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8 October 2012 | Reuters

Spain’s El Pais to cut jobs

Spain's most influential newspaper El Pais will fire workers and cut salaries this week, parent media group Prisa said on Friday, as plunging advertising revenues leave media outlets floundering. Prisa, which owns the internationally-recognised Spanish-language daily, has not said how many workers will go, but local media said more than a quarter of the paper's staff could be forced out. Prisa, which has media assets in Europe and Latin America, in July reported a 5 percent drop in first-half revenue, attributing the decline to falling advertising revenue in crisis-hit Spain and Portugal. Since 2008, 57 media outlets in Spain have closed and 8,000 journalists have lost their jobs, as falling advertising revenues takes its toll on companies already struggling from a consumer shift to the Internet for news. Prisa has made cuts across its various outlets, including business daily Cinco Dias and radio station Cadena Ser. This latest round of cash-saving measures will be formalised on Tuesday, the El Pais committee said. The programme includes firing workers, early retirement for some and reducing salaries. Across the Spanish media, the average journalist's salary has halved since the onset of the country's financial crisis.

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8 October 2012 | New York Times

YouTube to serve niche tastes by adding channels

Google, which owns YouTube, is stepping up YouTube’s strategy, started a year ago, to lure television viewers and advertisers by helping to produce high-quality videos that cater to niche interests. It plans to announce that it is adding more than 50 original channels to the 100 it has introduced in the last year and expanding original channels to France, Germany and Britain. As part of the new effort, Google is investing a fresh USD 200 million in the channels — on top of the USD 100 million it invested last year — to market the shows, pay for production equipment and, in some cases, pay the full production costs. The new channels, which will carry advertising and be available free, include producers with major media experience. The top 25 original channels average more than a million views a week, according to the company, and in the year since original channels were introduced, people have increased the hours they spend watching YouTube each month to four billion from three billion. In addition to financing production, YouTube sells ads for the video producers. It takes its initial investment out of the ad revenue. Video producers say that in addition to financial support, YouTube offers a way to bypass television’s frustratingly slow production schedule. Another contrast with traditional television is that it is much easier for video creators to get a start and gain a following. YouTube says that minorities who have historically been underserved by network television, for instance, have popular channels on the site.

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8 October 2012 | Wall Street Journal

US: Social media among threats to greeting card makers

Once a staple of birthdays and holidays, paper greeting cards are fewer and farther between — now seen as something special, instead of something that's required. The cultural shift is a worrisome challenge for the nation's top card maker, Hallmark Cards Inc., which last week announced it will close a Kansas plant that made one-third of its greeting cards. In consolidating its Kansas operations, Kansas City-based Hallmark plans to shed 300 jobs. Over the past decade, the number of greeting cards sold in the U.S. has dropped from 6 billion to 5 billion annually, by Hallmark's estimates. The Greeting Card Association, an industry trade group based in White Plains, N.Y., puts the overall-sold figure at 7 billion. Even the paper cards people buy have changed. Many people now use online photo sites to upload images and write their own greetings. According to a U.S. Postal Service study, correspondence such as greeting cards fell 24 percent between 2002 and 2010. Invitations alone dropped nearly 25 percent just between 2008 and 2010. The survey attributed the decline to "changing demographics and new technologies."

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8 October 2012 | Asia Pacific Broadcasting Union

Radio station for ethnic minorities to be launched in Lao PDR

Lao National Radio (LNR) - with the support of UNESCO’s International Programme for the Development of Communication (IPDC) – is launching a new local community radio station in the Xiengkho district of the country next year. “IPDC has been supporting the development of community media for decades and is particularly sensitive to projects aiming at strengthening ethnic minority languages”, says Rosa Gonzalez, UNESCO Advisor for Communication and Information in the UNESCO Bangkok Office. Xiengkho, one of the 47 poorest districts of Laos, has been chosen as the site for this project due to the low number of local radio services. A radio station will be built and equipped with the help of LNR staff and selected trainees with a particular focus on women. The radio station will primarily provide community-based radio programmes including ethnic language windows in Lao, Hmong and Khmu. In line with the project, two mentors will train local radio trainees from the community on technical operation and maintenance of radio equipment, radio programme production techniques and journalism. The trainees will also conduct target audience research among the villagers of Xiengkho in order to identify their information needs. The results will be used to produce target based radio programmes.

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8 October 2012 | Business Wire

Bloomberg launches Bloomberg TV Mongolia

Bloomberg Television, in partnership with The Trade & Development Bank of Mongolia (TDB), has announced the official launch of Bloomberg TV Mongolia. The launch of Bloomberg TV Mongolia signifies the introduction of the first international broadcast news organization in Mongolia. Over the last year, Bloomberg has trained over 30 local journalists who are now working at BTV Mongolia, and built a high definition television studio in the heart of downtown Ulan Bator. Bloomberg TV Mongolia will deliver international, business and financial news to the local community, and coverage of Mongolia to the rest of the world.

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8 October 2012 | BBC News

Prime Minister @David_Cameron joins Twitter

Prime Minister David Cameron has joined the micro-blogging website Twitter. In his first tweet, @David_Cameron wrote: "I'm starting Conference with this new Twitter feed about my role as Conservative Leader. I promise there won't be 'too many tweets...'". Previously, tweets from Mr Cameron were published through @Number10gov, the official feed for the PM's office. Other politicians with Twitter accounts include Foreign Secretary William Hague and Mayor of London Boris Johnson. The Prime Minister is so far following only four people: Mr Hague; Mr Johnson; newly appointed Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt; and the Conservative Party's own twitter feed. However, despite only recently signing up to the site, he currently has over 50,000 followers, which is likely to rise quickly.

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