Hayes’ commercial team effectively formed the front line for Rupert Murdoch’s newspaper operation during that first long week, as advertisers began to question their association with first News of the World and later News International amid pressure from social media.
In terms of commercial media, 2010 was always going to be dominated by one man and one company: Rupert Murdoch, News Corporation.
From the outset we expected paywalls and bundled content offerings (Alesia) to be the order of the day, but no one could have foreseen just where we find ourselves today. Read more »
Hollywood’s take on the relentless rise of Facebook in The Social
Network is set to pass a milestone of its own this week, when UK box office
takings top £10 million.
It’s still got some way to go to push 2009 blockbuster Avatar (£90m), but
double-digit millions is good going for any film in little old Blighty.
Fiction or not, the fact that David Fincher’s simple and rather contrived plot
makes a plausible story says something about the value people place – or at
least imagine others place – on being seen to be in the right club.
The desire to be part of the right crowd is presented as the driving force
behind Facebook’s real-life founder Mark Zuckerberg, and it got me thinking
about News International’s paywall experiment. Read more »
After months of speculation, News International has finally unveiled figures for its paywall experiment at The Times and the Sunday Times websites; it has generated 105,000 digital-only sales and a further 100,000 print subscribers have activated their digital accounts, since July.
News Corporation has been
forced to abandon plans for its eagerly anticipated digital news platform, part
of the company’s so called ‘Project Alesia’ initiative, citing runaway costs.
As we revealed this morning, bean-counters at Rupert Murdoch’s media conglomerate
have decided to pull the plug on the year-long activity when it was
expected to be finalised.
For a media hack like me, it’s had more twists and turns and dragged out longer than the final series of Lost; and the budget-busting climax is still yet to come.
‘The summer’s over, I’ve had time to think about it, I want to quit,’ appears to be the mantra being followed by many high-profile media execs this month.
Recession or not, September has lived up to its billing as the month which gets headhunters hearts racing.
Haymarket © 1957 – 2012
