Telmetrics President Bill Dinan wrote an interesting piece in MediaPost this week that offers some practical advice on building pay-per-call programs.
One of the more interesting topics he covers is whether it makes sense for publishers to place a cap on a pay-per-call program. The question involves a real dilemma for publishers. With a cap, publishers …

Idearc Media, which exited bankruptcy on Dec. 31, has changed its name to SuperMedia LLC, as part of an effort to start on a fresh course post-bankruptcy. The restructured company now trades on the NASDAQ Global Market under the symbol SPMD.
In a recent briefing with BIA/Kelsey analysts, SuperMedia CEO Scott Klein talked about how the …

New Zealand’s Yellow Pages Group posted a net loss after tax of NZ$338 million for the financial year ended June 30, but much of the loss resulted from one-time items. The company actually managed to grow revenues 1.4 percent to NZ$297 million, with print dropping 1.6 percent (a modest decline to say the least compared …

Call measurement firm Telmetrics has issued an announcement detailing its predictions for how pay per call will evolve in 2010. We think it’s a pretty good list. Here is our summation of what they say, with some commentary of our own. Here is the original document.
Agencies will embrace PPC. Telmetrics expects advertisers to pressure ad …

Reuters is reporting that both Idearc and R.H. Donnelley are close to completing their bankruptcy processes, and are planning to hit the ground running with plans to transform themselves from print-centric to multiproduct businesses.
The following quote from Idearc CEO Scott Klein about sums up what the Yellow Pages industry is facing over the next couple …

Idearc announced it has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in Texas, a move that it signaled in its year-end 2008 earnings announcement, when it indicated some form of bankruptcy filing was likely if not inevitable.
Here is how Idearc describes the process it will go through:

Idearc also announced that it has reached an agreement in principle with the …

On a recent visit to Stockholm, we sat down with Eniro President and CEO Jesper Karrbrink, who is managing Eniro through a strategic shift described in a presentation late last year as moving “from print dependence to online opportunity.” In a videotaped interview, Karrbrink insisted that Eniro’s product is its content. Print directories, the Internet, mobile phones and …

Longtime U.S. independent publisher White Directory (owned by Hearst Corp.) has launched a complete rebranding, dropping the old “Talking Phone Book” in favor of “LocalEdge.” The company says it plans to phase in the new brand over the next 12 months.
In our view, the rebranding is way overdue. “Talking Phone Book” is a brand that …

The Yellow Pages Association released some details of its 2008 U.S. usage study, which showed a substantial drop in print references, mostly but not completely offset by online Yellow Pages usage growth. Print references, measured for YPA by KN/SRI, dropped about 8 percent from 13.4 billion to 12.3 billion. Online Yellow Pages lookups, as measured by comScore, grew 22 …

Saw this article today – more evidence that residential White Pages are verging on extinction.
AT&T has gotten the nod from Ohio’s utility regulators to eliminate White Pages from co-bound White/Yellow phone books. First, stand-alone residential White Pages books will go (many have already), then co-bound residential listings. White Pages, particularly residential White, is a cost center that …

One day after R.H. Donnelley released its 2008 results showing a sharp drop in ad sales, Idearc followed suit today with annual results that also reflect a very tough Yellow Pages environment in the United States. The big news in the release is the acknowledgment of the possibility that Idearc may seek bankruptcy protection. From …

As debt maturities loom in a tight credit market, the directory publisher R.H. Donnelley announced today that it has retained the financial firm Lazard to “assist in the evaluation of its capital structure, including various balance sheet restructuring alternatives.”
On a conference call this morning to announce year-end and fourth-quarter earnings (ad sales were down 8 percent in …

Simmons Market Research Bureau called me at home on Saturday morning as part of a broad canvassing of Yellow Pages consumers in San Diego County.
After some preliminary questions, the surveyor asked me to walk over to where I keep my Yellow Pages (downstairs, in an old gun closet). I lugged my six Yellow Pages out, put …

Earlier this week I went to hear an economist offer his take on the current economy and how soon it would recover. Long story short, I believe the speaker, who had outstanding credentials, was overly optimistic. (I really believe he may have been on vacation on some secluded island for the past year.) In fact, his …

My colleague Neal Polachek and I just got off the phone with the leadership team at the Australian publisher Sensis, who walked us through its half-year results ended Dec. 31. We continue to marvel at how successful Sensis has been at growing revenue across all  its channels, while most publishers around the world struggle to maintain …

Yesterday, I spent about three hours with Idearc Media CEO Scott Klein, who shared the vision he and his management team have for the company. Some of that vision is encapsulated in the rollout of SuperGuarantee, a major new initiative. Other clues are found in several enhancements to the core Superpages site. My biggest take-away: …

 
Last week, Yell Group issued its nine-month earnings report (the company’s financial year ends March 31) and most of the news was sobering. Organic growth is expected to be in the negative double digits in its fourth quarter, and small-business advertisers are paralyzed by uncertainty over how long the downturn will last and how bad …

Last week the Albany, New York, Common Council passed a law that restricts the delivery of telephone directories to homes and businesses. Among the provisions of the ordinance is a requirement that any phone book delivered to a home must land within 10 feet of the front door. The ordinance also requires publishers to include an opt-out phone …

Gary Campbell is among the directory publishing executives with the most experience in building a performance-based ad model in the print product. He is now hoping to leverage that experience in a new venture called Cost Per Call Solutions.
The new company was founded with colleagues from the recently disbanded Canwest Directories operation. CPC Solutions will offer …

The movement to compel Yellow Pages publishers to make it easy for consumers to opt out of receiving telephone books and punish unwelcome distribution gained some momentum last week with legislation introduced in Minnesota and the city of Albany, New York. In the meantime, directory publishers continue to refine their own programs in the hope …