shopping guides in Canada and in Florida and 17 farming and other specialty publications. SOURCE Sun Media Corporation
Readers Digest Annual Meeting: No Family Affair
Reader's Digest held its annual shareholders meeting last week and, unlike many of the 75-year old company's publications, it was far from family fare. Angry shareholders complained about flagging share prices, fiscal irresponsibility and ineffective leadership, according to Reuters. Among the complaints: the company reportedly borrowed $100 million this year to pay out a 90 cent dividend. Under questioning, the company reportedly admitted that it actually had not earned its dividend for the past three years. Meanwhile chairman and CEO George Grune urged dissenters to be patient. As part of a promised turn-around, he reportedly said the company was re-evaluating its business alliances with Meredith Corp., PBS, Sears, Roebuck and Co., Spiegel Inc. and Avon Products Inc.
The company also was lambasted for its aging board. For example, one shareholder reportedly singled out board member Melvin Laird who, at 75, was the U.S. Secretary of State under former President Richard M. Nixon. The company paid Laird $400,000 for consulting services last year. Mediacentral: 12/16
For the Kids, Scholastic Says 'So Long, SOHO' (Folio: First Day)
Scholastic Corp. certainly is serious about this core-business-focus stuff that corporations are always prattling about in their life-imitates-Dilbert manner. To hear Scholastic executive VP Hugh Roome tell it, the $1-billion children's publisher will unburden itself of several profitable operations when it completes the sale of its SOHO Group [small office/home office] to privately held CurtCo Freedom Group in the next four weeks. The plum properties in the deal, announced last Thursday and valued at $20 million, are Home Office Computing -- launched 15 years ago by Scholastic as Family Computing -- and HOC offshoot Small Business Computing.
Roome, hired by New York-based Scholastic seven years ago to re-launch Family Computing as HOC, says that both HOC and SBC are profitable; so, he said, is Scholastic's six-year-old SOHO Custom Publishing unit. Its projects have included Small Business, produced for Microsoft, and Small Business Handbook, of which it sold 100,000 copies to AT&T. The unit also puts out four newsletters with total circulation of 2 million. Other properties acquired by CurtCo include HOC Online (www.smalloffice.com), which Roome said has sold out its banner-ad space 18 months running. Roome said the SOHO Group's 50-odd employees will move to Curt Co's expanding offices on West 56th Street in Manhattan and that he doesn't believe any of those personnel will be cut. In its announcement of the acquisition, the privately held CurtCo, based in Malibu, CA, pointed to the "synergy" Scholastic's SOHO Group has with such CurtCo magazines -- it publishes 21 along with 27 daily newspapers -- as Portable Computing Direct Shopper, Mobile Computing & Communications and Sales & Field Force Automation.
HOC's paid circulation rose by 2.4% to 461,353, thanks to a 20,000-plus increase in subscriptions to 441,000 in the first six months of 1997 compared with the first half of '96, according to the Audit Bureau of Circulation’s. Single-copy sales averaged 20,361, a 32% decline. Ad pages through November totaled 903, a 1.5% improvement over 890 in the first 11 months of '96; ad dollars rose 15.8% to $22.4 million from $19.4 million, according to Publishers Information Bureau. Small Business Computing, launched in January 1996, has controlled circulation of 140,000. CurtCo president and CEO William J. Curtis didn't return calls from First Day, but Roome said CurtCo "has intentions to expand the magazines' circulation’s in many dimensions and build other spin-off properties."
Sources familiar with the transaction's history said bidders for Scholastic's SOHO Group at one time or another have included Inc. magazine and Cowles Business Media. Roome acknowledges that it received unsolicited bids for the SOHO Group four years ago; at that time, those same sources said, the SOHO Group could have fetched a much higher price. New York investment banking firms DeSilva & Phillips Inc. and Veronis, Suhler & Associates Inc. represented CurtCo and Scholastic, respectively, in the transaction. (Neil Cassidy) Source: Mediacentral 12/15
Board Changes at Pearson plc
David Veit and Pehr Gyllenhammar are to step down from the board of directors of Pearson plc. David Veit, 59, an executive director and president of Pearson Inc, will retire at the company’s annual general meeting next May. He has been a Pearson director since 1981 and the senior Pearson executive in the United States for more than twenty years. Pehr Gyllenhammar, 62, who has been a non-executive director since 1983, will retire from the board at the end of December 1997. Source: Pearson plc 17th December 1997
Starwood to sell ITT directories unit for $2.1 billion
NEW YORK, Dec 18 (Reuters) - Starwood Lodging Trust, the victor in one of the year's biggest takeover fights, began on Thursday to break apart its prize. The real estate and hotel investment trust announced plans to sell ITT Corp.'s highly-profitable telephone directories business for $2.1 billion to Dutch publisher NV Verenigd Bezit VNU (OTC BB:VNUNY - news; VNUN.AS). The sale, which is contingent upon the completion of the proposed $10.2 billion ITT-Starwood transaction, came sooner than expected and is the first of several non-core assets expected to be sold by Starwood. Phoenix-based Starwood said it would use proceeds of the sale to reduce debt associated with the acquisition of ITT.
VNU, one of the world's largest information companies, is the dominant publisher of consumer magazines in the Netherlands and Belgium. It said the directories business had sales of about $545 million last year and earnings before interest, taxes and depreciation of about $178 million. ``This fits very well with our present portfolio. Half of (ITT World Directories) is aimed at the consumer, but the other half is aimed at the business to business segment,'' VNU Chief Financial Officer Frans Cremers said in Amsterdam. The Dutch firm was one of several companies that had expressed interest to ITT earlier this year when it was selling assets to defend itself against Hilton's hostile bid. ITT later abandoned that plan and sealed a transaction with Starwood. Although the unit has strong profit margins, it is a slow-growth business and was not considered to be a core asset for either ITT or Starwood.
VNU also publishes newspapers in the Netherlands and is active in business information in the United States and Europe. Cremers said in an interview that the ITT directories business was about evenly split between consumer and professional markets, like VNU itself. ``We are committed to both sectors. We want to grow in three areas: marketing information, trade journals and consumer information,'' he said. Cremers said VNU also had been attracted to ITT World Directories because the company.
For Those Last Minute Gifts… Town & Country's Top Ten Gift Ideas for the Holiday Season
Addressing different aspects of life such as beauty, kitchen and home, clothing and charity, Editor-in-Chief Pamela Fiori suggests imaginative gifts in a variety of price ranges. With that in mind, her favorite beauty picks include: --Estee Lauder Re-Nutriv Intensive Lifting Cream ($150) --Annick Goutal Eau d'Hadrian in a Baccarat bottle ($550) --Bliss Spa Gift Basket ($50-$200); call 888/243-8825 Kitchen and Home. Among Fiori's suggestions for the domestic sphere are: --Fresh caviar from Caviarteria --Aluminum cultivator from Smith & Hawken ($7) --Magafesa Rapid II 8 quart pressure cooker ($109) --Hurrell's Hollywood Portraits (Abrams, $39.95). Classic clothing and accessories, can have added panache when special attention is paid to choosing unique fabrics or decorations. to bring an imaginative touch to these standards try: --Anything cashmere --Costume Brooches, Art Deco Jewels ($65). With respect to charity; "Giving to a charity of a favorite cause unites friends and family in the true holiday spirit -- thinking of others," states Fiori. She suggests: --A donation to the African Wildlife Foundation (202-939-3333) or the Nature Conservancy (800-628-6860) in a friend's name.
ON-LINE NEWS:
Knight-Ridder, NYT Report Online Losses
Both Knight-Ridder and The New York Times reported tens of millions of dollars in losses for their New Media ventures for 1997 at the Paine Webber Media Conference here in New York. Yet both companies emphasized their optimism that revenues will increase next year, with possible profitability by 2000. Knight-Ridder will spend about $27 million this year on its 32 web sites but will take in only $11 million in revenue, according to chairman P. Anthony Ridder. Outlays for next year probably will be the same if not higher, but revenue also is expected to grow. Meanwhile the Internet is a valuable investment, said Ridder, pointing to his San Jose Mercury News, which has a daily circulation of 287,000 while drawing 1.2 million readers a month to its Web site. Knight-Ridder also is talking with the Tribune Co. and Washington Post about developing their online real estate and auto classified businesses. Knight-Ridder may part in the real estate portion, but Ridder said his company is not interested in becoming the third, full partner in the effort. Ridder said that he was "disappointed" with this year's debut of the New Century Network -- nine major newspapers sharing a common Web site aimed at luring national advertisers online -- and is looking at ways improve the site. Meanwhile, The Times expects a $12 million to $15 million loss for 1997 and an $8 million to $11 million loss next year, when it will launch its New York Today local content Web site and broaden its Boston Globe (http://www.boston.com) site. Despite its red ink, The Times' Web site (http://www.nytimes.com) has nearly 3 million registered users and is growing at the rate of about 200,000 users per month. Source: Mediacentral 12/12/1997
Barnes & Noble, AOL Make Deal
Barnes & Noble on Tuesday said it is paying America Online $40 million to be the exclusive seller of books on the nation's largest online service, shutting out Amazon.com and other major sellers of books on the Internet. Amazon.com, based in Seattle, is not currently promoting its books across America Online's network. But the Barnes & Noble Inc. deal locks up AOL for the next four years and expands where the bookseller can show ads, including the service's financial, travel and entertainment sites, and with its international subscribers.
The deal is the latest this year with America Online Inc., which has staked its future profits on revenues from advertisers. In exchange for helping to promote their products, the Dulles, Va.-based company is receiving more than $225 million from companies including CUC International Inc., a buying club, and Tel-Save Holdings Inc., a seller of long-distance telephone service.
By clicking on the Barnes & Noble icon, AOL's 10 million subscribers can link up to the company's Internet site and order books. "Effectively it gives us great positioning, locks out the competition, and gives us the next four years" of exclusive advertising, Barnes & Noble vice chairman Steve Riggio said. An Amazon.com did not immediately return a phone call seeking comment. America Online declined to comment. Amazon.com continues to sell books over AOL's World Wide Web site. December 16, 1997 By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Sun Media Corporation IPO
Readers Digest Annual Meeting: No Family Affair
For the Kids, Scholastic Says 'So Long, SOHO'
Board Changes at Pearson plc
Starwood to sell ITT directories unit for $2.1 billion
Town & Country
Knight-Ridder, NYT Report Online Losses
Barnes & Noble, AOL Make Deal
RECENT NEWS
Sun Media Corporation IPO
TORONTO, Dec. 3 /CNW-PRN/ - Sun Media Corporation announced that it has filed a prospectus with the securities regulatory authorities in each of the provinces of Canada for a combined initial public offering and secondary offering of approximately 23 million common shares in such provinces at a price of $13.50 per share. Sun Media is the second largest daily newspaper publishing group in Canada in terms of circulation and currently publishes five daily newspapers in major urban centers in Canada (The Toronto Sun, The Edmonton Sun, The Calgary Sun, The Ottawa Sun and The London Free Press) and The Financial Post, which is 80% owned by Sun Media. Sun Media's Community Newspaper Group also publishes five daily community newspapers, 80 weekly community newspapers and shopping guides in Canada and in Florida and 17 farming and other specialty publications. SOURCE Sun Media Corporation
Readers Digest Annual Meeting: No Family Affair
Reader's Digest held its annual shareholders meeting last week and, unlike many of the 75-year old company's publications, it was far from family fare. Angry shareholders complained about flagging share prices, fiscal irresponsibility and ineffective leadership, according to Reuters. Among the complaints: the company reportedly borrowed $100 million this year to pay out a 90 cent dividend. Under questioning, the company reportedly admitted that it actually had not earned its dividend for the past three years. Meanwhile chairman and CEO George Grune urged dissenters to be patient. As part of a promised turn-around, he reportedly said the company was re-evaluating its business alliances with Meredith Corp., PBS, Sears, Roebuck and Co., Spiegel Inc. and Avon Products Inc.
The company also was lambasted for its aging board. For example, one shareholder reportedly singled out board member Melvin Laird who, at 75, was the U.S. Secretary of State under former President Richard M. Nixon. The company paid Laird $400,000 for consulting services last year. Mediacentral: 12/16
For the Kids, Scholastic Says 'So Long, SOHO' (Folio: First Day)
Scholastic Corp. certainly is serious about this core-business-focus stuff that corporations are always prattling about in their life-imitates-Dilbert manner. To hear Scholastic executive VP Hugh Roome tell it, the $1-billion children's publisher will unburden itself of several profitable operations when it completes the sale of its SOHO Group [small office/home office] to privately held CurtCo Freedom Group in the next four weeks. The plum properties in the deal, announced last Thursday and valued at $20 million, are Home Office Computing -- launched 15 years ago by Scholastic as Family Computing -- and HOC offshoot Small Business Computing.
Roome, hired by New York-based Scholastic seven years ago to re-launch Family Computing as HOC, says that both HOC and SBC are profitable; so, he said, is Scholastic's six-year-old SOHO Custom Publishing unit. Its projects have included Small Business, produced for Microsoft, and Small Business Handbook, of which it sold 100,000 copies to AT&T. The unit also puts out four newsletters with total circulation of 2 million. Other properties acquired by CurtCo include HOC Online (www.smalloffice.com), which Roome said has sold out its banner-ad space 18 months running. Roome said the SOHO Group's 50-odd employees will move to Curt Co's expanding offices on West 56th Street in Manhattan and that he doesn't believe any of those personnel will be cut. In its announcement of the acquisition, the privately held CurtCo, based in Malibu, CA, pointed to the "synergy" Scholastic's SOHO Group has with such CurtCo magazines -- it publishes 21 along with 27 daily newspapers -- as Portable Computing Direct Shopper, Mobile Computing & Communications and Sales & Field Force Automation.
HOC's paid circulation rose by 2.4% to 461,353, thanks to a 20,000-plus increase in subscriptions to 441,000 in the first six months of 1997 compared with the first half of '96, according to the Audit Bureau of Circulation’s. Single-copy sales averaged 20,361, a 32% decline. Ad pages through November totaled 903, a 1.5% improvement over 890 in the first 11 months of '96; ad dollars rose 15.8% to $22.4 million from $19.4 million, according to Publishers Information Bureau. Small Business Computing, launched in January 1996, has controlled circulation of 140,000. CurtCo president and CEO William J. Curtis didn't return calls from First Day, but Roome said CurtCo "has intentions to expand the magazines' circulation’s in many dimensions and build other spin-off properties."
Sources familiar with the transaction's history said bidders for Scholastic's SOHO Group at one time or another have included Inc. magazine and Cowles Business Media. Roome acknowledges that it received unsolicited bids for the SOHO Group four years ago; at that time, those same sources said, the SOHO Group could have fetched a much higher price. New York investment banking firms DeSilva & Phillips Inc. and Veronis, Suhler & Associates Inc. represented CurtCo and Scholastic, respectively, in the transaction. (Neil Cassidy) Source: Mediacentral 12/15
Board Changes at Pearson plc
David Veit and Pehr Gyllenhammar are to step down from the board of directors of Pearson plc. David Veit, 59, an executive director and president of Pearson Inc, will retire at the company’s annual general meeting next May. He has been a Pearson director since 1981 and the senior Pearson executive in the United States for more than twenty years. Pehr Gyllenhammar, 62, who has been a non-executive director since 1983, will retire from the board at the end of December 1997. Source: Pearson plc 17th December 1997
Starwood to sell ITT directories unit for $2.1 billion
NEW YORK, Dec 18 (Reuters) - Starwood Lodging Trust, the victor in one of the year's biggest takeover fights, began on Thursday to break apart its prize. The real estate and hotel investment trust announced plans to sell ITT Corp.'s highly-profitable telephone directories business for $2.1 billion to Dutch publisher NV Verenigd Bezit VNU (OTC BB:VNUNY - news; VNUN.AS). The sale, which is contingent upon the completion of the proposed $10.2 billion ITT-Starwood transaction, came sooner than expected and is the first of several non-core assets expected to be sold by Starwood. Phoenix-based Starwood said it would use proceeds of the sale to reduce debt associated with the acquisition of ITT.
VNU, one of the world's largest information companies, is the dominant publisher of consumer magazines in the Netherlands and Belgium. It said the directories business had sales of about $545 million last year and earnings before interest, taxes and depreciation of about $178 million. ``This fits very well with our present portfolio. Half of (ITT World Directories) is aimed at the consumer, but the other half is aimed at the business to business segment,'' VNU Chief Financial Officer Frans Cremers said in Amsterdam. The Dutch firm was one of several companies that had expressed interest to ITT earlier this year when it was selling assets to defend itself against Hilton's hostile bid. ITT later abandoned that plan and sealed a transaction with Starwood. Although the unit has strong profit margins, it is a slow-growth business and was not considered to be a core asset for either ITT or Starwood.
VNU also publishes newspapers in the Netherlands and is active in business information in the United States and Europe. Cremers said in an interview that the ITT directories business was about evenly split between consumer and professional markets, like VNU itself. ``We are committed to both sectors. We want to grow in three areas: marketing information, trade journals and consumer information,'' he said. Cremers said VNU also had been attracted to ITT World Directories because the company.
For Those Last Minute Gifts… Town & Country's Top Ten Gift Ideas for the Holiday Season
Addressing different aspects of life such as beauty, kitchen and home, clothing and charity, Editor-in-Chief Pamela Fiori suggests imaginative gifts in a variety of price ranges. With that in mind, her favorite beauty picks include: --Estee Lauder Re-Nutriv Intensive Lifting Cream ($150) --Annick Goutal Eau d'Hadrian in a Baccarat bottle ($550) --Bliss Spa Gift Basket ($50-$200); call 888/243-8825 Kitchen and Home. Among Fiori's suggestions for the domestic sphere are: --Fresh caviar from Caviarteria --Aluminum cultivator from Smith & Hawken ($7) --Magafesa Rapid II 8 quart pressure cooker ($109) --Hurrell's Hollywood Portraits (Abrams, $39.95). Classic clothing and accessories, can have added panache when special attention is paid to choosing unique fabrics or decorations. to bring an imaginative touch to these standards try: --Anything cashmere --Costume Brooches, Art Deco Jewels ($65). With respect to charity; "Giving to a charity of a favorite cause unites friends and family in the true holiday spirit -- thinking of others," states Fiori. She suggests: --A donation to the African Wildlife Foundation (202-939-3333) or the Nature Conservancy (800-628-6860) in a friend's name.
ON-LINE NEWS:
Knight-Ridder, NYT Report Online Losses
Both Knight-Ridder and The New York Times reported tens of millions of dollars in losses for their New Media ventures for 1997 at the Paine Webber Media Conference here in New York. Yet both companies emphasized their optimism that revenues will increase next year, with possible profitability by 2000. Knight-Ridder will spend about $27 million this year on its 32 web sites but will take in only $11 million in revenue, according to chairman P. Anthony Ridder. Outlays for next year probably will be the same if not higher, but revenue also is expected to grow. Meanwhile the Internet is a valuable investment, said Ridder, pointing to his San Jose Mercury News, which has a daily circulation of 287,000 while drawing 1.2 million readers a month to its Web site. Knight-Ridder also is talking with the Tribune Co. and Washington Post about developing their online real estate and auto classified businesses. Knight-Ridder may part in the real estate portion, but Ridder said his company is not interested in becoming the third, full partner in the effort. Ridder said that he was "disappointed" with this year's debut of the New Century Network -- nine major newspapers sharing a common Web site aimed at luring national advertisers online -- and is looking at ways improve the site. Meanwhile, The Times expects a $12 million to $15 million loss for 1997 and an $8 million to $11 million loss next year, when it will launch its New York Today local content Web site and broaden its Boston Globe (http://www.boston.com) site. Despite its red ink, The Times' Web site (http://www.nytimes.com) has nearly 3 million registered users and is growing at the rate of about 200,000 users per month. Source: Mediacentral 12/12/1997
Barnes & Noble, AOL Make Deal
Barnes & Noble on Tuesday said it is paying America Online $40 million to be the exclusive seller of books on the nation's largest online service, shutting out Amazon.com and other major sellers of books on the Internet. Amazon.com, based in Seattle, is not currently promoting its books across America Online's network. But the Barnes & Noble Inc. deal locks up AOL for the next four years and expands where the bookseller can show ads, including the service's financial, travel and entertainment sites, and with its international subscribers.
The deal is the latest this year with America Online Inc., which has staked its future profits on revenues from advertisers. In exchange for helping to promote their products, the Dulles, Va.-based company is receiving more than $225 million from companies including CUC International Inc., a buying club, and Tel-Save Holdings Inc., a seller of long-distance telephone service.
By clicking on the Barnes & Noble icon, AOL's 10 million subscribers can link up to the company's Internet site and order books. "Effectively it gives us great positioning, locks out the competition, and gives us the next four years" of exclusive advertising, Barnes & Noble vice chairman Steve Riggio said. An Amazon.com did not immediately return a phone call seeking comment. America Online declined to comment. Amazon.com continues to sell books over AOL's World Wide Web site. December 16, 1997 By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Wednesday, December 10, 1997
12/10/97: Reader's Digest, Reed Elsevier, Kluwer, Thomson
Summary
Shareholder Unrest Brewing At Reader's Digest
Dow Jones Teams Up With NBC: Companies Hope to Stem Losses Abroad With TV-Internet Partnership
Wolters Plans Acquisition Of Thomson Publications
Penguin Putnam Inc. Announces Publishing Partnership With DreamWorks SKG
Thomson Financial Publishing to Expand Electronic Commerce Initiatives
Harcourt General Announces Results For Fourth Quarter And Full Year
Reed Elsevier: Update on Trading and on Progress on Proposed Merger with Wolters Kluwer:
National Geographic Chief Quits: John Fahey Moves Up in Society as Reg Murphy Suddenly Moves Out
Wolters Kluwer Reed Elsevier
New York Times Says It Plans Acquisition In 1999
RECENT NEWS
Shareholder Unrest Brewing At Reader's Digest
(Book Publishing Report) A minority shareholder is going forward with its bid to place two candidates on the Reader's Digest board of directors, despite the fact that the company has politely refused its request. Making matters worse for Reader's Digest-which will hold what could be a fractious annual meeting this Friday (12th)-is the fact that shareholder Corporate Value Partners has chosen to conduct its efforts publicly. The shareholder discord is just the latest problem to beset Reader's Digest, which has been struggling to reverse an alarming drop in its financial performance caused by a steadily eroding customer base (BPR, Aug. 18). BPR has learned that Barbara Morgan, senior vice president and editor in chief of the company's Books and Home Entertainment Products division, is leaving the company. The division's operating income sank 37.5% to $201.1 million on revenues that fell 11.9% to $1.85 billion in fiscal 1997, ended June 30. Morgan is the latest in a series of executive departures that began with chief executive officer James Schadt's forced resignation in August. Since then, CFO Stephen Wilson, senior VP of strategic planning Glenda Burkhart, senior VP and general counsel Paul Soden and RD Europe president Martin Pearson have also left.
Dow Jones Teams Up With NBC: Companies Hope to Stem Losses Abroad With TV-Internet Partnership
After a year of talks, media giants Dow Jones & Co. and General Electric Co.'s NBC division announced today that they will form a global television and Internet partnership cementing the brands internationally and tempering losses both companies are experiencing in their overseas operations. The merger will consolidate the two companies' business-news channels in Europe and Asia -- cutting costs and expanding each side's distribution -- while also adding Dow Jones news, and perhaps interviews with its Wall Street Journal reporters, to CNBC's programming in the United States. Dow Jones lost $48 million in its television ventures last year, while NBC 's subsidiary CNBC lost $15 million in Asia. NBC will pay a licensing fee to Dow Jones but did not disclose how much. CNBC will now be known both domestically and internationally as "a service of NBC and Dow Jones. For Dow Jones, the alliance comes at a time when Kann is under intense pressure from the company's board to curtail money-losing operations. Revenue from this deal, as well as the cash from several recent deals to license the well-known market barometer Dow Jones industrial average as a vehicle for the trading of futures and options contracts, will enhance the company's bottom line. But Kann's larger problem, analysts said, is Dow Jones Markets, the real-time news and data service formerly known as Telerate, which is losing market share to competing services run by Reuters Holdings PLC and Bloomberg Financial Markets. Kann announced a controversial plan in January to spend $650 million to revive the ailing unit, which drew the ire of shareholders and certain members of the Bancroft family, which controls 70 percent of the voting shares of Dow Jones stock and has four of the 15 seats on the company's board of directors. After pressure from outsiders and a fresh look at the plan by Dow Jones's board, the company changed course and announced it was "exploring options" regarding Dow Jones Markets, including the sale of the unit. "It has got to be sold," said Michael Price, the influential money manager who holds 4.1 million shares of Dow Jones stock and has been pushing the company since January to sell the flagging unit. Still, one of the things Kann has been criticized for is not doing enough to leverage the Dow Jones franchise as a premiere provider of financial news. Today's deal will help give the company a worldwide television platform to showcase its stories. CNBC will have worldwide television rights to Dow Jones stories and plans to set up studios at the Wall Street Journal's headquarters in the World Financial Center in downtown Manhattan. For NBC , the move strengthens its CNBC subsidiary, which is accessible in 65 million households and is projecting a $100 million profit this year. On the Internet, the Web site run by MSNBC -- an existing NBC -Microsoft Corp. joint venture -- will provide highlights from the Wall Street Journal, flagged under the CNBC/Dow Jones logo. As part of today's deal, Dow Jones acquired a third of MSNBC Business Video, which delivers video clips from corporate speeches and conferences to clients' computers. Both NBC and Dow Jones acknowledged that fourth-quarter earnings may be pinched by restructuring costs related to today's announcement. December 10, 1997 Copyright (c) 1997 The Washington Post Received via NewsEDGE
Wolters Plans Acquisition Of Thomson Publications
AMSTERDAM -- Dutch publisher Wolters Kluwer NV said it agreed to acquire scientific and medical publisher Thomson Science from Thomson Corp. of Canada. Wolters Kluwer didn't provide financial details of the planned transaction. However, the company said it expects the deal to be completed around the end of the year. Wolters said a significant number of Thomson Science's medical publications fit well with those of Wolters' U.S. medical publisher Lippincott-Raven, while its general scientific publications complement those of Wolters Kluwer Academic Publishing. Wolters said the acquisition won't include the German medical and scientific publications of Thomson Science. Wolters Kluwer's core activities include the legal, medical, educational, and other scientific and professional fields. Its principal operations are in the U.S. and eight European countries including Spain, Italy, Germany and France. Copyright (c) 1997 Dow Jones and Company, Inc.
Penguin Putnam Inc. Announces Publishing Partnership With DreamWorks SKG
NEW YORK, Dec. 9 Penguin Putnam Inc. has signed a multi- year strategic license agreement with DreamWorks Consumer Products, it was announced today by Douglas Whiteman, Executive Vice President of Penguin Putnam. The deal grants Penguin Putnam publishing rights for at least the first five animated feature films for DreamWorks Pictures, as well as the option to propose publishing programs for other DreamWorks properties, including live action motion pictures, animated and live action TV programs and direct-to-video films. Penguin Putnam's rights encompass most book formats with a suggested retail price of $4.00 and above. Penguin Putnam is currently working on more than two dozen titles in support of the 1997-1998 motion pictures set for release from DreamWorks Pictures. The first four books shipped in early November and are based on the film Amistad, directed by Steven Spielberg. Penguin Putnam is also developing a range of titles and formats for Small Soldiers (Summer 1998). Directed by Joe Dante (Gremlins, Innerspace) and with special effects from Stan Winston Studio and Industrial Light & Magic (The Lost World: Jurassic Park), the film tells the story of a small town that is overtaken by artificially intelligent toys. Grosset & Dunlap plans six titles, including a movie storybook and a top secret dossier, all capturing the innovative look of the film. In support of DreamWorks' first animated film The Prince of Egypt (Holiday 1998), Penguin Putnam is developing titles in at least a dozen formats, with age-appropriate content for both adults and children, and honoring the ground-breaking animation style of the film. SOURCE Penguin Putnam Inc via Businesswire
Thomson Financial Publishing to Expand Electronic Commerce Initiatives
Thomson Financial Services announced today the acquisition of The EDI Group, Ltd. by its Thomson Financial Publishing unit. Terms of the agreement were not disclosed. The EDI Group is a professional services organization specializing in providing the highest quality research, publication and education services to companies participating in the EDI and Electronic Commerce marketplace. The EDI Group also offers public and private courses in EDI, EC and financial EDI/EFT. In addition, The EDI Group publishes quarterly a professional journal; EDI FORUM: The Journal of Electronic Commerce. Source Businesswire
Harcourt General Announces Results For Fourth Quarter And Full Year
Harcourt General, Inc. (NYSE:H) today reported that its Harcourt Brace publishing businesses achieved strong year-over-year gains in the fourth quarter of fiscal 1997, resulting in a record full-year performance by the Company before non-recurring charges and amortization associated with the acquisition of National Education Corporation (NEC). For the full year, Harcourt General reported that revenues rose 12.2 percent to $3.69 billion from $3.29 billion in 1996. Before NEC-related amortization of goodwill and acquired intangibles and non-recurring charges, operating earnings for the year were $375.7 million, a 9.0 percent increase from $344.7 million in 1996. After $104.1 million in NEC-related amortization of goodwill and acquired intangible assets and $277.2 million in non-recurring charges, the Company had an operating loss in 1997 of $5.7 million. The Company reported a net loss of $115.1 million, or $1.64 per share, for the full year, compared to net income of $190.9 million, or $2.62 per share in 1996. Revenues in the Harcourt Brace publishing operations increased 12.8 percent in the fourth quarter to $398.0 million, while operating earnings were up 22.3 percent to $97.0 million. For the full year, Harcourt Brace publishing revenues increased 14.5 percent to $1.25 billion, with operating earnings before non-recurring charges rising 13.3 percent to $223.1 million.
Reed Elsevier: Update on Trading and on Progress on Proposed Merger with Wolters Kluwer: Reed Elsevier today issues a brief status report on the progress of the proposed merger of Reed Elsevier with Wolters Kluwer and, in line with the practice introduced last year, an update on recent trading and some other material issues. Proposed Merger with Wolters Kluwer: "On 13 October 1997, the Boards of Reed International P.L.C., Elsevier NV and Wolters Kluwer NV announced that they had agreed in principle to propose to their respective shareholders a merger of their businesses. Progress continues to be made in developing the detailed merger proposals. The major steps implemented so far have included relevant employee consultation processes in the Netherlands, as well as the filing of necessary information with the competition authorities in various jurisdictions. "It is expected that, subject to receiving certain regulatory clearances, a circular to the shareholders of Reed, Elsevier and Wolters Kluwer, setting out details of the proposed merger will be issued on 27 March 1998 together with the respective 1997 annual reports. IPC Magazines: "On 27 October 1997, Reed Elsevier announced the possible divestment of IPC Magazines, its UK consumer magazines business. Review of the available options is continuing and if it is decided to pursue such a divestment, it is intended that any transaction would be concluded early in 1998. Update on Reed Elsevier’s Trading: "In September we completed the $447 million acquisition of the Chilton Business Group, a major US business to business publisher. Also, in October, we agreed a merger between Utell, our hotel reservation and representation business, and the US company, Anasazi Inc., which is the leading supplier of technology solutions to the hotel and hospitality market. "Reed Elsevier’s 1997 preliminary results will contain a number of exceptional items, the most significant of which will be substantial provisions in respect of the Reed Travel Group. Since the announcement, on 26 September 1997, of irregularities in circulation claims made by the Reed Travel Group, considerable progress has been made in determining the extent of the misstatements and in developing recompense plans for advertisers in the affected publications. Revised sales and marketing practices have already been introduced and circulation claims are now being rigorously controlled. "It is not possible at this stage in the process to quantify either the full financial effect of the recompense plans or the impact on the future profitability of the Reed Travel Group and the related value of its intangible assets. The exceptional charges will be in relation to the recompense plans, together with a non-cash write-down of intangible asset values. Source: Reed Elsevier
National Geographic Chief Quits: John Fahey Moves Up in Society as Reg Murphy Suddenly Moves Out
The National Geographic Society's chief executive resigned yesterday, only 18 months after taking the top job at the venerable Washington educational and publishing organization. Reg Murphy said he had been planning the move all along and dismissed any suggestions of dissension in his departure. He had been the society's No. 2 executive since 1993. During his tenure, Murphy, 63, a former newspaper publisher, aggressively cut costs and steered the nonprofit society toward profit-making ventures, such as producing dramatic TV movies and starting a chain of National Geographic stores. He also launched new foreign-language editions of the society's famed yellow-bordered magazine in one of the biggest expansion pushes in the publication's 109-year history. The strategic changes made Murphy a controversial figure within the society, a genteel, tradition-bound outfit that has long projected a semi-academic air. Murphy's successor, appointed by the society's board yesterday, is John Fahey, who joined National Geographic just 20 months ago from Time-Life, the direct-marketing arm of Time Warner . Fahey, 45, was recruited by Murphy from Time-Life in Alexandria to run National Geographic Ventures, the for-profit subsidiary Murphy started in 1995. The management changes represent a swift transition at an institution not known for moving quickly. They underscore the ascendancy of executives who've come from outside the organization and have a keener eye on the bottom line. Fahey takes over at a time when the society is in relatively strong shape. Circulation of its flagship magazine, which lost readers throughout much of the 1980s, has stabilized at about 9 million subscribers, who receive the magazine by becoming dues-paying "members" of the society. Its major growth area is its television operations. National Geographic Television produces documentaries and nature programs appearing on NBC and the TBS and Disney Channel cable networks. It has also moved into making dramatic movies for theatrical and broadcast distribution. Its first dramatic offering, "Forbidden Territory: Stanley's Search for Livingstone," was broadcast on ABC Sunday. Copyright (c) 1997 The Washington Post Received via NewsEDGE
Wolters Kluwer Reed Elsevier
The European Union Commission Friday opened a detailed four-month inquiry into the planned merger of Anglo-Dutch publisher Reed Elsevier (N.ELS, U.REE) and Dutch publisher Wolters Kluwer NV (N.WOK), an E.U. source said. Via Newsedge
New York Times Says It Plans Acquisition In 1999
The New York Times Co. said Thursday that it was ``counting on an acquisition to provide considerable future growth'' sometime in 1999. The company also predicted increases in revenues and operating profits, and its stock rose to a 52-week high. ``The next step in our external development plan is to bring an investment banker on board'' to examine potential properties, the company's president and chief executive, Russell T. Lewis, said at a New York conference of investors, sponsored by Paine Webber. But Lewis added that he did not ``anticipate any significant developments in this area until 1999.'' The Times also disclosed that it planned a new section of technology news called Circuits in February and that it would publish seven to nine special one-time sections in 1998. In addition, the company made its earnings predictions, reporting that operating profit for the newspaper group, its largest division, was expected to rise 35 percent from last year to between $430 million and $440 million. The Times also said that earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization were expected to rise 30 percent, to between $590 million and $600 million. The Times Co., which had revenues of $2.6 billion in 1996, publishes The Boston Globe and 21 regional newspapers in addition to The New York Times, as well as three magazines. The company also operates television and radio stations
Copyright (c) 1997 The New York Times Co. Received via NewsEDGE from Desktop Data, Inc.
Shareholder Unrest Brewing At Reader's Digest
Dow Jones Teams Up With NBC: Companies Hope to Stem Losses Abroad With TV-Internet Partnership
Wolters Plans Acquisition Of Thomson Publications
Penguin Putnam Inc. Announces Publishing Partnership With DreamWorks SKG
Thomson Financial Publishing to Expand Electronic Commerce Initiatives
Harcourt General Announces Results For Fourth Quarter And Full Year
Reed Elsevier: Update on Trading and on Progress on Proposed Merger with Wolters Kluwer:
National Geographic Chief Quits: John Fahey Moves Up in Society as Reg Murphy Suddenly Moves Out
Wolters Kluwer Reed Elsevier
New York Times Says It Plans Acquisition In 1999
RECENT NEWS
Shareholder Unrest Brewing At Reader's Digest
(Book Publishing Report) A minority shareholder is going forward with its bid to place two candidates on the Reader's Digest board of directors, despite the fact that the company has politely refused its request. Making matters worse for Reader's Digest-which will hold what could be a fractious annual meeting this Friday (12th)-is the fact that shareholder Corporate Value Partners has chosen to conduct its efforts publicly. The shareholder discord is just the latest problem to beset Reader's Digest, which has been struggling to reverse an alarming drop in its financial performance caused by a steadily eroding customer base (BPR, Aug. 18). BPR has learned that Barbara Morgan, senior vice president and editor in chief of the company's Books and Home Entertainment Products division, is leaving the company. The division's operating income sank 37.5% to $201.1 million on revenues that fell 11.9% to $1.85 billion in fiscal 1997, ended June 30. Morgan is the latest in a series of executive departures that began with chief executive officer James Schadt's forced resignation in August. Since then, CFO Stephen Wilson, senior VP of strategic planning Glenda Burkhart, senior VP and general counsel Paul Soden and RD Europe president Martin Pearson have also left.
Dow Jones Teams Up With NBC: Companies Hope to Stem Losses Abroad With TV-Internet Partnership
After a year of talks, media giants Dow Jones & Co. and General Electric Co.'s NBC division announced today that they will form a global television and Internet partnership cementing the brands internationally and tempering losses both companies are experiencing in their overseas operations. The merger will consolidate the two companies' business-news channels in Europe and Asia -- cutting costs and expanding each side's distribution -- while also adding Dow Jones news, and perhaps interviews with its Wall Street Journal reporters, to CNBC's programming in the United States. Dow Jones lost $48 million in its television ventures last year, while NBC 's subsidiary CNBC lost $15 million in Asia. NBC will pay a licensing fee to Dow Jones but did not disclose how much. CNBC will now be known both domestically and internationally as "a service of NBC and Dow Jones. For Dow Jones, the alliance comes at a time when Kann is under intense pressure from the company's board to curtail money-losing operations. Revenue from this deal, as well as the cash from several recent deals to license the well-known market barometer Dow Jones industrial average as a vehicle for the trading of futures and options contracts, will enhance the company's bottom line. But Kann's larger problem, analysts said, is Dow Jones Markets, the real-time news and data service formerly known as Telerate, which is losing market share to competing services run by Reuters Holdings PLC and Bloomberg Financial Markets. Kann announced a controversial plan in January to spend $650 million to revive the ailing unit, which drew the ire of shareholders and certain members of the Bancroft family, which controls 70 percent of the voting shares of Dow Jones stock and has four of the 15 seats on the company's board of directors. After pressure from outsiders and a fresh look at the plan by Dow Jones's board, the company changed course and announced it was "exploring options" regarding Dow Jones Markets, including the sale of the unit. "It has got to be sold," said Michael Price, the influential money manager who holds 4.1 million shares of Dow Jones stock and has been pushing the company since January to sell the flagging unit. Still, one of the things Kann has been criticized for is not doing enough to leverage the Dow Jones franchise as a premiere provider of financial news. Today's deal will help give the company a worldwide television platform to showcase its stories. CNBC will have worldwide television rights to Dow Jones stories and plans to set up studios at the Wall Street Journal's headquarters in the World Financial Center in downtown Manhattan. For NBC , the move strengthens its CNBC subsidiary, which is accessible in 65 million households and is projecting a $100 million profit this year. On the Internet, the Web site run by MSNBC -- an existing NBC -Microsoft Corp. joint venture -- will provide highlights from the Wall Street Journal, flagged under the CNBC/Dow Jones logo. As part of today's deal, Dow Jones acquired a third of MSNBC Business Video, which delivers video clips from corporate speeches and conferences to clients' computers. Both NBC and Dow Jones acknowledged that fourth-quarter earnings may be pinched by restructuring costs related to today's announcement. December 10, 1997 Copyright (c) 1997 The Washington Post Received via NewsEDGE
Wolters Plans Acquisition Of Thomson Publications
AMSTERDAM -- Dutch publisher Wolters Kluwer NV said it agreed to acquire scientific and medical publisher Thomson Science from Thomson Corp. of Canada. Wolters Kluwer didn't provide financial details of the planned transaction. However, the company said it expects the deal to be completed around the end of the year. Wolters said a significant number of Thomson Science's medical publications fit well with those of Wolters' U.S. medical publisher Lippincott-Raven, while its general scientific publications complement those of Wolters Kluwer Academic Publishing. Wolters said the acquisition won't include the German medical and scientific publications of Thomson Science. Wolters Kluwer's core activities include the legal, medical, educational, and other scientific and professional fields. Its principal operations are in the U.S. and eight European countries including Spain, Italy, Germany and France. Copyright (c) 1997 Dow Jones and Company, Inc.
Penguin Putnam Inc. Announces Publishing Partnership With DreamWorks SKG
NEW YORK, Dec. 9 Penguin Putnam Inc. has signed a multi- year strategic license agreement with DreamWorks Consumer Products, it was announced today by Douglas Whiteman, Executive Vice President of Penguin Putnam. The deal grants Penguin Putnam publishing rights for at least the first five animated feature films for DreamWorks Pictures, as well as the option to propose publishing programs for other DreamWorks properties, including live action motion pictures, animated and live action TV programs and direct-to-video films. Penguin Putnam's rights encompass most book formats with a suggested retail price of $4.00 and above. Penguin Putnam is currently working on more than two dozen titles in support of the 1997-1998 motion pictures set for release from DreamWorks Pictures. The first four books shipped in early November and are based on the film Amistad, directed by Steven Spielberg. Penguin Putnam is also developing a range of titles and formats for Small Soldiers (Summer 1998). Directed by Joe Dante (Gremlins, Innerspace) and with special effects from Stan Winston Studio and Industrial Light & Magic (The Lost World: Jurassic Park), the film tells the story of a small town that is overtaken by artificially intelligent toys. Grosset & Dunlap plans six titles, including a movie storybook and a top secret dossier, all capturing the innovative look of the film. In support of DreamWorks' first animated film The Prince of Egypt (Holiday 1998), Penguin Putnam is developing titles in at least a dozen formats, with age-appropriate content for both adults and children, and honoring the ground-breaking animation style of the film. SOURCE Penguin Putnam Inc via Businesswire
Thomson Financial Publishing to Expand Electronic Commerce Initiatives
Thomson Financial Services announced today the acquisition of The EDI Group, Ltd. by its Thomson Financial Publishing unit. Terms of the agreement were not disclosed. The EDI Group is a professional services organization specializing in providing the highest quality research, publication and education services to companies participating in the EDI and Electronic Commerce marketplace. The EDI Group also offers public and private courses in EDI, EC and financial EDI/EFT. In addition, The EDI Group publishes quarterly a professional journal; EDI FORUM: The Journal of Electronic Commerce. Source Businesswire
Harcourt General Announces Results For Fourth Quarter And Full Year
Harcourt General, Inc. (NYSE:H) today reported that its Harcourt Brace publishing businesses achieved strong year-over-year gains in the fourth quarter of fiscal 1997, resulting in a record full-year performance by the Company before non-recurring charges and amortization associated with the acquisition of National Education Corporation (NEC). For the full year, Harcourt General reported that revenues rose 12.2 percent to $3.69 billion from $3.29 billion in 1996. Before NEC-related amortization of goodwill and acquired intangibles and non-recurring charges, operating earnings for the year were $375.7 million, a 9.0 percent increase from $344.7 million in 1996. After $104.1 million in NEC-related amortization of goodwill and acquired intangible assets and $277.2 million in non-recurring charges, the Company had an operating loss in 1997 of $5.7 million. The Company reported a net loss of $115.1 million, or $1.64 per share, for the full year, compared to net income of $190.9 million, or $2.62 per share in 1996. Revenues in the Harcourt Brace publishing operations increased 12.8 percent in the fourth quarter to $398.0 million, while operating earnings were up 22.3 percent to $97.0 million. For the full year, Harcourt Brace publishing revenues increased 14.5 percent to $1.25 billion, with operating earnings before non-recurring charges rising 13.3 percent to $223.1 million.
Reed Elsevier: Update on Trading and on Progress on Proposed Merger with Wolters Kluwer: Reed Elsevier today issues a brief status report on the progress of the proposed merger of Reed Elsevier with Wolters Kluwer and, in line with the practice introduced last year, an update on recent trading and some other material issues. Proposed Merger with Wolters Kluwer: "On 13 October 1997, the Boards of Reed International P.L.C., Elsevier NV and Wolters Kluwer NV announced that they had agreed in principle to propose to their respective shareholders a merger of their businesses. Progress continues to be made in developing the detailed merger proposals. The major steps implemented so far have included relevant employee consultation processes in the Netherlands, as well as the filing of necessary information with the competition authorities in various jurisdictions. "It is expected that, subject to receiving certain regulatory clearances, a circular to the shareholders of Reed, Elsevier and Wolters Kluwer, setting out details of the proposed merger will be issued on 27 March 1998 together with the respective 1997 annual reports. IPC Magazines: "On 27 October 1997, Reed Elsevier announced the possible divestment of IPC Magazines, its UK consumer magazines business. Review of the available options is continuing and if it is decided to pursue such a divestment, it is intended that any transaction would be concluded early in 1998. Update on Reed Elsevier’s Trading: "In September we completed the $447 million acquisition of the Chilton Business Group, a major US business to business publisher. Also, in October, we agreed a merger between Utell, our hotel reservation and representation business, and the US company, Anasazi Inc., which is the leading supplier of technology solutions to the hotel and hospitality market. "Reed Elsevier’s 1997 preliminary results will contain a number of exceptional items, the most significant of which will be substantial provisions in respect of the Reed Travel Group. Since the announcement, on 26 September 1997, of irregularities in circulation claims made by the Reed Travel Group, considerable progress has been made in determining the extent of the misstatements and in developing recompense plans for advertisers in the affected publications. Revised sales and marketing practices have already been introduced and circulation claims are now being rigorously controlled. "It is not possible at this stage in the process to quantify either the full financial effect of the recompense plans or the impact on the future profitability of the Reed Travel Group and the related value of its intangible assets. The exceptional charges will be in relation to the recompense plans, together with a non-cash write-down of intangible asset values. Source: Reed Elsevier
National Geographic Chief Quits: John Fahey Moves Up in Society as Reg Murphy Suddenly Moves Out
The National Geographic Society's chief executive resigned yesterday, only 18 months after taking the top job at the venerable Washington educational and publishing organization. Reg Murphy said he had been planning the move all along and dismissed any suggestions of dissension in his departure. He had been the society's No. 2 executive since 1993. During his tenure, Murphy, 63, a former newspaper publisher, aggressively cut costs and steered the nonprofit society toward profit-making ventures, such as producing dramatic TV movies and starting a chain of National Geographic stores. He also launched new foreign-language editions of the society's famed yellow-bordered magazine in one of the biggest expansion pushes in the publication's 109-year history. The strategic changes made Murphy a controversial figure within the society, a genteel, tradition-bound outfit that has long projected a semi-academic air. Murphy's successor, appointed by the society's board yesterday, is John Fahey, who joined National Geographic just 20 months ago from Time-Life, the direct-marketing arm of Time Warner . Fahey, 45, was recruited by Murphy from Time-Life in Alexandria to run National Geographic Ventures, the for-profit subsidiary Murphy started in 1995. The management changes represent a swift transition at an institution not known for moving quickly. They underscore the ascendancy of executives who've come from outside the organization and have a keener eye on the bottom line. Fahey takes over at a time when the society is in relatively strong shape. Circulation of its flagship magazine, which lost readers throughout much of the 1980s, has stabilized at about 9 million subscribers, who receive the magazine by becoming dues-paying "members" of the society. Its major growth area is its television operations. National Geographic Television produces documentaries and nature programs appearing on NBC and the TBS and Disney Channel cable networks. It has also moved into making dramatic movies for theatrical and broadcast distribution. Its first dramatic offering, "Forbidden Territory: Stanley's Search for Livingstone," was broadcast on ABC Sunday. Copyright (c) 1997 The Washington Post Received via NewsEDGE
Wolters Kluwer Reed Elsevier
The European Union Commission Friday opened a detailed four-month inquiry into the planned merger of Anglo-Dutch publisher Reed Elsevier (N.ELS, U.REE) and Dutch publisher Wolters Kluwer NV (N.WOK), an E.U. source said. Via Newsedge
New York Times Says It Plans Acquisition In 1999
The New York Times Co. said Thursday that it was ``counting on an acquisition to provide considerable future growth'' sometime in 1999. The company also predicted increases in revenues and operating profits, and its stock rose to a 52-week high. ``The next step in our external development plan is to bring an investment banker on board'' to examine potential properties, the company's president and chief executive, Russell T. Lewis, said at a New York conference of investors, sponsored by Paine Webber. But Lewis added that he did not ``anticipate any significant developments in this area until 1999.'' The Times also disclosed that it planned a new section of technology news called Circuits in February and that it would publish seven to nine special one-time sections in 1998. In addition, the company made its earnings predictions, reporting that operating profit for the newspaper group, its largest division, was expected to rise 35 percent from last year to between $430 million and $440 million. The Times also said that earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization were expected to rise 30 percent, to between $590 million and $600 million. The Times Co., which had revenues of $2.6 billion in 1996, publishes The Boston Globe and 21 regional newspapers in addition to The New York Times, as well as three magazines. The company also operates television and radio stations
Copyright (c) 1997 The New York Times Co. Received via NewsEDGE from Desktop Data, Inc.
Friday, December 05, 1997
12/5/97: Dialog, Tribune, Thomson, Reuters, Reed Elsevier
Summary:
Dialog To Offer Free Services To Investors
Tribune-Review Publishing Company Acquires North Hills News Record And Valley News Dispatch
Advance Publications Inc Newspaper Purchase
United News Considers Selling Regional Papers
Thomson Financial Services' Asian Publishing Business Acquires Philip Jay Publishing
Newspapers Expecting 'Strongest Year In A Decade'
L.A. Daily News Goes To Denver Post
Reuters Reorg Big Payday For Shareholders
Simon & Schuster To Feature New Authors On Authorlink.Com
Ziff-Davis
Reed Elsevier
RECENT NEWS:
DIALOG TO OFFER FREE SERVICES TO INVESTORS
DIALOG CORPORATION, the online information company, is to offer some of its services free to armchair investors through a deal with Institutional Investor International (III), the Website operator. The venture, which was planned before MAID and Knight-Ridder Information merged to become Dialog, will give III's 100,000 Internet users free access to headlines and summaries from 4,000 news sources. The limited service, which will include share prices, will be freely available through III's Internet site, http://www.iii.co.uk. Full articles will be available for a £1 charge, with the proceeds split between the two companies. From February, the Website will offer real-time prices from London, New York and Nasdaq, fuelling a free sector which analysts say could challenge the lower end of the market held by the likes of Bloomberg and Reuters. The enlarged Website should be complete within two weeks, when it will become the first service in the world to combine information about pensions, life insurance and stock market prices. Dialog, which draws its customers almost exclusively from large institutions, hopes the move will give it access to small-time investors who may not be willing to pay the basic £6,000 annual subscription for its full service. MAID's new subscriptions tailed off while it was discussing the merger, leading to a third-quarter pre-tax loss of £592,000 (£2.42 million loss), it said yesterday. Sales were £7.37 million (£5.18 million). The loss for the quarter was 0.33p (2.62p loss) per share. NEW YORK, Dec. 1 /PRNewswire/ -- BY SUSAN EMMETT AND FRASER NELSON
TRIBUNE-REVIEW PUBLISHING COMPANY ACQUIRES NORTH HILLS NEWS RECORD AND VALLEY NEWS DISPATCH
PITTSBURGH, Dec. 1 /PRNewswire/ -- On the heels of the opening of its $43 million NewsWorks production center in Marshall Township last month, the Tribune-Review Publishing Company has announced an agreement to acquire two newspaper properties from Gannett Publishing Co., Inc. The North Hills News Record and the Valley News Dispatch, both of which publish evening and Sunday newspapers, join the growing list of newspapers owned by the Tribune-Review Publishing Company. (Three former Thomson newspapers joined the Company in May of this year.) Effective immediately, the newspapers will become subsidiaries of the Company, and Larry Jock, formerly publisher of the Valley News Dispatch, will serve as general manager of both publications. The purchase includes a long-term agreement under which the regional editions of USA Today and Baseball Weekly will be printed at the Company's NewsWorks production center. The Tribune-Review Publishing Company publishes the Tribune-Review, Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, Standard Observer, The Daily Courier., The Valley Independent, Leader Times, and The Dispatch (Blairsville). Source: Tribune-Review Publishing Company
ADVANCE PUBLICATIONS INC NEWSPAPER PURCHASE.
Advance Publications Inc. plans to acquire 23 weekly Ohio newspapers from Sun Newspapers for an undisclosed amount, reported the Associated Press. The deal is to close in January. Advance's newspapers include the Star-Ledger in Newark, NJ. The company also publishes consumer magazines including the New Yorker and Vogue, 36 weekly business journals and owns book publisher Random House.
UNITED NEWS CONSIDERS SELLING REGIONAL PAPERS ----
LONDON -- United News & Media PLC may sell its U.K. regional newspapers, fetching an estimated (STG)400 million ($674 million) or more. United News confirmed that prospective buyers have approached it, but said it may also retain the newspapers, which include the Yorkshire Post. "The board confirms that it has received a number of approaches from third parties indicating their interests in acquiring these businesses," United News said. "The board is considering a range of alternatives, including the further development of its regional newspaper businesses." WJEviaNewsEDGE Copyright (c) 1997 Dow Jones and Company, Inc.
THOMSON FINANCIAL SERVICES' ASIAN PUBLISHING BUSINESS ACQUIRES PHILIP JAY PUBLISHING BUSINESS
(BUSINESS WIRE)--Dec. 3, 1997-- Thomson Financial Services today announced the acquisition of Philip Jay Publishing, which will be folded into its Asian Publishing business. Terms of the agreement were not disclosed. "The acquisition of Philip Jay Publishing is part of our strategy to become Asia's leading financial publisher," said Adam Bryan. "Philip's titles can capitalize on the marketing opportunities presented by our regional and international titles. It also provides us with expertise to create a new range of print-based products to serve our growing customer base in Asia's financial sector. Philip has been very successful in developing a strong client list among the local finance houses, thus providing a good complement to our current customer base in the international financial sector." Reporting into Adam Bryan, newly appointed managing director of Thomson's Asian Publishing business based in Hong Kong, the Philip Jay acquisition provides strong growth opportunities and expanded market reach for the Asian publishing group. Run by local Hong Kong entrepreneur, Philip Jay, the company has been successfully publishing directories on the Asian financial sector for more than seven years. Its core products include The Asia Pacific Securities Handbook, The Greater China Banking Directory, The China Securities Handbook and The Asia Pacific Fixed Income and Debt Securities Directory. Thomson's Asian Publishing operations include such prestigious titles as IFR and IFR Asia, Finance Asia and Thomson Bankwatch. Its offices are located in Tokyo, Hong Kong, Singapore and Malaysia.
NEWSPAPERS EXPECTING 'STRONGEST YEAR IN A DECADE'
Total newspaper ad revenues rose 8.9%, to $29.31 billion, for the first three quarters of 1997 compared to the same period last year, according to an announcement made Tuesday by the Newspaper Association of America. By sector, national ad spending was said to be up for the nine months by 13.48%, to $3.956 billion; retail was up 6.25%, to $13.673 billion; while classified was up 10.72%, to $11.681 billion. "Third quarter growth (7.84%) was slower, as expected, due to the stronger growth in the second half of last year," acknowledged Miles Grove, the NAA's chief economist. "However, when coupled with a longer Christmas season for '97 we can expect the strongest year in a decade," he added. Last year 21.88% of all advertising dollars were spent on newspapers, compared to television's 20.7% share of the market. Mediacentral – Cowles Business Media
L.A. DAILY NEWS GOES TO DENVER POST
The Los Angeles Daily News has been acquired by MediaNews Group, the parent company of the Denver Post. The purchase price was not disclosed. The newspaper had been put up for sale in October by the family of its former owner, the late Jack Kent Cooke, who died in April. The acquisition makes MediaNews the eighth-largest newspaper publisher with 35 dailies and 106 nondailies. The Daily News, which has a circulation of 203,000 weekdays and 218,000 on Sundays, is MediaNews' 12th Californian daily. Observers expected the sale to fetch as much as $200 million to $250 million. At the time the prospective sale was announced, potential buyers were thought to be MediaNews, Rupert Murdoch's News Corp., Orange County Register-parent Freedom Communications and Toronto-based publisher Thomson Corp.
REUTERS REORG BIG PAYDAY FOR SHAREHOLDERS
Reuters announced on Thursday its plans to reorganize the company and return US$2.52 billion in surplus capital to shareholders. In addition the company said it would return up to another $336.2 million in an ongoing stock buyback plan through 1998. The reorg will result in the creation of a new holding company, Reuters Group PLC, which will acquire the existing Reuters Holdings PLC. Separately, in an interview with a Reuters reporter, company CEO Peter Job dismissed industry speculation that he might make an offer for the ailing Dow Jones Markets information services group. "First of all, there is probably a considerable anti-trust problem that would arise ... Secondly ... there is a great overlap in the two businesses," he reportedly said. The shareholder windfall was said to reflect the company's continued success.
ONLINE PUBLISHING NEWS:
FOR ALL YOU BUDDING AUTHORS…..SIMON & SCHUSTER TO FEATURE NEW AUTHORS ON AUTHORLINK.COM
NEW YORK, Dec. 2 /PRNewswire/ -- Simon & Schuster Online has become a key sponsor of Authorlink! (http://www.authorlink.com), the online information service for writers, editors and literary agents. One of the first major book publishers to partner with an online writers' service, Simon & Schuster will create a special section on the Authorlink's site to showcase new book releases, especially those by first-time authors. Authorlink! kicked off the program's first phase in November, with a live link to Simon & Schuster's Consumer Publishing website (http://www.SimonSays.com). Authorlink! is also featuring the newly released, revised edition of JOY OF COOKING through the holidays, to be followed by the special new author section. The 18-month-old Authorlink! has a loyal annual readership of more than 60,000 writers, editors and agents. In addition to featuring major publishing industry news, the site showcases and markets ready-to-publish manuscripts to the publishing industry. The service is currently sponsoring its first International New Author Awards Competition, in which nine New York editors and agents are finalist judges. Simon & Schuster Online, was formed in January 1996, to create a strategy for Simon & Schuster's consumer books and authors on the web. Simon & Schuster Online launched SimonSays.com, (http://www.SimonSays.com), in June 1996. The site, which provides an unparalleled level of reader interaction, is home to Simon & Schuster's Consumer 11,000+ titles and has successfully launched fan areas for many authors and brands including Star Trek Books, Mary Higgins Clark, Clive Cussler, Frank McCourt and most recently Joy of Cooking. SOURCE Simon & Schuster
PEOPLE IN THE NEWS:
Ziff-Davis today announced the promotion of Michael J. Miller to Executive Vice President and Editorial Director of ZD Publishing. Miller, who has been named one of the top computer journalists by Marketing Computers for three years in a row, will also retain his position as the Editor-in-Chief of PC Magazine. At the same time, Ziff-Davis announced the promotion of Kathleen Goodwin to Vice President of Marketing for ZD Publishing, and the expansion of the responsibilities of Tom McGrade, Executive Vice President, Business Operations, to include ZD Publishing's circulation and production departments. Michael Miller Claude Sheer, the President of ZD Publishing, said, "Michael is not only a leader among his peers within Ziff-Davis, he is also a well-respected journalist and industry advocate. PC Magazine has grown to a paid circulation of more than 1,175,000, more than any other computer publication or business magazine. SOURCE Ziff Davis
REED ELSEVIER
Reed Elsevier Inc. named Hans Gieskes president and chief executive of Lexis-Nexis. Reed Elsevier is jointly-owned by Reed International PLC (RUK) and Elsevier NV (ENL). In a press release Monday, Reed said Gieskes has been with the parent company for 19 years, most recently serving as vice chairman of the legal division. Gieskes will continues to lead Lexis Nexis' operations in Europe. DOW JONES NEWS
Dialog To Offer Free Services To Investors
Tribune-Review Publishing Company Acquires North Hills News Record And Valley News Dispatch
Advance Publications Inc Newspaper Purchase
United News Considers Selling Regional Papers
Thomson Financial Services' Asian Publishing Business Acquires Philip Jay Publishing
Newspapers Expecting 'Strongest Year In A Decade'
L.A. Daily News Goes To Denver Post
Reuters Reorg Big Payday For Shareholders
Simon & Schuster To Feature New Authors On Authorlink.Com
Ziff-Davis
Reed Elsevier
RECENT NEWS:
DIALOG TO OFFER FREE SERVICES TO INVESTORS
DIALOG CORPORATION, the online information company, is to offer some of its services free to armchair investors through a deal with Institutional Investor International (III), the Website operator. The venture, which was planned before MAID and Knight-Ridder Information merged to become Dialog, will give III's 100,000 Internet users free access to headlines and summaries from 4,000 news sources. The limited service, which will include share prices, will be freely available through III's Internet site, http://www.iii.co.uk. Full articles will be available for a £1 charge, with the proceeds split between the two companies. From February, the Website will offer real-time prices from London, New York and Nasdaq, fuelling a free sector which analysts say could challenge the lower end of the market held by the likes of Bloomberg and Reuters. The enlarged Website should be complete within two weeks, when it will become the first service in the world to combine information about pensions, life insurance and stock market prices. Dialog, which draws its customers almost exclusively from large institutions, hopes the move will give it access to small-time investors who may not be willing to pay the basic £6,000 annual subscription for its full service. MAID's new subscriptions tailed off while it was discussing the merger, leading to a third-quarter pre-tax loss of £592,000 (£2.42 million loss), it said yesterday. Sales were £7.37 million (£5.18 million). The loss for the quarter was 0.33p (2.62p loss) per share. NEW YORK, Dec. 1 /PRNewswire/ -- BY SUSAN EMMETT AND FRASER NELSON
TRIBUNE-REVIEW PUBLISHING COMPANY ACQUIRES NORTH HILLS NEWS RECORD AND VALLEY NEWS DISPATCH
PITTSBURGH, Dec. 1 /PRNewswire/ -- On the heels of the opening of its $43 million NewsWorks production center in Marshall Township last month, the Tribune-Review Publishing Company has announced an agreement to acquire two newspaper properties from Gannett Publishing Co., Inc. The North Hills News Record and the Valley News Dispatch, both of which publish evening and Sunday newspapers, join the growing list of newspapers owned by the Tribune-Review Publishing Company. (Three former Thomson newspapers joined the Company in May of this year.) Effective immediately, the newspapers will become subsidiaries of the Company, and Larry Jock, formerly publisher of the Valley News Dispatch, will serve as general manager of both publications. The purchase includes a long-term agreement under which the regional editions of USA Today and Baseball Weekly will be printed at the Company's NewsWorks production center. The Tribune-Review Publishing Company publishes the Tribune-Review, Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, Standard Observer, The Daily Courier., The Valley Independent, Leader Times, and The Dispatch (Blairsville). Source: Tribune-Review Publishing Company
ADVANCE PUBLICATIONS INC NEWSPAPER PURCHASE.
Advance Publications Inc. plans to acquire 23 weekly Ohio newspapers from Sun Newspapers for an undisclosed amount, reported the Associated Press. The deal is to close in January. Advance's newspapers include the Star-Ledger in Newark, NJ. The company also publishes consumer magazines including the New Yorker and Vogue, 36 weekly business journals and owns book publisher Random House.
UNITED NEWS CONSIDERS SELLING REGIONAL PAPERS ----
LONDON -- United News & Media PLC may sell its U.K. regional newspapers, fetching an estimated (STG)400 million ($674 million) or more. United News confirmed that prospective buyers have approached it, but said it may also retain the newspapers, which include the Yorkshire Post. "The board confirms that it has received a number of approaches from third parties indicating their interests in acquiring these businesses," United News said. "The board is considering a range of alternatives, including the further development of its regional newspaper businesses." WJEviaNewsEDGE Copyright (c) 1997 Dow Jones and Company, Inc.
THOMSON FINANCIAL SERVICES' ASIAN PUBLISHING BUSINESS ACQUIRES PHILIP JAY PUBLISHING BUSINESS
(BUSINESS WIRE)--Dec. 3, 1997-- Thomson Financial Services today announced the acquisition of Philip Jay Publishing, which will be folded into its Asian Publishing business. Terms of the agreement were not disclosed. "The acquisition of Philip Jay Publishing is part of our strategy to become Asia's leading financial publisher," said Adam Bryan. "Philip's titles can capitalize on the marketing opportunities presented by our regional and international titles. It also provides us with expertise to create a new range of print-based products to serve our growing customer base in Asia's financial sector. Philip has been very successful in developing a strong client list among the local finance houses, thus providing a good complement to our current customer base in the international financial sector." Reporting into Adam Bryan, newly appointed managing director of Thomson's Asian Publishing business based in Hong Kong, the Philip Jay acquisition provides strong growth opportunities and expanded market reach for the Asian publishing group. Run by local Hong Kong entrepreneur, Philip Jay, the company has been successfully publishing directories on the Asian financial sector for more than seven years. Its core products include The Asia Pacific Securities Handbook, The Greater China Banking Directory, The China Securities Handbook and The Asia Pacific Fixed Income and Debt Securities Directory. Thomson's Asian Publishing operations include such prestigious titles as IFR and IFR Asia, Finance Asia and Thomson Bankwatch. Its offices are located in Tokyo, Hong Kong, Singapore and Malaysia.
NEWSPAPERS EXPECTING 'STRONGEST YEAR IN A DECADE'
Total newspaper ad revenues rose 8.9%, to $29.31 billion, for the first three quarters of 1997 compared to the same period last year, according to an announcement made Tuesday by the Newspaper Association of America. By sector, national ad spending was said to be up for the nine months by 13.48%, to $3.956 billion; retail was up 6.25%, to $13.673 billion; while classified was up 10.72%, to $11.681 billion. "Third quarter growth (7.84%) was slower, as expected, due to the stronger growth in the second half of last year," acknowledged Miles Grove, the NAA's chief economist. "However, when coupled with a longer Christmas season for '97 we can expect the strongest year in a decade," he added. Last year 21.88% of all advertising dollars were spent on newspapers, compared to television's 20.7% share of the market. Mediacentral – Cowles Business Media
L.A. DAILY NEWS GOES TO DENVER POST
The Los Angeles Daily News has been acquired by MediaNews Group, the parent company of the Denver Post. The purchase price was not disclosed. The newspaper had been put up for sale in October by the family of its former owner, the late Jack Kent Cooke, who died in April. The acquisition makes MediaNews the eighth-largest newspaper publisher with 35 dailies and 106 nondailies. The Daily News, which has a circulation of 203,000 weekdays and 218,000 on Sundays, is MediaNews' 12th Californian daily. Observers expected the sale to fetch as much as $200 million to $250 million. At the time the prospective sale was announced, potential buyers were thought to be MediaNews, Rupert Murdoch's News Corp., Orange County Register-parent Freedom Communications and Toronto-based publisher Thomson Corp.
REUTERS REORG BIG PAYDAY FOR SHAREHOLDERS
Reuters announced on Thursday its plans to reorganize the company and return US$2.52 billion in surplus capital to shareholders. In addition the company said it would return up to another $336.2 million in an ongoing stock buyback plan through 1998. The reorg will result in the creation of a new holding company, Reuters Group PLC, which will acquire the existing Reuters Holdings PLC. Separately, in an interview with a Reuters reporter, company CEO Peter Job dismissed industry speculation that he might make an offer for the ailing Dow Jones Markets information services group. "First of all, there is probably a considerable anti-trust problem that would arise ... Secondly ... there is a great overlap in the two businesses," he reportedly said. The shareholder windfall was said to reflect the company's continued success.
ONLINE PUBLISHING NEWS:
FOR ALL YOU BUDDING AUTHORS…..SIMON & SCHUSTER TO FEATURE NEW AUTHORS ON AUTHORLINK.COM
NEW YORK, Dec. 2 /PRNewswire/ -- Simon & Schuster Online has become a key sponsor of Authorlink! (http://www.authorlink.com), the online information service for writers, editors and literary agents. One of the first major book publishers to partner with an online writers' service, Simon & Schuster will create a special section on the Authorlink's site to showcase new book releases, especially those by first-time authors. Authorlink! kicked off the program's first phase in November, with a live link to Simon & Schuster's Consumer Publishing website (http://www.SimonSays.com). Authorlink! is also featuring the newly released, revised edition of JOY OF COOKING through the holidays, to be followed by the special new author section. The 18-month-old Authorlink! has a loyal annual readership of more than 60,000 writers, editors and agents. In addition to featuring major publishing industry news, the site showcases and markets ready-to-publish manuscripts to the publishing industry. The service is currently sponsoring its first International New Author Awards Competition, in which nine New York editors and agents are finalist judges. Simon & Schuster Online, was formed in January 1996, to create a strategy for Simon & Schuster's consumer books and authors on the web. Simon & Schuster Online launched SimonSays.com, (http://www.SimonSays.com), in June 1996. The site, which provides an unparalleled level of reader interaction, is home to Simon & Schuster's Consumer 11,000+ titles and has successfully launched fan areas for many authors and brands including Star Trek Books, Mary Higgins Clark, Clive Cussler, Frank McCourt and most recently Joy of Cooking. SOURCE Simon & Schuster
PEOPLE IN THE NEWS:
Ziff-Davis today announced the promotion of Michael J. Miller to Executive Vice President and Editorial Director of ZD Publishing. Miller, who has been named one of the top computer journalists by Marketing Computers for three years in a row, will also retain his position as the Editor-in-Chief of PC Magazine. At the same time, Ziff-Davis announced the promotion of Kathleen Goodwin to Vice President of Marketing for ZD Publishing, and the expansion of the responsibilities of Tom McGrade, Executive Vice President, Business Operations, to include ZD Publishing's circulation and production departments. Michael Miller Claude Sheer, the President of ZD Publishing, said, "Michael is not only a leader among his peers within Ziff-Davis, he is also a well-respected journalist and industry advocate. PC Magazine has grown to a paid circulation of more than 1,175,000, more than any other computer publication or business magazine. SOURCE Ziff Davis
REED ELSEVIER
Reed Elsevier Inc. named Hans Gieskes president and chief executive of Lexis-Nexis. Reed Elsevier is jointly-owned by Reed International PLC (RUK) and Elsevier NV (ENL). In a press release Monday, Reed said Gieskes has been with the parent company for 19 years, most recently serving as vice chairman of the legal division. Gieskes will continues to lead Lexis Nexis' operations in Europe. DOW JONES NEWS
Friday, November 28, 1997
11/28/97: Thomson, Barns&Noble
Summary:
Thomson Purchases Idd Print Publishing Assets
Comments From Online Bookselling Forum
Matthew Benber Is For Sale
Harold Evans Will Join Mort Zuckerman At Daily News
Barnes And Noble & Amazon.Com
RECENT NEWS:
THOMSON PURCHASES IDD PRINT PUBLISHING ASSETS:
NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Nov. 19, 1997 Thomson Financial Services announced today that it has acquired the print publishing assets of IDD Enterprises, L.P. (IDD), which will be folded into its Securities Data Publishing (SDP) unit. Terms of the agreement were not disclosed. The purchase includes the flagship publication Investment Dealers' Digest, the premier magazine which has covered Wall Street, financial techniques, and organizational strategies for professional financiers for more than 60 years; Mergers & Acquisitions Journal; nine newsletters: Private Equity Week; Private Placement Letter; Mergers & Acquisitions Report; Bank Loan Report; Going Public: The IPO Reporter; Eliot Sharp's Financing News; Web Finance; Asset-Backed Securities Week; and Mortgage-Backed Securities Letter; and two directories: Mutual Fund Directory and Corporate Syndicate Personnel. "The acquisition of this venerable product family complements our existing publishing portfolio and fills out our coverage of the capital markets. This acquisition also provides SDP with significant leverage for expansion in the institutional asset management and equity and debt underwriting markets," stated SDP President and CEO, Bruce Morris.
Part of The Thomson Corporation (TTC), a $7.7-billion company based in Toronto, Thomson Financial Services employs more than 5,500 people in nearly 40 offices around the world. The principal activity of TTC is specialized information and publishing worldwide. In addition, TTC has important interests in newspaper publishing in North America and in leisure travel in the United Kingdom. The Corporation had sales of US$7.7 billion in 1996 and has some 50,000 staff members.
COMMENTS FROM ONLINE BOOKSELLING FORUM (Mediacentral-Cowles Business Media)
Internet bookstores are helping to deliver purchase information to the marketplace, and could soon be wreaking havoc on the concept of foreign rights. But whether they are expanding the customer base for books or simply stealing sales away from other channels is still up in the air, according to panelists at a public forum held last week in New York. Random House president Phil Pfeffer said he sees the emergence of Internet bookselling as "expanding opportunities, not cannibalizing opportunities." Mary Engstrom, VP of publishers affairs for Amazon.com, argued that the Internet is expanding the U.S. book market by providing access to three attractive audiences: customers outside the U.S., consumers living in remote areas of the country where there is no local bookstore, and the new generation of computer-literate and book-shy adults.
Pfeffer said Internet bookstores, as well as the sites operated by publishers themselves, "have a significant influence" on book sales by providing information consumers need to make purchase decisions. At this early point, those sales "more often than not" are still being realized at traditional bricks and mortar bookstores, he said. Engstrom said; at the end of 1996, overseas sales made up 33% of total sales. Online selling and its need for speedy delivery has also expedited the migration toward drop-shipping, a concept that many bookstore owners had heretofore been disinclined to adopt (preferring instead to bring their customers back to the store to pick up orders). Panelists also agreed that Internet bookselling will cause a "major upheaval" in the rights market. "What we have come to know is going to change significantly," Pfeffer said.
The problem has already arisen in the U.K., where "U.S. books are now available next to the U.K. versions, and at lower prices," Freeman noted. And U.K. publishers who "paid a certain fee thinking they own that market" have every reason to be disturbed by the prospect, Freeman said. According to Engstrom, Amazon.com sold at least one copy of more than 80% of all in-print lists at several major publishing houses in the third quarter of 1997. One audience member called the figure "astounding." Amazon.com's commission-based "Associates Program" has 15,000 members that include a variety of small publishers but is comprised mostly of companies outside the book industry, she said.
(Mediacentral-Cowles Business Media)
MATTHEW BENBER IS FOR SALE:
Times Mirror is evaluating business options for legal publisher Matthew Bender & Co and the medical professional publisher, Mosby Inc. Alternatives under consideration include a sale, a spinoff to shareholders and/or swaps for other strategic assets.
ON THE MOVE
HAROLD EVANS WILL JOIN MORT ZUCKERMAN AT DAILY NEWS (Mediacentral – Cowles Business Media)
Harold Evans, the colorful president and publisher of Random House's trade group, will leave the publishing house to head up Mortimer Zuckerman's publications, which include The Daily News of New York, U.S. News & World Report and The Atlantic Monthly. Zuckerman, in naming Evans editorial director and vice chairman on Tuesday, said that Evans would essentially take over a large portion of his duties at the various publications. Evans will have a say in everything from hiring to story ideas to design at the magazines and at The Daily News. The appointment of Evans, a 69-year-old London native, signals that Zuckerman is stepping up efforts to take on The News's tabloid rival, The New York Post, particularly after recent declines in the circulation of The News' thick Sunday paper.
The arrival of Evans into the battle between the papers has the added intrigue of putting him head to head with an old enemy, Rupert Murdoch, who owns The Post. Evans resigned as editor of The Times of London in 1982 after resisting efforts by Murdoch, the newspaper's owner, to force his removal. "I think it tells you that Mort wants an impact player," said Mitchell Moss, the director of the New York University Urban Research Center. "He wants to put The News on the map." Evans leaves Random House, where he ran some of the publisher's most prestigious imprints, with a somewhat uneven seven-year record. While credited with significantly raising the profile of the publishing house, some publishing executives say he lacked the management and business skills required to run an imprint. Several executives said Evans lacked an increasingly essential understanding of the bottom line. Worrying about the business side, industry insiders say, simply was not Evan's strength, though he brought a passion and glamour to the position, enhanced in part by his wife, Tina Brown, the editor in chief of The New Yorker.
"It was not fully understanding the chemistry of the business, rather than not caring," said another executive who also spoke on condition of anonymity. At Random House, Evans was replaced by Ann Godoff, editor in chief of Random House Adult Trade Books and executive vice president of the Random House Trade Publishing Group which includes Random House Adult Trade Books, Villard Books and the Modern Library. Ms. Godoff, who was promoted last summer from editorial director to editor in chief -- a position Evans had previously held -- will carry out Evan's same responsibilities under a different title, president and editor in chief. Net traffic for small bookstores
AND DID YOU KNOW:
Barnes and Noble reported that purchases from the top 10 US publishers had declined to 46 percent from 74 percent three years ago. This represents a significant shift to independents, small publishers and university presses and is reflective of a broadening of consumer interest to what used to be 'fringe' subjects.
Amazon.com and BarnesandNoble.com are competing for an estimated $156MM in on line booksales for the fourth quarter.
Thomson Purchases Idd Print Publishing Assets
Comments From Online Bookselling Forum
Matthew Benber Is For Sale
Harold Evans Will Join Mort Zuckerman At Daily News
Barnes And Noble & Amazon.Com
RECENT NEWS:
THOMSON PURCHASES IDD PRINT PUBLISHING ASSETS:
NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Nov. 19, 1997 Thomson Financial Services announced today that it has acquired the print publishing assets of IDD Enterprises, L.P. (IDD), which will be folded into its Securities Data Publishing (SDP) unit. Terms of the agreement were not disclosed. The purchase includes the flagship publication Investment Dealers' Digest, the premier magazine which has covered Wall Street, financial techniques, and organizational strategies for professional financiers for more than 60 years; Mergers & Acquisitions Journal; nine newsletters: Private Equity Week; Private Placement Letter; Mergers & Acquisitions Report; Bank Loan Report; Going Public: The IPO Reporter; Eliot Sharp's Financing News; Web Finance; Asset-Backed Securities Week; and Mortgage-Backed Securities Letter; and two directories: Mutual Fund Directory and Corporate Syndicate Personnel. "The acquisition of this venerable product family complements our existing publishing portfolio and fills out our coverage of the capital markets. This acquisition also provides SDP with significant leverage for expansion in the institutional asset management and equity and debt underwriting markets," stated SDP President and CEO, Bruce Morris.
Part of The Thomson Corporation (TTC), a $7.7-billion company based in Toronto, Thomson Financial Services employs more than 5,500 people in nearly 40 offices around the world. The principal activity of TTC is specialized information and publishing worldwide. In addition, TTC has important interests in newspaper publishing in North America and in leisure travel in the United Kingdom. The Corporation had sales of US$7.7 billion in 1996 and has some 50,000 staff members.
COMMENTS FROM ONLINE BOOKSELLING FORUM (Mediacentral-Cowles Business Media)
Internet bookstores are helping to deliver purchase information to the marketplace, and could soon be wreaking havoc on the concept of foreign rights. But whether they are expanding the customer base for books or simply stealing sales away from other channels is still up in the air, according to panelists at a public forum held last week in New York. Random House president Phil Pfeffer said he sees the emergence of Internet bookselling as "expanding opportunities, not cannibalizing opportunities." Mary Engstrom, VP of publishers affairs for Amazon.com, argued that the Internet is expanding the U.S. book market by providing access to three attractive audiences: customers outside the U.S., consumers living in remote areas of the country where there is no local bookstore, and the new generation of computer-literate and book-shy adults.
Pfeffer said Internet bookstores, as well as the sites operated by publishers themselves, "have a significant influence" on book sales by providing information consumers need to make purchase decisions. At this early point, those sales "more often than not" are still being realized at traditional bricks and mortar bookstores, he said. Engstrom said; at the end of 1996, overseas sales made up 33% of total sales. Online selling and its need for speedy delivery has also expedited the migration toward drop-shipping, a concept that many bookstore owners had heretofore been disinclined to adopt (preferring instead to bring their customers back to the store to pick up orders). Panelists also agreed that Internet bookselling will cause a "major upheaval" in the rights market. "What we have come to know is going to change significantly," Pfeffer said.
The problem has already arisen in the U.K., where "U.S. books are now available next to the U.K. versions, and at lower prices," Freeman noted. And U.K. publishers who "paid a certain fee thinking they own that market" have every reason to be disturbed by the prospect, Freeman said. According to Engstrom, Amazon.com sold at least one copy of more than 80% of all in-print lists at several major publishing houses in the third quarter of 1997. One audience member called the figure "astounding." Amazon.com's commission-based "Associates Program" has 15,000 members that include a variety of small publishers but is comprised mostly of companies outside the book industry, she said.
(Mediacentral-Cowles Business Media)
MATTHEW BENBER IS FOR SALE:
Times Mirror is evaluating business options for legal publisher Matthew Bender & Co and the medical professional publisher, Mosby Inc. Alternatives under consideration include a sale, a spinoff to shareholders and/or swaps for other strategic assets.
ON THE MOVE
HAROLD EVANS WILL JOIN MORT ZUCKERMAN AT DAILY NEWS (Mediacentral – Cowles Business Media)
Harold Evans, the colorful president and publisher of Random House's trade group, will leave the publishing house to head up Mortimer Zuckerman's publications, which include The Daily News of New York, U.S. News & World Report and The Atlantic Monthly. Zuckerman, in naming Evans editorial director and vice chairman on Tuesday, said that Evans would essentially take over a large portion of his duties at the various publications. Evans will have a say in everything from hiring to story ideas to design at the magazines and at The Daily News. The appointment of Evans, a 69-year-old London native, signals that Zuckerman is stepping up efforts to take on The News's tabloid rival, The New York Post, particularly after recent declines in the circulation of The News' thick Sunday paper.
The arrival of Evans into the battle between the papers has the added intrigue of putting him head to head with an old enemy, Rupert Murdoch, who owns The Post. Evans resigned as editor of The Times of London in 1982 after resisting efforts by Murdoch, the newspaper's owner, to force his removal. "I think it tells you that Mort wants an impact player," said Mitchell Moss, the director of the New York University Urban Research Center. "He wants to put The News on the map." Evans leaves Random House, where he ran some of the publisher's most prestigious imprints, with a somewhat uneven seven-year record. While credited with significantly raising the profile of the publishing house, some publishing executives say he lacked the management and business skills required to run an imprint. Several executives said Evans lacked an increasingly essential understanding of the bottom line. Worrying about the business side, industry insiders say, simply was not Evan's strength, though he brought a passion and glamour to the position, enhanced in part by his wife, Tina Brown, the editor in chief of The New Yorker.
"It was not fully understanding the chemistry of the business, rather than not caring," said another executive who also spoke on condition of anonymity. At Random House, Evans was replaced by Ann Godoff, editor in chief of Random House Adult Trade Books and executive vice president of the Random House Trade Publishing Group which includes Random House Adult Trade Books, Villard Books and the Modern Library. Ms. Godoff, who was promoted last summer from editorial director to editor in chief -- a position Evans had previously held -- will carry out Evan's same responsibilities under a different title, president and editor in chief. Net traffic for small bookstores
AND DID YOU KNOW:
Barnes and Noble reported that purchases from the top 10 US publishers had declined to 46 percent from 74 percent three years ago. This represents a significant shift to independents, small publishers and university presses and is reflective of a broadening of consumer interest to what used to be 'fringe' subjects.
Amazon.com and BarnesandNoble.com are competing for an estimated $156MM in on line booksales for the fourth quarter.
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