www.newsandtech.com www.newsandtech.com September/October 2018 The premier resource for insight, analysis and technology integration in newspaper and hybrid operations and production. Daily News automates sports video with AI u BY TARA MCMEEKIN CONTRIBUTING WRITER Photo: NYDN Photo: Since last year, the publisher has been using SendtoNews’ Smart Match, an AI-powered video player feature. The paper has automated the process of publishing sports-related video content, and as a result, seen an uptick in sports video consumption since the implementation of Smart Match, accord- ing to STN. The vendor said NYDN has seen more than a 30 percent increase in both page views and unique viewers. Unfortunately for the NYDN, automation has become more of a necessity than a luxury. In July 2018, the paper’s new owner Tronc slashed the sports staff by 70 percent — part of a 50 percent cut to the paper’s overall editorial staff. Prior to those cuts, the staff was at 32, and in its heyday NYDN had about 100 people on its reporting team. “At this point we aren’t generating the same amount of content as we were, but we are still digging out of a huge hole trying to cover New York City sports with a team of nine,” said Andy Clayton, senior content editor, digital sports for the Daily News. “Smart Match helps to make that more manageable.” NYDN began using SendtoNews’ Smart Match AI technology for sports video content last year. Automating a manual process Although NYDN already used SendtoNews’ sports video player prior to im- AI seems to be making inroads everywhere and newspapers are no ex- plementing the vendor’s newer AI-powered tech, adding video to sports con- ception. The New York Daily News is among the publishers to embrace the tent was a fairly manual process. Before Smart Match, which STN released technology, in its case, leveraging AI technology to provide video coverage of New York sports teams to its approximately 200,000 daily readers. NY Daily News continued on page 9 Florida Today merges augmented reality, traditional journalism with new app u BY KIRstEN STAPLES CONTRIBUTING WRITER Augmented reality is becoming a huge tool in teams prepare it for liftoff, and then actually launch how today’s journalists tell a story because it offers the rocket in AR. Finally, users can follow as the readers what traditional print does not. If a picture rocket’s first stage comes back to land. The app’s is worth a thousand words, then how many words second section, and perhaps its core feature, is all is augmented reality worth? of the above, but in real time as a rocket launches That concept is put to the test by Florida Today from Cape Canaveral,” he said. with their newly released app 321 Launch. The Kelly explained that by using past data, a trajec- app uses augmented reality to bring live coverage tory can be built for the live rocket launch. The app of rockets launching out of Cape performs with “down-to-the-second” accuracy. Canaveral. Florida Today part- “This app is the first of its kind for journalism. nered with USA Today to develop No other spaceflight, science, or even national the app. It’s available to both iOS publication has attempted to merge real-time hap- Turn to and Android users. penings with augmented reality. The best part, page 37 “It’s divided into two parts,” said though, is that 321 Launch still incorporates our Emre Kelly, space reporter at Flori- traditional journalism into the stream,” Kelly said. for expanded da Today. “First, a narrated educa- “AR, whether seeing it as a stepping stone to VR, or tional experience that allows users a different technology for different uses, is already industry to take a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket impacting journalism. It opens up more opportuni- coverage to the pad, learn more about how Florida Today continued on page 5 News & Tech September/October 2018 u 1 www.newsandtech.com Possibilities, Expansion, Growth... Koenig & Bauer is on your side Upgrades & Retrofits eÀͲģÀæQÀ´ÜקÀºÑ ƹƻɃƾQÜÊÊÀÍ× Vͧº§º¡ÀÜÍÑÑ JÍÑÑM´ÀקÀº JÍÑÑë׺ѧÀºÑ Mə×"´ÑÑ QÜÊÍʺÀ͹ 9§º×§ººÀº×Í×Ñ ÀºÑܹ´Ñ Let us make your press as good as new or even better. Koenig & Bauer’s team of industry experts can enhance your current presses’ capabilities. Our team has helped newspapers from around the world enter new markets, expand their potential, and be more productive than ever before. All allowing you to remain competitive. Contact us to learn more. KBA North America +1 (800) 522-7521 [email protected] koenig-bauer.com 2 t www.newsandtech.com Q2 earnings snapshot u NEWS & TECH STAFF REPORT One of the biggest stories in the newspaper industry recently, the U.S. and our new business initiatives, UpCurve, GateHouse Live and Promotions, International Trade Commission’s cancellation of tariffs hitting newsprint, performed extremely well. On the inorganic growth side, we closed four broke on Aug. 29, well after major newspaper chains released their second transactions in our acquisition pipeline that totaled nearly $118 million in quarter results. purchase price and our pipeline remains strong,” he said. The industry is currently seeing a number of papers cut staff, print days or “We are thrilled with the exceptional growth trends achieved within our pages, with many attributing their decisions to the cost of newsprint rising business initiatives. UpCurve revenue grew 47.2% over prior year, exclud- by as much as 30 percent. Not surprisingly, the rising cost of newsprint was ing the impact of ASC 606. ThriveHive had significant wins within the auto- cited in all the quarterly reports mentioned below. motive customer vertical, accelerated by our recent acquisition of Online Beyond the tariff issue, the second quarter numbers reflect a familiar trend: Automotive Solutions and its tech-enabled video and data products. On print ad and circulation revenue down, digital growing, but not as robustly the events front, both GateHouse Live and Promotions had revenue growth as some in the industry had looked for. “After reporting Q2 earnings results, exceeding 65% over the prior year. May and June are very busy months for it became glaringly obvious that the Times' biggest growth driver — its digital us, especially for our Best of Preps events, which celebrate outstanding high business — isn't growing quite as quickly as investors would have hoped,” school athletes. wrote Gary Alexander at Seeking Alpha of The New York Times. “With our four newspaper acquisitions closed in the quarter, our total ac- “Most of the chains find themselves slipping farther and farther from rev- quisitions for the year are now in excess of $133 million. These new markets enue growth. This headline number tells you that digital initiatives simply are all great additions to our portfolio, are within our acquisition criteria and are not making up for overall print revenue losses,” wrote Ken Doctor in his valuation expectations, and are expected to drive further growth potential Newsonomics column at niemanlab.org. for our new business initiatives.” Below are a few points from the quarterly reports. The companies don’t report uniformly, so the information differs from company to company. Com- McClatchy ments from the companies’ leaders touting high points, special projects and McClatchy, which operates major local media companies in 30 U.S. mar- acquisitions follow the numbers. kets, saw digital-only subscribers grow 34.5 percent to 122,400 as of the end of the second quarter. Gannett Audience revenues were $84.8 million, down 5.7 percent in the second Gannett, parent of USA Today and owner of 109 local media properties, saw quarter compared to the same period in 2017, reflecting declines in print digital-only subscriber volumes grow 46 percent year-over-year to total ap- subscribers. proximately 413,000. Total advertising revenues were $107 million, down 14.6 percent in The company saw same-store print ad revenues fall 19.1 percent for Q2 the second quarter of 2018 compared to the second quarter of 2017. The 2018 vs. Q2 2017, which Gannett partly attributed to the date of Easter. rate of decline in total advertising revenues in the second quarter reflects a Same-store operating revenues declined 7.5 percent year-over-year, con- sequential improvement from the first quarter of 2018 of 2.1 percent due to sistent with the first quarter decline of 7.2 percent, the company said. Same the improvements store circulation revenues fell 5.0 percent from the prior year quarter, con- “In the 2018 second quarter, newspaper-industry headwinds continued sistent with the first quarter trend. but nonetheless our digital transformation progressed despite these industry “We are excited by the continued momentum in our digital business challenges,” said CEO Craig Forman in the July 27 earnings release. driven by strong growth in our marketing services and national media busi- “We saw many areas of sequential improvement: our total digital advertis- nesses,” said CEO Robert J. Dickey in the Aug. 9 earnings release. “On July ing revenues were up almost 8%, while our digital-only advertising revenues 2nd, we successfully closed the WordStream acquisition, which adds more grew more than 20%. In the first quarter of 2018 we achieved a milestone in software-as-a-service solutions to our digital marketing services product our digital transformation that was repeated in the second quarter: total digi- portfolio and will further propel our digital transformation that is already tal advertising revenues exceeded our print newspaper advertising revenues well underway.” and that trend accelerated in the quarter just ended. Indeed, in May and June “The strong margin improvement at our ReachLocal segment and the con- we met another milestone: our digital-only advertising revenues exceeded tinued focus on driving efficiencies within our publishing and corporate our print newspaper advertising revenues.