What Future for Newspapers?

For more than a decade now the newspaper industry has been portrayed as a diminishing light, its once-powerful voice muted by the social and new-media economy. The current environment was thrown into relief last week as stark new figures published in Press Gazette suggest that nearly 300 newspaper titles have closed in 10 years. There are now only 6,500 employed journalists compared to double that in 2005.

Despite this news, the report also contained a small ray of light for journalists, editors, and publishers large and small. 100 new titles were launched in that same time period and overall, 1,100 local newspapers are still published in the UK, according to News Media Association. This year, for instance, Newsquest has launched four new newspapers or newspaper editions, and Tindle has launched five titles in London.
 
While we don’t claim responsibility for these nascent publications, the revenue NLA media access collects on behalf of publishers through licensing equates to the employment of around 1,100 journalists in the UK. A small but not insignificant contribution to the industry that supports our licensees, helping them to get their messages heard by 46 million people per year .

We strive to support journalism in everything we do and look forward to continuing to support the newspaper industry as it continues to deliver an invaluable service in the digital world.

A New Special Relationship in News Alerting

NLA is pleased to announce its first US agency client for its content delivery service eClips. BurrellesLuce, the world leading US MMO, is the twentieth agency outside the UK to work with the NLA’s eClips platform.  

In reaching the agreement BurrellesLuce is the first fully licensed US supplier of NLA material to the US market, enabling same day delivery of UK national newspaper content including The Guardian, Times, Telegraph and Independent to US clients. The company’s US corporate users will have the option to take timely, high quality cuttings direct from UK newspaper production systems, together with rich meta-data enabling advanced evaluation and analysis.

NLA commercial director Andrew Hughes said: ‘Better services for communications professionals come from publishers and agencies working together to improve the flow of news to users. We respect both user and agency requirements, and have invested in the technology needed to improve delivery. We are delighted to be working with BurrellesLuce to offer NLA material to US users’.  

About BL http://www.burrellesluce.com/company/about_us

About NLA http://www.nlamediaaccess.com/default.aspx?tabid=46

NLA’s AIM evaluation tool, now available directly to PR agencies.

Newspaper page view data available for first time

NLA Media Access has today announced the sale of the first licence for its new PR evaluation product, NLA Article Impact Measurement (AIM). The PR agency in question is major international communications agency Golin.

Launched at a recent roundtable hosted at NewsUK, AIM is unique in bringing together precise internet page view data directly from the newspaper publisher’s site analytics platforms, combining this with social media statistics into a single tool for the measurement of PR impact.  

In an industry first, from today research and analytics staff at Golin will use AIM to gather vital intelligence from all 10 national newspaper publisher websites currently covered by the tool, on client coverage.

David Pugh, Managing Director of NLA Media Access said:

“We are delighted to be supplying AIM to an agency as well known as Golin. Coverage in UK newspapers remains critical to PR success and we know it is highly valued by agencies and their clients. This deal is proof of the value AIM can deliver to PR agencies in planning and evaluating their work.”

Daniel Stauber, Director Research & Analytics, from Golin said:

“AIM provides our clients with more accurate data on the visibility of coverage in national newspapers online. The unprecedented levels of intelligence on the exposure of online articles is a great tool for helping to devise successful media strategies”.

For more information, please contact: Bob Johns bjohns@nla.co.uk – 0207 332 9350

NLA ClipShare update

NLA media access finished a busy July by launching an upgraded version of ClipShare, our news archive for journalists and librarians – available at www.nla-clipshare.com.

This upgrade included new content (from 17 newspaper websites), new features (dynamic search filtering, today’s front pages on the home screen, grouped versions of articles, and the Reading List), and new design (a complete visual overhaul with simpler navigation).

Usage of ClipShare has grown over the period since the launch, with over 2000 active users in August alone. That’s 11% more than in July, and 13% more than in August 2014.

The number of archive articles accessed through ClipShare also grew to a massive 55,000, a 45% increase over July and a 30% increase over August 2014.

In response to the positive developments and the increased usage, we have received numerous messages and verbal reports from users indicating that the site is now faster, easier to use, and more visually appealing than ever.

However, we are aware that there were some bugs in the version of ClipShare that we launched with. We know that a couple of these caused significant inconvenience to the users who contacted us, and likely impacted others as well. For not detecting these bugs earlier, and for the delays in addressing them, we apologise.

We have released a new version of ClipShare today which addresses several of these bugs as well as other small changes that were needed. The major issues fixed are as follows:

• A cookie conflict, which has caused some users to be unable to log in or to be recurrently logged out of the site
• A drop-down box failure in the PDF viewer, which prevented users from viewing regional and later editions of print content
• Incorrect delivery of saved search alert emails
• Backwards compatibility with OS X Leopard  for 1^st Editions and Browse features

There are a few outstanding bugs for which we have implemented fixes but are continuing to monitor, as we have not yet gathered enough information to be able to confirm that the issues are fixed. These are:

• Intermittent errors in the Browse functionality
• A ‘PDF is null’ error on opening the PDF viewer

If users are still experiencing either of these issues, we urge them to contact PublisherServices@nla.co.uk with details of the date and time they experienced the issue, the URL they were attempting to reach, and their user details.

We hope that the ClipShare user experience will be much smoother following this updated version, but it doesn’t end there. Over the coming months, we intend to continue improving the site with some additional features that have been requested by users.

Our goal is always to ensure that all ClipShare users get the best possible experience with the site. Many thanks to all the users who provided feedback throughout the development and launch process for helping us work towards this goal. 

Reuters and NLA partner to provide seamless PR rights

A one stop shop is probably never going to emerge for content rights, but NLA is working hard to simplify licensing for UK media monitoring agencies and users by getting more content in one place and covered by one licence. In the last two years this approach has served us well. We have recruited over 200 magazine publishers, added most of the few UK newspapers we hadn’t already recruited, and significantly expanded our international coverage, adding digital rights for Spain, Switzerland, Russia and other countries.

In continued recognition of the broadening appeal of our licensing, we can also now add to that list  global news organisation Reuters. In what we hope will be the first of many digital content brands to sign agreements with the NLA, from December 1st copies of content published by Reuters and widely used by many MMOs and end users in the UK will be covered by the relevant licences. Reuters is one of the biggest brands in media, and NLA are very pleased to be working with them to streamline the rights clearance for providers and users of media monitoring services.

This new agreement is, in our view, the beginning of continued growth for the NLA. We see significant need and opportunity in international coverage, and in the diversity of new media. Born digital, broadcast and overseas material and rights are all potential additions to the umbrella. Ensuring the proposition works for users and publishers so the industry can expand its horizons without running into copyright issues is what we do. We call ourselves NLA media access and – while newspapers remain at the core of our content coverage – the Reuters agreement shows we now have a broader view of where we sit in the media landscape.