Herald exec abandons ship

Alexandra Villoch, the Herald's vice president for advertising and marketing is leaving to take job with the Zoological Society of Florida.

Reminds me of the video General Schwarzkopf showed of the "luckiest man in Iraq" during the Gulf War. The driver of an Iraqi truck crossed a bridge seconds before it exploded.

I know the feeling that driver must have had. It was the feeling I had when I left my last job for my current one.

McClatchy inks Hispanic deal with ImpreMedia

From the ImpreMedia Press Release:

ImpreMedia, the No.1 Hispanic news and information company in the U.S. in online and print, today announced agreements with the Spanish-language publications of The McClatchy Company that will create the largest online and print advertising platform in the nation serving the Hispanic market. The platform will allow National advertisers to obtain significant penetration in 18 top U.S. Hispanic markets including nine of the Top 10 Hispanic markets.

Promising an efficient one-stop solution to reach 18 top U.S. Hispanic markets, including New York, Los Angeles, Miami, Fort Worth/Dallas, Houston, Chicago, the Central Valley of California and San Francisco, the companies will work collaboratively with each other to offer advertisers an effective way to reach a National Hispanic audience unmatched by any other Hispanic marketing vehicle. The parties will leverage their complementary strengths in offering the new platform to the marketplace and support it through their individual sales, marketing and production departments.

“McClatchy is very pleased to be involved in this innovative network. Our Spanish-language products bring great audience reach to the equation, and we look forward to offering our advertisers a national buy,” said Frank Whittaker, McClatchy Vice President of Operations.

McClatchy’s participating Spanish-language publications include El Nuevo Herald in South Florida, La Estrella in Fort Worth/Dallas, Texas, and Vida en el Valle, which serves the California communities of Fresno, Merced, Modesto, Sacramento and Stockton.

H/T: Jose and Los Miquis de Miami

McClatchy Ad Revenues Plummet

Herald Watch has been documenting the precipitous decline in circulation at the Heralds for some time. While some of this can be attributed to readers switching from the paid print edition to the free online edition, that isn't necessarily a good thing. Newspapers need eyeballs in order to sell ads and, to date, online doesn't command the same type of ad rates as print.

Editor & Publisher is reporting that Florida ad revenues were down 14.1% for McClatchy in the month of August. In Florida McClatchy owns The Miami Herald, El Nuevo Herald and the Bradenton Herald.

McClatchy's chairman and CEO, Gary Pruitt, says that "We are making progress on reducing debt in the third quarter and will continue to focus on de-levering our balance sheet." Could a sale of the troublesome Heralds in Miami be in the offing?

Free advice for Herald.com

I've posted before about the paid wall behind which the Herald's archives sit. Many papers do the same thing. Obviously as newspapers move toward more of an online medium and away from the printing press, having searchable content will be key to maintaining and attracting eyeballs. I don't think a pay per view model will be sustainable in the future.

In any case, I was reading an article on The Toledo Blade's web site today about the expatriate American, William Morgan, who fought with Fidel Castro's 26th of July rebels during the Cuban Revolution. There's been a legal battle going on related to the long dead guerrilla's citizenship and The Blade mentions previous reporting it has done on the matter in the past. I was thinking that it would be great if The Blade posted links to that previous reporting. That way an interested party could go back and see how the story evolved. This would require bringing those articles out from behind the paid wall, even if only temporarily.

This could be an interim step toward moving to an ad supported, free archive. Probably too reasonable for anyone at 1 Herald Plaza to implement.