Archives: October 2008

Conde Nast Portfolio To Reduce Frequency To Ten Times A Year

Posted by: Jon Fine on October 30

Conde Nast Portfolio, the monthly business magazine that launched in April of last year, will cut its publishing frequency to ten times a year. Since last September, Portfolio had been...

Thinking (Way) Ahead: Future Problems Sighted For Obama’s Slogan, But Not So Much For McCain's.

Posted by: Jon Fine on October 30

There’s only, oh, a hundred-plus million people who still have to actually vote and stuff, and we all know that anything can happen between now and Election Day. But, let’s...

Breaking: Christian Science Monitor To Cease Daily Publication, Become Weekly In 2009

Posted by: Jon Fine on October 28

Full story's here....

Political Attack Ad Of The Day

Posted by: Jon Fine on October 24

It makes a political junkie's heart swell with pride when the day's best/craziest attack involves his hometown's Congressman. Democrat Linda Stender is running against the incumbent Republican Craig Ferguson in...

Magazines And Web Strategy, Or The Lack Thereof

Posted by: Jon Fine on October 23

My pal and former boss, Ad Age Editor Jonah Bloom, came back from this month’s American Magazine Conference with some tart thoughts regarding the gap between what magazine publishers have...

This Just In! Political Ads That Aren't Terrible!

Posted by: Jon Fine on October 22

Oh, for God's sake, of course it's a joke, because there are fierce laws that prohibit any non-awful political ads. Nevertheless, BuzzFeed finds a new path to the imaginary waterfall...

ANA Conference '08: Three Out Of Four Chief Marketing Officers Surveyed Strongly Suggest Ad Spending Cuts Are Coming

Posted by: Jon Fine on October 18

At today’s CMO Roundtable lunch, moderator and former GE marketing exec Richard Costello admirably came right at the panelists with a very direct question about marketing right now. Or, as...

More From The ANA Conference: About That Quote In Ad Age

Posted by: Jon Fine on October 18

I’ve already gotten a bunch of emails and comments having sport with a, uhm, slightly intemperate remark I made to a pal and former colleague, Ad Age reporter Matthew Creamer,...

A Quick Conversation With New York Times Editorial Page Editor Andrew Rosenthal: “Information Isn’t Free”

Posted by: Jon Fine on October 17

Andrew Rosenthal, who's run the Times' editorial page since January of last year, spoke at lunch at the ANA convention today. And, if I may be simultaneously self-interested and lazy,...

Association Of National Advertisers Conference '08: That Giddy Grim Feeling

Posted by: Jon Fine on October 17

Around 1,000 heavies in the ad biz—chief marketing officers, top sales execs at places like Google and Yahoo, magazine publishers, ad agency types—gathered in Orlando yesterday for this year’s Association...

Trashing Political Ads, And Then Untrashing Them

Posted by: Jon Fine on October 15

I was on this panel earlier this week at a confab Digital Hollywood put on regarding politics and the media. This panel was about political advertising, which allowed me to...

Bloomberg Hires TV Vet Andy Lack. Expect Them To Go Bigger Online And On TV

Posted by: Jon Fine on October 14

I’m in a glass fishbowl of a conference room at Bloomberg LP’s imposing Manhattan headquarters. It is approximately one hour since employees were introduced to Andy Lack, the company’s newly...

Breaking: Spielberg's Dreamworks Signs Distribution Deal With NBC Universal

Posted by: Jon Fine on October 13

BusinessWeek's Los Angeles Bureau Chief Ron Grover reports: In perhaps Hollywood’s worst kept secret, Steven Spielberg’s newly created studio is signing a distribution arrangement with NBC Universal to distribute as...

CosmoGirl, Teen Magazines, And The Coming Media Shakeout The Economic Downturn Will Bring

Posted by: Jon Fine on October 10

Portfolio’s Jeff Bercovici breaks the news that Hearst Magazines is shuttering Cosmogirl. This marks what's just about the final chapter for the media bubble that briefly blew up in the...

On Temporarily Disconnecting

Posted by: Jon Fine on October 09

The past few weeks have been, ah, eventful, what with the most fascinating Presidential election in a very long time playing out against the backdrop of an unresolved global financial...

Pain Atop Pain: Ads At The Dentist

Posted by: Jon Fine on October 07

You are a captive in a blandly decorated office, which barely disguises the suffering routinely inflicted within its walls. Someone is coming at you with an instrument that is making...

Wall Street Journal Lays Off More Online Staffers; Gawker Media Slashes Staff Too

Posted by: Jon Fine on October 03

(UPDATE 10/7, 7:15 PM: I am told that the Journal has cut at least a few additional editorial staffers besides the ones listed below. Not getting much data beyond that...

Media Diet, Election '08

Posted by: Jon Fine on October 02

(Because some people have asked.) Directions: Go to sites in no particular order. Follow any interesting link, especially to those of non-national newspapers and off-the-beaten-track bloggers. Rinse and repeat several...

So . . . I Guess Bloomberg Won't Be Buying The New York Times

Posted by: Jon Fine on October 01

This news will, at long last, put at least a temporary kibosh on the whole wacky notion that a post-Mayoral Michael Bloomberg might buy the New York Times. Some Bloomberg...