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Friday, April 5, 2002 Publishing Industry Soundbytes Launches and Redesigns | Miscellaneous People · After five years with CBS, the last two-and-one-half years as anchor of The Early Show, Bryant Gumbel has decided to resign from his position. Gumbel said, "After more than 17 years of hosting a morning news program, I feel it's time for me to move on and do something else with my life." Gumbel will work with CBS News management to determine the timing of his departure from the morning program. · USA Today announced the appointment of Brian Gallagher as executive editor effective June 1. Karen Jurgensen, editor of USA Today, made the announcement. Gallagher, 53, replaces Bob Dubill, who previously announced he will retire. Gallagher has been USA Today's editorial page editor for the last three years. During that time, he has also has led a succession of projects aimed at defining the newspaper's long-term objectives. Gallagher has been involved with USA Today since its inception in 1982, initially as an editor at Gannett News Service and soon after as a member of the USA Today staff. · Daniel J. Castellini, senior vice president and chief financial officer of The E. W. Scripps Company, has retired after 31 years with the firm. His retirement was effective March 31. Castellini, 62, ends a distinguished career in financial management highlighted by the key role he has played transforming Scripps into one of the country's leading diversified media companies. Castellini, who in December announced his intention to retire, will assist the company in the transition to a successor chief financial officer, who will be named shortly. Castellini ends a career with Scripps that began in 1971 as the company's assistant treasurer. · Larry Crane, 59, has been named Art Director of Motor Trend magazine, it was announced by Kevin Smith, Editor-in-Chief. He replaces Anthony Fox who has left the magazine. A veteran of automotive magazines, the award-winning Mr. Crane is one of the distinctive creative and graphic forces in the magazine business. He was art director at Automobile for 13 years from 1987 until 2000, and was associate art director at Road & Track from 1983 to 1987. · SoapNet has tapped Lisa Rinna and Ty Treadway to host its second original series, SoapTalk (working title), a daily one-hour series premiering on the network Monday, June 10th. The brand new soap- and lifestyle-themed talk show, which begins production in June, will tape in Los Angeles. Hosted by daytime stars Lisa Rinna and One Life To Live's Ty Treadway, SoapTalk will provide features about the world of daytime television with guests ranging from soap experts and costume designers to stars from the most popular soaps. SoapNet's first original show, SoapCenter which launched in January 2000, will begin to run in a strip format, five days a week in July. · Gemstar-TV Guide International, Inc announced the appointment of Michael Benevento as Corporate Senior Vice President overseeing corporate investments and investor relations. Mr. Benevento will have responsibility for a wide range of investor relations initiatives and will act as the principal day-to-day contact for Gemstar-TV Guide with its shareholders and the investment community as well as undertake public appearances to ensure that the Company's strategy and initiatives are clearly defined to the market. He will be involved in business and investment strategies for the Company, and will divide his time between New York and Pasadena. · ITworld.com, a business unit of IDG and an online publisher of news, educational content and broadband interactive media for the IT community, announced the promotion of Rich Mikita to Chief Operating Officer. Mikita's responsibilities include product development, process and project management as well as the critical aspects of engineering and client services. · ASME International (American Society of Mechanical Engineers) announced that Virgil R. Carter, FAIA, of Chadds Ford, Pa., has been named executive director, effective July 1, 2002. He succeeds David L. Belden, Ph.D., P.E., who is retiring after serving in that position since 1987. Carter, 60, will assume his new position at ASME's international headquarters in New York City. As executive director of ASME, Carter will have overall operational management responsibility for all Society funds and program activities, including long-range planning, conferences, publications, e-commerce, member affairs, education, research, codes and standards development, and public affairs. For the past five years, Carter has been executive director of the Project Management Institute (PMI) in Newtown Square, Pa., a 90,000-member, not-for-profit professional association serving the project management field. · Alibris, a supplier of hard-to-find books, announced the appointment of Steve Gillan as its Chief Financial Officer. Gillan has been with Alibris since December 1999, serving as the company's Controller and Vice President of Finance. In that position, Gillan managed all accounting and treasury functions, as well as development of the finance infrastructure at Alibris. As Chief Financial Officer, Gillan will continue to oversee Alibris' capital structure and provide leadership of its financial planning, systems, and processes. Prior to Alibris, Gillan was Vice President of Finance at a division of Raychem Corporation and was with the company for nearly 10 years in a variety of international, reporting, and financial management positions. · J. Carey Loomis has been promoted to Vice President of National Advertising for Paramount Pictures, it was announced today by Tom Campanella, Executive Vice President of Worldwide Marketing/Advertising for Paramount Pictures. Mr. Loomis' responsibilities include overseeing the coordination of all media buys in support of Paramount's theatrical releases. This includes organizing national and spot broadcast buys, outdoor, newspaper and magazine advertising, traffic, and planning. He will report to Susan Wrenn, Senior Vice President, Media Director. · Presstek, Inc., a provider of direct digital imaging technology, announced the appointment of Edward J. Marino as President and Chief Executive Officer, succeeding Robert W. Hallman. Mr. Marino is an experienced executive with more than 10 years of senior management responsibilities in the printing, publishing and digital imaging industries and has served on Presstek's board of directors for two years. Mr. Marino will transition from his current position as president and chief executive officer of Lightning Source, Inc., a print-on-demand and digital content delivery company serving the book publishing industry. Digital Publishing · ebrary, a leading provider of information distribution and retrieval services, announced that it has partnered with five new regional library networks to distribute its ebrarian service throughout the U.S. Partners include The Bibliographical Center for Research (BCR), which serves 3,000 libraries throughout the Western U.S.; Michigan Library Consortium (MLC), which has 700 member libraries throughout Michigan; PALINET, a network of 600 libraries throughout the Mid-Atlantic area; NELINET, a network of approximately 700 libraries in the six New England states; Wisconsin Library Services (WiLS), which serves 500 member libraries in Wisconsin; and OHIONET, which serves more than 500 libraries in Ohio. · XanEdu, a division of ProQuest Company, announced a new venture with Time Warner Books and Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates, Jr. to create an educational companion for the upcoming release of The Bondwoman's Narrative. Designed to complement this historically significant novel written by a female fugitive slave, the companion will feature other works and images of the antebellum period, as well as essays by scholars, historians and original multimedia material. XanEdu's educational companion includes print and online resources that support and build on the novel. · OverDrive, Inc., a developer of ebook, DRM and media marketplace solutions, has introduced Digital Kiosk, an online vending machine for the sale of protected digital content. OverDrive supplies complete merchant account services and Digital Rights Management (DRM) technology with each ready-made Digital Kiosk enabling publishers and retailers to protect and sell ebooks, audio books, music and digital media over the Web. Digital Kiosks feature a “Direct Buy Link” where each product has its own unique web address (URL) so publishers, agents and authors can promote product sales by placing a Direct Buy Link to a specific title in webpages, email, print ads and materials. Content Deals · BusinessWeek and USA Today have launched a special section on "Investing for Growth" -- the first of several anticipated joint editorial projects between the two publications. The section includes the BusinessWeek 50, the magazine's annual list of the best-performing companies in the S&P 500. The special issue of BusinessWeek is currently available on newsstands nationwide, with shared editorial content appearing in USA Today Money section. The two publications shared newsgathering, editorial, marketing and sales resources on the project and will continue to publish joint projects, running simultaneously in both publications several times a year. All future joint editorial features will appear in the full print runs of both BusinessWeek and USA Today. Launches and Redesigns · Recruiter.com, an informational resource for the employment industry, announced the launch of Recruiter Magazine On-line. The On-line Magazine provides information and features for employment professionals including coverage of trends, best practices, product features, industry news, analysis, book reviews and commentary. · This Old House Ventures, Inc. will introduce a new website on April 1st dedicated to home enthusiasts looking for advice and expert guidance on home renovation and restoration, announced Eric Thorkilsen, President, This Old House Ventures, Inc. Thisoldhouse.com provides expert advice from craftsmen, builders, and contractors on topics ranging from small, easy-to-accomplish repairs to major remodeling projects, for kitchens and whole-house renovations. Step-by-step editorial features, accompanied by photos and illustrations, are also provided. The site's interactive tools include a Home Renovators' Forum, where visitors can compare notes with other homeowners on interactive bulletin boards, material calculators (for paint, wallpaper, flooring, etc.), polls, tips, a weekly newsletter, and a monthly Your Old House contest for renovators. · Major League Baseball Properties (MLBP) will debut the first issue of this year's Major League Baseball En Espanol, a bilingual (Spanish and English) magazine geared directly to the Latino community, on Sunday, April 7 in conjunction with the opening week of the 2002 Major League Baseball season. The first issue of this year's Major League Baseball En Espanol features 24 pages of original editorial content and exclusive baseball photos, as well as participation from advertisers and MLBP sponsors Budweiser, Clarinex, Century 21, MasterCard, Nextel, Pepsi and RadioShack and MLBP licensee New Era. · The New York Times Job Market, a print and online recruitment services offering of The New York Times advertising department, announced the launch of the Job Market Confidence Index. The Index is an aggregate measure of the perceptions of the current and future conditions of the job market among employers and those actively seeking employment. The Index will be released monthly. The Index shows a noticeable improvement in the confidence that employers and job seekers in the greater New York metropolitan area have in the job market. The Index rose to 110.4 in March from 100.0 in February. During the same period, the Current Conditions measure of the Index rose to 124.8 from 100.0, while the Expectations measure of the Index rose to 106.2 from 100.0. For these results, February served as the base month, with values equal to 100.0. · Primedia Workplace Learning, a Primedia company and a provider of distance learning solutions, nnounced the availability of Primenet across its Bankers Training and Consulting Company customer base. Primenet is a an integrated elearning solution that combines training content with online learning management. · R.R. Donnelley announced its intent to move its entire print platform to standardized workflow and file format specifications during the next 18 months. R.R. Donnelley will create "Digital Solution Centers," which will be centers of excellence for preparing files for print. The first center, based 60 miles southwest of Chicago, will focus on specialized publishing segments such as trade and special interest consumer magazines. This move represents R.R. Donnelley's continuous effort, which began more than a year ago, to standardize print workflows and file formats for specific customer markets. Last year, the company completed the implementation of standardized workflows for the book publishing market. To support its latest move, R.R. Donnelley has chosen the same PDF workflow tool that was employed in the book effort -- Creo's Prinergy workflow, along with Creo's Synapse InSite Internet portal, which enables customers to access their files via the Web. · On Monday morning 72-year-old daily entertainment trade newspaper The Hollywood Reporter will unveil a new look and format. Meanwhile, a new features division has been created as part of a restructuring that unifies The Reporter's daily news and special issues departments into one editorial team. The Reporter's editorial expansion includes the addition of new bylined columns analyzing all facets of the business such as film, television, music, technology and production services. Paula Parisi has been promoted to head of the new division. She was special issues editorial director. Miscellaneous · Jane Friedman, President and CEO of HarperCollins Publishers Worldwide announced that the company's Fourth Estate division has completed a deal to publish the next two books by Michael Chabon, a Pulitzer Prize-winning author, in English around the world. Hatzeplatz, a novel, and an untitled collection of stories, were bought by Fourth Estate, which published Chabon's last three books in the UK. The deals were negotiated by Chabon's agents Mary Evans and Abner Stein with Christopher Potter, Publisher and Managing Director of Fourth Estate, who will be Chabon's worldwide editor. · The Online Publishers Association (OPA) announced that 24/7 Real Media, DoubleClick and Tacoda Systems have joined as associate members. The OPA introduced associate membership in December 2001 to allow vendors and organizations that support the online publishing business to participate in important industry developments through involvement with the OPA. · King's Road Entertainment, Inc. has optioned the film rights to the German literary classic The Magic Mountain (aka Der Zauberberg), written by Nobel Prize winning author Thomas Mann. The Company plans to produce an English-language feature film for the international market, based on Thomas Mann's classic work. The screenplay has been written by Matthew Faulk and Mark Skeet, with more than 10 feature films to their credit, including The Mayor of Casterbridge and Vanity Fair and 6 mini-series, including the Emmy-winning Jason and the Argonauts. · WorldNow, a provider of technology and revenue solutions for local news and information companies, and The Associated Press, announced an agreement to deliver an integrated platform for television stations to simultaneously publish content on-air and online. ENPS+WorldNow, the new system, combines WorldNow's online content management technology (currently used by 118 local television websites) with AP's ENPS news production system (installed in 380 newsrooms). Click here to return to the homepage of The Write NewsTM Click here to subscribe to our free weekly email newsletter.  www.writenews.com Copyright © 1997-2011 by Writers Write, Inc. All Rights Reserved. |
