Yesterday’s New York Times reported that today’s New York Times Company is all about show me the monetize!
The New York Times Company Outlines a Strategy to Double Its Digital Revenue
The New York Times Company released a strategy memo to its staff on Wednesday outlining an ambitious plan to double digital revenue to $800 million in 2020 from $400 million in 2014, in part through a focus on increasing subscriptions and engagement with its most loyal readers.
The memo, which was signed by the company’s chief executive, Mark Thompson, and the executive editor of The Times, Dean Baquet, is based on the findings of an executive committee that met over the summer. Outlining a strategy that includes a shift away from platforms and departments and more toward the reader, the memo concludes, “What’s needed adds up to a transformation of the company.”
Representative “reader engagement” focus in Wednesday’s edition of the Times.
Money (screen)shot:
$525 for each course, eh? Sounds like something kids of New York Times employees might do.
Moving along in our madcap revue, here’s one of those potential “digital revenue doublers” from yesterday’s edition.
Money (screen)shot:
Be interesting to know how actual Times insiders view this gold rush.
Yesterday the dustupping staff happened upon Norman Mailer’s essay Clinton and Dole: The War of the Oxymorons, which ran in the cuppa coffee George magazine, and came across this digression about Hillary Rodham Clinton at the 1996 Democratic National Convention that nominated The Bubba to run for a second term as president.
One could see why so many Americans disliked her. She was decompressing the presidency. She was pretending to be near to the people, but the nature of her position made that impossible. We laugh at the English royals when they pay their visits to factory workers, but at least they remain royal. Hillary was pretending she was one of us, and it was hardly true.
To help answer the question, we decided to put multiple ad blockers to the test. Over the course of four days, we used several ad-blocking apps on our iPhones and measured how much the programs cut down on web page data sizes and improved loading times, and also how much they increased the smartphone’s battery life.
Chen proceeds to measure “the mix of advertising and editorial on the mobile home pages of the top 50 news websites – including ours – and found that more than half of all data came from ads and other content filtered by ad blockers.”
The results:
Why Boston.com drives you nuts graf:
The benefits of ad blockers stood out the most when loading the Boston.com website. With ads, that home page on average measured 19.4 megabytes; with ads removed using Crystal or Purify, it measured four megabytes, and with 1Blocker, it measured 4.5 megabytes. On a 4G network, this translated to the page taking 39 seconds to load with ads and eight seconds to load without ads.
Then again, given Boston.com’s spotty history, that 31 seconds just might be the pause that redresses.
Well the Missus and I trundled downtown last night to see the Lyric Stage production of My Fair Lady and say, it was . . . fabulous.
(Bet you thought I was gonna say “loverly.” Well, it was that too.)
Mostly, though, it was an electrifying evening of theater bursting with energy and ingenious staging.
Jennifer Ellis is captivating as Eliza Doolittle, and Christopher Chew delivers an animated and surprisingly sympathetic Henry Higgins (versus the wooden Rex Harrison in the film version).
Special bonus: Chew can actually sing.
Here’s a taste:
Other standouts are J.T. Turner as Alfred P. Doolittle and Remo Airaldi as Colonel Pickering. But the whole ensemble is terrific – there’s not a false note in the entire production.
Overall, it’s a thoroughly delightful revival of the classic musical. But don’t just take my word for it. Wall Street Journal theater critic Terry Teachout fairly swooned over the Lyric Stage production.
By George, They’ve Got It!
This stripped-down version of Alan Jay Lerner’s musical makes the normally large-scale production shine by highlighting its expressive essentials
Boston
‘My Fair Lady,” that most scenically resplendent of golden-age Broadway spectacles, wouldn’t seem at first blush to be all that well suited to the small-scale approach that has lately become the most significant trend in American musical-theater production. But the Lyric Stage Company of Boston, whose compact 234-seat thrust-stage house can’t come anywhere near accommodating a traditional staging of “My Fair Lady,” has dared to perform the show on a unit set with a cast of 16, an orchestra of three and no amplification, and done so to immensely satisfactory effect. I’ve seen some fine “My Fair Ladies” in the past, but I’ve never seen one, not even Amanda Dehnert’s unforgettable school-of-Brecht 2013 Oregon Shakespeare Festival version, that did a better job of conveying the sweet romanticism that Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Loewe slipped into George Bernard Shaw’s skewering of the British class system. The results are—as Lerner might have put it—loverly.
Beyond that, Teachout adds this:
The good news starts at the top: Jennifer Ellis is as strong an Eliza Doolittle as I’ve seen anywhere, including on screen. She sings beautifully and acts without exaggeration, leaving it to the score and script to work their magic.
No argument with the latter sentence. As for the former, well, the Missus and I respectfully disagree.
Maybe 20 years ago we found ourselves at the TKTS booth in New York with nothing in particular to see, and took a flyer on the production of My Fair Lady with Richard Chamberlain.
Eliza Doolittle was played by Melissa Errico, and, man, she was brilliant. (Best video I could find is Errico at the 1993 Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade, but it doesn’t do her justice.)
Regardless . . .
You really want to see the Lyric Stage production. But you’d better hurry – the run (through October 11) is almost sold out.
The Financial Times readies paid posts for advertisers
The Financial Times is revamping its approach to branded content, with the aim of giving advertisers more options.
The publisher is uniting its existing content marketing packages and launching a sponsored content offering “paid posts,” under a newly branded unit, FT Squared, dedicated to these kinds of advertiser partnerships.
“We’re launching Squared and paid posts to show advertisers we’re serious about content marketing,” said Dominic Good, FT’s global advertising sales director. “We’re not racing to predict that it will become 30+ percent of our revenues by a certain date, but it’s an important step forward.”
Financial Times press release: “The Financial Times today announces the launch of FT² (FT Squared), bringing together a suite of content marketing products under one brand. Using a team of talented designers and writers, the FT’s commercial team is increasing its focus on content creation, data analytics and new digital tools to bring carefully selected client content to the right audience at the right time.”
Sneak Adtack Official Rule of Thumb (pat. pending): Beware of any media outlet promising “a suite of content marketing products.”
First in a series from our Dustup 2016 NostADgia® desk
The first presidential campaign television commercials ran in 1952 (the Eisenhower/Stevenson I bakeoff.)
At the time, apparently, the inaugural political admakers thought that borrowing from the entertainment world might be a good approach. Thus, the campaign song.
An almost purely positive piece about candidate personality, this is from the campaign of Republican Dwight Eisenhower in 1952. A catchy jingle, along with lyrics not totally devoid of substance, it is essentially a device for reminding voters of their personal attachment to the most popular living American of his time. In this regard, note the closing theme that “we’ll take Ike to Washington”. Jingles were one of the early approaches to televised campaign advertising that would eventually go out of fashion.
Well the Missus and I trundled out to Watertown last night to catch Broken Glass (through September 27) at the New Repertory Theatre and say, it was . . . heavy.
Then again, Arthur Miller can get that way.
The New Rep production, directed by Jim Petosa, does a fine job reviving this slightly shopworn drama.
It is November 11, 1938, the day after Kristallnacht, when Sylvia Gellburg loses the ability to walk. Her husband Phillip desperately seeks to find the cause. After consulting Dr. Harry Hyman, it’s determined that her paralysis may have been psychosomatically induced. Hyman’s obsession with curing Sylvia uncovers a complex tangle of egos, resentment, and guilt, as well as Phillip’s own paralyzing struggle with his Jewish identity.
The cast is uniformly deft, especially Benjamin Evett as Dr. Hyman, Anne Gottlieb as Sylvia, and Jeremiah Kissel as Phillip (although he does do a bit of scenery chewing in Act Two).
At intermission, the Missus and I were remembering the first time we saw Jerry Kissel perform – 1986 in And a Nightingale Sang at Lyric Stage’s tiny Charles Street theater, a sweet – yes – lyrical production that was just heartbreaking.
Broken Glass is none of those. But still worth seeing.
Full disclosure: The dustupping staff is not a regular viewer of Comedy Central’s South Park, but we’ve always admired the show’s ability to not give a damn what anyone thinks about it.
‘South Park’ Depicts the Brutal Rape of Donald Trump
The animated TV series waited until its 19th season to take on Donald Trump. It didn’t disappoint.
South Park takes no prisoners.
This is, after all, the show that once labeled Kanye West “gay fish,” took on the Muslim prophet Muhammad (a big no-no in terrorist circles), and revealed U2’s Bono to be the record holder for world’s biggest poop (the turd turned out to be Bono himself—a man had taken a dump in 1960 and raised the piece of shit as Bono) . . .
But, with the the exception of an all-too-brief Season 5 cameo, the show’s steered clear of eviscerating Donald Trump. So naturally, fans of the gleefully anarchic TV series were curious as to when the blowhardiest of the blowhards would receive his animated comeuppance. Well, it finally came in the Season 19 episode, “Where My Country Gone?” and the timing couldn’t have been better.
Well the hardworking staff wandered into a bit of a quagmire yesterday when we looked at the confluence of a Massachusetts Playbook ad and some Massachusetts Playbook editorial content that both seemed to have the same objective: to boost the expansion of charter schools in the Bay State.
after Massachusetts Playbook’s Lauren Dezenski had posted this
** A message from Great Schools Massachusetts: An outdated, arbitrary cap on public charter school seats is stranding 37,000 kids on charter school waiting lists. It’s time to make public charter schools available to every family that wants them. Learn more: http://bit.ly/1V0LbXx **
then this
AFTER TAKING A SELFIE, STAKING OUT A SIMPLE STANCE — “Baker on charters: ‘I just want the cap lifted,’” by Katie Lannan, State House News Service: “‘We’re here today to talk specifically about a ballot proposal to lift the charter school cap,’ Baker said to applause. ‘My view on this is really simple: I don’t really care how the cap gets lifted, I just wanted the cap lifted.’” http://bit.ly/1FRehBV
The headscratching staff’s contribution to the rumpus:
So, that’s sort of not ignoring it, right? It’s actually pushing an advertiser’s message into the editorial content. Isn’t that the conflict of interest?
Totally confused, we then appealed to Dan Currie and Lauren Dezenski to enlighten us.
Mr. Currie was the first to get back to us, with a long comment that you are certainly welcome to read in its entirety.
The gist, for our current purposes:
To my eye, the design of the “ads” that infiltrate the Playbook emails are nearly indistinguishable from the layout of news content. So I tweeted this simple statement of fact Monday morning: “”POLITICO Massachusetts Playbook” sponsored by state charter school lobby.” Moments later I noticed that the Playbook link to the charter lobby website was not working. So I brought that to Politico’s attention in another tweet. A short time later I received a message from @LaurenDezenski in which she explained that, actually, a mistake had been made. The Great Schools Massachusetts Playbook ads were not supposed to start running until the next day (Tuesday). Consequently, the Monday ads with the unready links were taken down. Lauren also explained that there is a strong firewall between business and editorial in the Playbook and that she, as Politico’s reporter, has nothing to do with any of the advertisements. And I respect that that is undoubtedly true as far as she is intends to be concerned.
That might be true “as far as [Ms. Dezenski] intends to be concerned,” but Politico has a history of tossing advertising and editorial content into a State of the Cuisinart Marketing blender.
(See this Washington Post Eric Wemple takedown of Politico’s Rain Man Mike Allen two years ago.)
As for a response from Ms. Dezenski, we didn’t get one. Nor did she address the issue in today’s installment of Massachusetts Playbook.
Well the hardworking staff was just sitting here in the Global Worldwide Headquarters minding our own business, when this popped up on the Twitters.
Of course we immediately asked Dan Currie if he has any connection to the charter school rumpus, and here’s how that exchange worked out:
Meanwhile, we subscribe to Massachusetts Playbook, as any right-thinking person would, so we hied ourselves to today’s edition where we found this:
** A message from Great Schools Massachusetts: An outdated, arbitrary cap on public charter school seats is stranding 37,000 kids on charter school waiting lists. It’s time to make public charter schools available to every family that wants them. Learn more: http://bit.ly/1V0LbXx **
Then this:
AFTER TAKING A SELFIE, STAKING OUT A SIMPLE STANCE — “Baker on charters: ‘I just want the cap lifted,’” by Katie Lannan, State House News Service: “‘We’re here today to talk specifically about a ballot proposal to lift the charter school cap,’ Baker said to applause. ‘My view on this is really simple: I don’t really care how the cap gets lifted, I just wanted the cap lifted.’” http://bit.ly/1FRehBV
So, that’s sort of not ignoring it, right? It’s actually pushing an advertiser’s message into the editorial content. Isn’t that the conflict of interest?
(To be fair graf goes here)
To be fair, the headscratching staff is kinda confused here about who’s doing/saying what at this point. Hey, Dan Currie and Lauren Dezenski – help us out, wouldja?
Campaign Outsider 