I've taken a quick look at the R.H. Donnelley earnings release before the company's much-anticipated earnings call this morning. Here are a few quick highlights: The company posted ad sales of US$2,743 million, an increase of 0.4 percent. Net revenues…
As I noted in a blog about The Kelsey Group's Local Online Media event in London last week, analysts, speakers and the audience were positively upbeat about the Yellow Pages business. The feeling by all was that the stock market…
Idearc has announced CEO John Mueller will resign after just eight days on the job, citing "unforeseen health reasons." Mueller, who was previously Idearc's chairman, had replaced Kathy Harless, who was removed following a sharp decline in the company's value.…
The Yellow Pages Association released new usage data showing that U.S. print directory usage was stable in 2007 at 13.4 billion print lookups, while online directory references climbed 15 percent, from 3.3 billion searches in 2006 to 3.8 billion in 2007.…
Sensis, Australia's largest directory publisher, recently released first-half results from its 2007-2008 financial year (ending June 30), which show solid growth of its print products. White Pages in particular grew 9.9 percent in the first half, an improvement over its 8.1…
Yellow Pages Group in Canada made another small step toward complete coverage of the Canadian directory market by acquiring the directory business from TBayTel, a leading telecommunications company in Thunder Bay and Northern Ontario. This means YPG will now be…
Idearc Media announced today that Kathy Harless has been replaced as CEO of the directory publisher by board chairman John Mueller, a former CEO of Cincinnati Bell Yellow Pages and Valor Communications. Harless' departure follows a substantial decline in the…
Andrew Day, CEO of European directory publisher Truvo (formerly World Directories), took the stage with Charles Laughlin yesterday at TKG's one-day local search summit in London. His message can be summed up in one sound byte that was repeated a…
Not so many years ago, major Yellow Pages publishers in developed countries reported revenue and earnings growth (or occasionally declines) that were generally very consistent. The advent of serious competition in several markets has had somewhat of an impact on…
On the Yellow Pages Group (Canada) fourth-quarter earnings call today, CEO Marc Tellier was asked whether YPG had any interest in making acquisitions in the United States. The question was prompted by the steep sell-offs last week of Idearc Media, R.H.…
The sell-off of directory stocks that reached a crescendo yesterday is continuing today, with Idearc, R.H. Donnelley and Yell being hit the hardest. Each of the three has been downgraded by leading banks and has lost a substantial amount of its value.…
Thursday was a very rough day for publicly traded directory companies. With Idearc and Yell announcing results that show more weakness in print directories, the two companies' shares moved sharply downward. As of this writing Thursday afternoon, Idearc shares had lost…
Local Insight Regatta Holdings and AT&T announced the acquisition of L.M. Berry's Independent Line of Business unit. Terms of the agreement were not disclosed. According to the press release: The transaction will combine two industry-leading organizations responsible for selling, producing…
I read with interest a recent post by Jennifer Osborne on Search Engine People regarding how Millennials fundamentally search for products and services differently as compared with those 30 years old and older. One of the fundamental differences Osborne points out: Millennial Brains…
Quick, what industry gets the highest customer service quality ratings from U.S. adult consumers, according to an August 2007 Harris Interactive poll? No. 1 is supermarkets with 92 percent giving them a good rating, No. 2 is online search engines (84…
According to a recent Direct Marketing Association survey, “The absence of a brick-and-mortar store is becoming prevalent among retailers, since 41 percent of survey respondents don't have a physical store.” This is quite a surprising finding and certainly has significant ramifications…
AT&T Yellow Pages announced a new research strategy yesterday that includes a phase-out of its participation in the current industry syndicated usage program, though the publisher will continue to follow a syndicated methodology and make results available. AT&T will continue…
A new study in the United Kingdom, commissioned by welovelocal.com, a U.K.-based online local site competing against directory publishers, has found that 35 percent of British consumers no longer want to receive print directories, and choose the Internet to look…
The Canadian printing company Quebecor World has filed for bankruptcy protection and secured US$1 billion in emergency financing. Quebecor's predicament reflects some of the stresses taking place in traditional print media, which will only get worse in the next year…
Pagesjaunes France has announced it will take a dramatic pricing approach in its largest urban markets where it will cut print costs by 20 percent while raising online costs on average by 50 percent. The goal of the pricing program…
