BtoB Media Business - March 2012 - (Page 21)

People On the Move James Murdoch surrenders title at News International Following the phone hacking scandals at its newspapers in the United Kingdom, News Corp. announced that James Murdoch has given up his position as executive chairman of News International. Murdoch remains deputy COO of News Corp. and is relocating to News Corp.’s New York headquarters. Tom Mockridge will continue as CEO of News International, News Corp.’s U.K. publishing unit. PROFILE Bakley ushers FierceMarkets’ expansion New president sees growth potential in custom content The company also recently experimented uestex Media Group promoted Mau- with a paid e-book sold on Amazon.com and rice Bakley to president of its Fierce- Apple’s iTunes bookstore. In December, Markets division in January, putting FierceMarkets published Kindle and iBook him in charge of the company’s entire portfolio versions of “Companion Diagnostics: The and expanding his role in strategic planning. Future of Medicine,” by Tracy Staton, editor As COO, a position he held since 2009, Bakley of “FiercePharma” (a life sciences newsletter focused on strategy implementafrom FierceMarkets), which Maurice tion across four verticals—entersold several hundred copies. Bakley prise IT, finance, government While Bakley said there Company: and healthcare. He now adds could be occasions to do that FierceMarkets energy, life sciences and telecom again in the future, sponsored Location: to his duties, with a focus on Washington, D.C. lead-gen publications in PDF driving companywide growth. Title: President formats will remain the core of In the near term, Bakley Big move: COO takes over as FierceMarkets’ e-book trade. looks to expand FierceMar- president with plans to The company is also in the expand the company’s cuskets’ e-book offerings and tom content, e-book and process of building up its custom content. sponsored-survey business. event offerings. “There is a lot of demand for Core responsibilities: FierceMarkets’ editorial staff not just simple lead generation, Recruiting new talent, motiteamed with advertisers like but for us as publishers to vating employees, strategic GE Healthcare and Varolii (a [create] engaging content and planning and new-product Seattle-based communications deliver that to [our] aggregated development software company) to identify audiences,” he said. potential topics. Editorial With many readers suffering from white staffers then interviewed readers about how paper fatigue, the company’s e-books—which their peers handle specific technologies—such feature in-depth coverage of subjects such as as the state of virtualization in hospitals—and cloud content management and wireless created survey questions based on their findings. network security—have consistently generated The surveys also have lead-generation higher response rates. FierceMarkets guarantees components. According to Bakley, readers advertisers at least 150, 250 or 400 leads based who complete a survey are asked to submit on their level of sponsorship. The e-books, contact information and answer one or two which often have multiple sponsors (AT&T Inc. lead-gen questions for the advertiser. Readers and Intel Corp., for example) are editorially who volunteer information can see a benchdriven in content creation. mark report and receive a small reward, like a Although FierceMarkets also creates custom gift card for Starbucks. e-books for clients, Bakley said the majority will It’s this kind of soft selling that’s been the remain editorial products to strengthen the com- key to success with audiences, Bakley said. pany’s brand and establish thought leadership. “Readers know when they’re being sold to,” “By doing primarily editorial, we see he said. “With our editorially-driven webinar increased response rates continue because read- program, e-books [and] surveys, editors need ers value that third-party impartial look,” he to be really onboard and driving the process; said. “They help give readers a depth of content and clients need to step back and let us [create] that you don’t get in the daily newsletters.” great content that engages readers.” BY JAMES PODOLNY PEOPLE Q Hanley Wood taps Benz to be president-content Hanley Wood, publisher of Builder, has named Bob Benz president-content, a newly created position. He was previously chief digital officer at Clarity Media Group, which publishes the Weekly Standard. Benz will be responsible for transforming Hanley Wood into a digital-first editorial environment. Forbes Media selects new chief revenue officer Forbes Media has promoted Meredith Kopit Levien to chief revenue officer. She was previously senior VP-group publisher at the company. Levien succeeds Kevin Gentzel, who has left Forbes Media. Levien joined Forbes Media four years ago. She will oversee the company’s U.S. and European digital and print sales organization. In addition to the promotion of Levien, Forbes Media also named Mark Howard to the new position of senior VP-digital advertising strategy. Previously, Howard was senior VP-digital ad sales. NPR names Wilson chief content officer NPR has named Kinsey Wilson to the newly created role of exec VPchief content officer. In this position, Wilson will oversee NPR’s news, programming and digital media. He had been senior VPgeneral manager of digital media since he joined NPR in 2008. Additionally, NPR said Margaret Low Smith will lead NPR News as senior VP. Smith had been acting in that position since January 2011. Prior to taking over that role, Smith had been VP-programming. NPR CEO Gary Knell said these executive appointments were intended to integrate the organization’s production of news, programming and digital media. mediabusinessonline.com | March 2012 | Media Business | 21 http://www.Amazon.com http://www.mediabusinessonline.com

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of BtoB Media Business - March 2012

BtoB Media Business - March 2012
Contents
Q&A with new Summit CEO Steve Weitzner
Publishers pursue revenue opportunities in mobile
Data immersion drives circulation management
Sales & Marketing
M&A
Events
People
The increasingly complex role of editors

BtoB Media Business - March 2012