Hyper-Local InsightsNovember 11 - December 11

20 things to note from the UK & North America

A personal take on recent discussions and developments

Damian Radcliffe, 12th January 2012

Comments and feedback welcome: damian.radcliffe@ofcom.org.uk

damian.radcliffe@gmail.com @mrdamian76

Contents

As ever, thanks for reading!

UK USA

1. British Library newspaper archive 1. Facebook buys Gowalla

2. New IPTV service for Liverpool 2. Clear Channel moves into Deals

3. Global Radio launches Daily Deals 3. Other Daily Deals

4. PitsnPots funding 4. Local advertising predictions

5. New Networked Neighbourhoods data 5. News from AOL and Patch

6. Newspaper round-up 6. Examiner.com

7. BBC Local Radio cuts (update) 7. Newspaper round-up

8. Local TV developments 8. New JiWire location research

9. Community Radio Annual Report 9. New Forrester location research

10. n0tice goes beta 10. New Pew Report on local news sources

Ten UK hyper-local developments

1. British Library newspaper archive

• The British Library has launched The British Newspaper Archive website giving access to up to 4 million fully searchable pages mostly regional titles from the 19th century.

• Run in partnership with brightsolid, the archive features more than 200 newspaper titles from across the UK and Ireland, with 8,000 new pages added each day.

• The service available to browse for a small fee, or free to those visiting the central library in King's Cross. Users can search for family notices, obituaries, news articles, letters, advertisements and illustrations.

“I searched for my own constituency of Wantage and within seconds had 42,000 results - an indication of the breadth and variety of material featured.“

Culture and Communications Minister, Ed Vaizey

You can access the archive via: www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk Sources: http://bit.ly/srrBpX and http://bit.ly/t5Yzb8

2. New IPTV service for Liverpool

• Bay TV Liverpool launched on 1st November 2011, offering a mix of news, sport and entertainment programmes.

• It is run by a consortium, “led by AIMES Grid Services - a Liverpool University enterprise - and the Government's Technology Strategy Board.”

• The service is aimed at the Liverpool City Region, which includes “the City of Liverpool and the authorities of Halton, Knowsley, Sefton, St Helens, and Wirral.”

• Their website notes that the “area is home to more than 2.5m consumers”.

Anyone can open an account and upload video content to the "Viewer Videos" and "Classified" section of the site.

See: http://baytvliverpool.com/

3. Global Radio launch daily-deals service

• Global Radio, which owns the Capital and Heart radio networks, launched a daily-deals website in November - Welovelocal.com - initially focussing on Birmingham.

• Global Radio plans to launch further sites during 2012 targeting each of its 20 other regional centres, which include London, Plymouth and Glasgow.

• Welovelocal.com offers consumers a discount of up to 90% on a rangeof products, experiences and services in their local area.

• Mark Lee, managing director, regions, at Global Radio estimated that the daily deals market has grown from nothing to a value of about £4m in the Birmingham area alone over the past year. He believes the sites will open Global Radio to new advertisers.

• Global Radio's predecessor, GCap Media, bought the local reviews and listing website Welovelocal.com in 2008 for £600,000. The daily deals element is a totally new feature.

Source: http://bit.ly/xzXYYh

4. PitsnPots gets new funding• Stoke hyper-local PitsnPots announced towards the end of the year that they had

secured funding from The Journalism Foundation, a non-for-profit organisation that promotes, develops and sustains free and fair journalism across the world.

• Its CEO is Simon Kelner, former editor-in-chief of The Independent and it is chaired by Evgeny Lebedev, chairman of The Independent and the Evening Standard. Other trustees include Baroness Kennedy, Lord Fowler - former chair of the House of Commons media select committee - and Sir John Tusa, former director general of BBC World Service.

• PitsnPots was one of two projects supported at the launch of the Foundation. • The other, a partnership with City University, will provide training for journalists in

Tunisia, teaching local journalists how to report in a free and open society.

• Mike Rawlins from Pits n Pots said funding would be used to develop a more sustainable public service business model, whilst also looking at generating more engagement with the politically disenfranchised. It is hoped the site can become a template for other locations.

5. New Networked Neighbourhoods data

Hugh Flouch and Kevin Harris, at Networked Neighbourhoods have published new research noting that:

“Local council officers and elected members regard neighbourhood websites as the most useful online channel, above others such as Facebook or Twitter.”

Other key findings include: – Those claiming that they are aware of one or more neighbourhood sites in their area increased from 63%

in 2010 to 84% for members, and from 55% to 92% among officers responding. – The proportion of members who perceived local sites to be negative dropped 5%, from 17%. – Nonetheless, in 2011 the proportion of members who feel that relationships with sites can be described

as ‘co-operative’ is about 50%, compared to two thirds in 2010. Among officers the trend is in the other direction: from 53% in 2010 to 67% this year.

– Some 90% of members feel that they should read and contribute to neighbourhood websites as active

participants, compared with 65% in 2010.

Source: http://networkedneighbourhoods.com/?p=907

6. Newspaper Round Up

• Figures from the Advertising Association showed ad revenues at regional papers were down 8.7% in Q3, with free titles suffering a 14.9% drop, paid-for weeklies off 5.8% and regional dailies 3.4% lower. However, the body forecast regionals will return to ad revenue growth in Q3 2012.

http://bit.ly/urQJYb ------------------

• Newsquest-owned Glasgow newspapers the Herald and Sunday Herald are to erect a paywall for their online content. Over each four-week period, the first 10 articles read on their websites will be free, with a cost of £2.99-per-month above that, starting with an initial £1-per-month payment. Digital director Mark Smith said:

"Our research shows that most of our users are happy to pay for something they value...We also believe it's important that quality journalism by Scots and for

Scots exists and prospers in the digital environment.“ http://bit.ly/s5V73W

------------------• The Telegraph claimed that the Daily Mail & General Trust has appointed Ernst & Young to

value its Northcliffe Media regional division ahead of a potential sale. The report speculated that Northcliffe’s portfolio of titles could be broken up and sold in small bundles after the "vendor due diligence" review valued the assets at £150m. http://tgr.ph/vEi4WI

• Johnston Press is rolling out mobile versions for its

211 local media websites.

Featuring news, sport, lifestyle, community content, and video, the mobile websites are designed to cater for smartphones’ screen sizes and device functionality.

• Johnston Press’ Find it directory is embedded within the mobile sites, so users to search for and check out local businesses and services whilst on the move.

• David Moth reports that they will monetise the sites by selling two ad slots on each of the main and article pages

See: http://bit.ly/tdlbS7 Image via: http://bit.ly/rU7OZy

7. BBC Local Radio

• In a previous pack I reported on proposals from BBC management to make changes at BBC Local Radio services. (See: Consultation: BBC Local Radio for more details.)

• Labour MP Austin Mitchell told the Commons that cuts of c.£15m to BBC local radio stations would be “a crippling blow”, and "deeply damaging" to the BBC’s output .

• At the same Commons debate, Lib Dem MP Don Foster said: "I simply do not understand why something that is so important to so many of our

constituents is under attack in this way. It is worth remembering that something like 20% of people only listen to local radio. It is a lifeline for older people and the disabled and so on. I hope again the BBC will look at it again, just as they will look again at the issue of regional TV."

Via: http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2011/dec/01/bbc-local-radio-cuts

• In response, BBC Director General Mark Thompson told MPs who have called for local radio services to be saved that they are “pushing at a partly open door”, after the public consultation on proposed changes prompted by the public and political response.

“There is no question we are looking for significant savings in radio, and we will have to look carefully at how the public have responded to that question and see whether it should be amended.”http://www.broadcastnow.co.uk/news/broadcasters/bbc/bbc-mps-pushing-on-open-door-over-local-radio/5035757.article

• The National Union of Journalists warned that proposed BBC cuts (NB: not just those potentially affecting Local Radio) will lead to a reduction in the UK’s economic output of up to £1.7bn, citing research by Howard Reed of Landman Economics. Reed said:

“It is clear that the BBC cuts will have a huge adverse impact on the UK’s creative industries sector, just at the time when the country is relying on world-leading sectors such as this to

spearhead economic recovery from the most serious economic crisis for seventy years. Economically, cutting the BBC by this much, at this time, looks like a dangerous and

wrongheaded strategy.”http://www.broadcastnow.co.uk/news/broadcasters/nuj-bbc-cuts-to-cost-uk-17bn/5036038.article

• The Local Government Association warned that planned cuts to BBC local radio could jeopardise emergency broadcasts in a civil crisis. The LGA said the Corporation was underestimating the "risks to people's safety" which local radio reports could help relieve, citing the example of key advice being broadcast about local flooding. The BBC responded that its local radio would continue to play a key role in emergencies.

See: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-16296635

And three UK stories you may have seen before from my end of year round up (but not from any bi-monthly packs)

8. Local TV moves a step closerIn December, DCMS published the shortlist of the 20 towns and cities across the UK which are expected to be the first to have their own local TV stations.

They are: Belfast, Birmingham, Brighton and Hove, Bristol, Cardiff, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Grimsby, Leeds, Liverpool, London, Manchester, Newcastle, Norwich, Nottingham, Oxford, Plymouth, Preston, Southampton and Swansea.

A further 24 areas have been identified for a future round of licensing (2012/13):

Aberdeen, Ayr, Bangor, Barnstaple, Basingstoke, Bedford, Cambridge, Carlisle, Derry / Londonderry, Dundee, Guildford, Hereford, Inverness, Kidderminster, Limavady, Luton,

Maidstone, Malvern, Mold, Salisbury, Sheffield, Stoke on Trent, Stratford upon Avon, York.

Ofcom is currently consulting on proposals for awarding local TV licences.

The Government has also laid three Orders before Parliament that, if they enter into force, would create a statutory framework for local television.

Potential impact of these ordersMultiplex Licence• Spectrum will be awarded through a competitive process to a multiplex operator to

provide distribution for local TV. “The multiplex operator will also be able to utilise two additional videostreams with the potential to create two quasi-national channels.”

• Competition for the multiplex licence will be open to commercial and not-for-profits.

Ownership rules• The Government intends to consult in 2012 about whether independent television

production companies should be allowed to bid for local TV licences.

• Current rules, would prevent an independent producer from owning more than 25 per cent of a local TV licence.

EPG prominence• Local television services may be added to the list of channels which must be given

appropriate prominence on electronic programme guides (EPGs).

• Sky and Virgin have committed to offering apps or the yellow button for audiences to access IPTV or video-on-demand local TV services from their front pages.

9. Community Radio Annual ReportOfcom recently published it’s annual report into the sector, noting:

The regulator has licensed 231 stations. Of this, 196 are broadcasting, 23 have either decided not to launch or handed their licence back. The remainder are preparing to go on air. • 9.2 million adults were able to receive a community radio station broadly aimed at them.

• Most stations serve general audiences, but many serve smaller communities of interest; e.g. minority ethnic groups (13%), youth (11%) and those with a religious focus (6%).

Ofcom’s Annual Report on the sector concludes:

“At a cost of just over £10 million pounds, based on the reports received from stations in this reporting period, community radio in the UK delivered:

• A total of more than 12,500 volunteering opportunities • Over 45,000 volunteer hours each week• Over 15,000 hours of original radio output each week• Output broadcast in a wide range of community languages.”

10. n0tice

• N0tice was launched by The Guardian in private beta at the end of October 2011. The initiative, which started as a hack day project is billed as an online community noticeboard where news, events, and local special offers can be posted.

“In many ways they’ve created a new kind of social platform, or a really really old one reinvented for the new world….” Matt McAlister, Director of Digital Strategy at Guardian Media Group

• There is no cost for users to join but in order to advertise their product/event in a premium position on other users' pages it will cost around £1 per day, dependent on the size of the advert, the size of the geographical region the ad will reach and how long the advert will remain on the site.

• Bobbie Johnson at GigaOM described it as “part blogging platform, part Craigslist, part communal Twitter stream, part forum, part event listing” whilst Katherine Travers at Editor’s Weblog noted that “the potential of n0tice is multifold, however; the n0tice team has even ventured to explore the potential of using n0tice as a live blogging tool for a local audience. The site makes it easy to curate tweets, embed video and update the board as often as necessary.”

Ten developments from America

1. Facebook buys GowallaFacebook has bought location-based service Gowalla which allows users to share their location and to check in to restaurants, cafes and cinemas across the world.

Gowalla co-founder Josh Williams told users:

"We know how much many of you loved Gowalla. It's been the highlight of our lives as we've built it with your help over the past two years. As we move forward, we hope some of the inspiration behind Gowalla

- a fun and beautiful way to share your journey on the go - will live on at Facebook."

Williams and fellow co-founder, Scott Raymond will join Facebook’s design and engineering teams.See: http://bloom.bg/syEqKB Image: http://www.austinpost.org/files/articles/gowalla.png

Their blog notes:

“Gowalla, as a service, will be winding down at the end of January. We plan to provide an easy way to export your Passport data, your Stamp and Pin data (along with your legacy Item data), and your photos as well. Facebook is not acquiring Gowalla’s user data.”

2: Clear Channel moves into Deals

Two US radio giants have created an alliance over an online daily deals service.

850-station owner Clear Channel Communications is to run ads for Cumulus Media’s online deals programme SweetJack.

In return, Cumulus, with 570 radio stations, will become part of iHeartRadio, Clear Channel’s streaming app and online radio brand. Financial details were not revealed.

SweetJack has launched in 16 US cities and attracted 1m subscribers. Under the new alliance, it aims to roll-out out to 120 markets by the end of 2012.

Source: http://nyti.ms/AlpUqB

3. Other Daily Deal newseBay-owned online payments group PayPal said it plans to launch a daily deals service in Q1 2012, tailoring offers according to users’ purchasing patterns and mobile location data. PayPal president Scott Thompson said:

“The experience is going to be completely different than anyone else’s through and through.

We’ll only give you something that we think fits the category of unique and relevant. Everyone else is going to bombard you.”

Source: http://bloom.bg/slVFeO

Eight US newspaper publishers —- Advance Digital, A. H. Belo Corporation, Cox Media Group, Gannett, Hearst, MediaNews Group, The McClatchy Company, and The Washington Post Co. -— have formed a joint venture to promote their individual daily deals efforts.

PaidContent notes that:

“This new venture is being created with assets from the new entity’s acquisition of Travidia, the developer of Find n Save. The

new company will adopt the Find n Save brand.”

Source: http://bit.ly/uxwLYR

4. Local Advertising PredictionsBIA/Kelsey: Local Digital Ad Revenue to Hit $37.9 Billion by 2015 1. This is up from $23.3 billion in 2011. They also lowered their expectations for combined

digital and traditional local advertising revenues in 2011 from $136.2 billion to $135.9 bn.

2. Spending on local digital ads will grow from $23.3 billion in 2011 to $37.9 billion in 2015.

3. Share of digital media spend will increase from 14.6 % of all local ad revenues in 2010 to 18.9% in 2012 and 25.4% in 2015.

See: http://bit.ly/v3GnVD

Borrell: Online Poised For Dominance in Local AdsA new report from Borrell Associates predicts that online could become the primary medium destination for local advertising dollars by 2013, while mobile advertising will steadily increase its share of local ad dollars, reaching 88% of all local digital advertising by 2016.

Borrell forecasts a 66% increase in local mobile advertising in 2012, reaching $4.3 billion from $2.6 billion in 2011. This will represent an increase from 6.3% to 14.1% of local advertising share.

Source: http://bit.ly/uUHKhw

5. Patch and AOLThe Batavian's Howard Owens commented in Nieman Lab’s 2012 predictions:

“Patch won’t survive the year.The collapse of Patch will lead to a conventional wisdom among pundits that

“see, we told you, hyperlocal can’t build a sustainable business model.”

Meanwhile, the local independents will continue to soldier on, incrementally building their sustainable businesses.

The number of local independent online publishers in the US will double in 2012 (not that we have a real good count on how many actual local indie online

news businesses there are now, but the industry segment will continue to grow).-------------------

Starboard Value, which owns about 4.5% of AOL, wrote to CEO Tim Armstrong arguing the group is currently "deeply undervalued” as investors remain unpersuaded by “money-losing growth initiatives”, such as its Patch local news network. (See: http://prn.to/vneTXt)

-------------------

Forbes’ Jeff Bercovici reports that Patch had moved away from its guarantee that it would be in 1,000 towns by the end of the year, whilst The Huffington Post rolled out local news websites in November with the launch of HuffPost Detroit and HuffPost Miami .

6. Examiner.com – the new Patch?Business Insider asked if Examiner.com is “an AOL Patch-Killer” noting that the three years old, local-oriented entertainment, news and lifestyle site Examiner.com had 21 million uniques and 64 million pageviews in November.

• According to Quantcast's site rankings, Examiner.com is the 96th most-visited site in the U.S. — 77 spots ahead of Patch.com, which is 173rd.

• Each "examiner" (i.e. writer) covers a specific topic in a specific area. • There are now 85,000 paid examiners, about 20% of which post at least once every 90

days, and 15% of which post at least every 30 days.

PaidContent meanwhile notes that Examiner.com is partnering with CBS to provide exclusive content for CBS’s locally targeted websites. Starting with 25 main cities, the content – a series of “Best Of” guides and “Top Spots” lists – is anticipated to include all CBS Local sites by end of Q1 2012.

7. Newspaper roundupMediaNews Group announced that three of its California titles are to cease printing Monday editions, and will drop paywalls on their websites for that day.Source: http://bit.ly/snKJMv

-------------Gannett-owned US newspaper the Chicago Sun-Times and its 39 affiliated titles will charge readers for online content. At the time of the announcement, no details of pricing were given. The US publisher began paywall tests last July at three of its 82 US newspapers.Source: http://bit.ly/sLPKnO

The New York Times Co is to sell its 16-title Regional Media Group to Halifax Media Holdings for $143m.

The small regional newspapers included in the sale include the Press Democrat in Santa Rosa, California, and the Tuscaloosa News. Source: http://nyti.ms/uTMI3P

Jeffrey Cole, director of the University of Southern California's Annenberg centre for the digital future, said he believes :

“the only print newspapers that will survive will be at the extremes of the

medium - the largest and the smallest”

As a result of the move to digital, Cole argued only the New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal and USA Today would retain their print editions in a few years’ time.Source: http://bit.ly/u2hNWe

USC Annenberg journalism professor Judy Muller in an op-ed in the LA Times lauded America’s small-town newspapers, noting they are “doing just fine, thank you,” despite the collapse of larger, big-city equivalents.

8. New location based research (Pt1) JiWire’s latest Mobile Audience Insights Report reported a number of emerging trends in the location and mobile markets:

• Proximity Marketing – 66% prefer to purchase in a physical store within a five-mile radius.• Tablet adoption continues - Tablet usage is up 84% since Q4 2010.• Checking-in - Consumers are split evenly between liking, disliking and not interested.

Other findings include:

• Consumer purchase intent is 50% higher for smartphones and/or tablets compared to laptops over the next six months (25% versus 16%), continuing to accelerate the shift in device ownership.

• Adults 24 years old and under are more likely to purchase a smartphone and/or laptop in the next six months while adults between the ages of 25 and 44 are more likely to purchase a tablet.

Source: http://bit.ly/rtanNG

9. New location based research (Pt2)• Forrester Research surveyed 37,000 people with mobile phones finding that the majority

of them (70%) had never even heard about geo-social apps, down from 85% last year.

• Among the 30% of respondents who are familiar with location-based apps, only a minority use them often.

Of the 5% who are active location based service users, the survey found:

- 2% use the apps weekly,

- 1% use them monthly and

- 2% use them less than once a month.

Source: Mashable http://on.mash.to/t8jCA2

10. New Pew Research dataNew data from Pew paints a picture of how different ages use different media to find out about information about their local area, with the web dominating for 18-39s and Newspapers for those aged 40+.

Source: http://www.journalism.org/analysis_report/local_news

Local TV news most popular sourceWhile Local TV news remains the most popular source for local information in America, adults rely on it primarily for just three subjects—weather, breaking news and to a lesser extent traffic.

Newspapers (both print and on the web) are the source Americans turn to most for a wider range of information than any other source.

Web-only outlets are now the key source of information on some key subjects such as education or local business and restaurants.

Source: http://bit.ly/xotRGe Image: http://bit.ly/pYm3zr

For more hyper-local roundups visit: http://www.slideshare.net/mrdamian

User noteAll content in this and previous slide packs is in the public domain.

These slides bring these stories together and hopefully highlight some things you may have missed.All content is referenced so you can go and read original articles for yourself if you want.

Any omissions, errors or mistakes are mine, and mine alone.Feedback, suggestions and comments are very welcome.

Contact me: damian.radcliffe@gmail.com (home)

damian.radcliffe@ofcom.org.uk (work) Twitter: @mrdamian76