News is becoming a crucial selling tool as media companies seek more advertising dollars this year amid the financial turmoil.

Television, the first to be affected by the softening economy last year, is leading the charge to become more news focused. The sector commands much of the revenue compared with newspapers and outdoor media, and has more to lose from an advertising market slide.

To combat the slowdown, Television Broadcasts and Asia Television, the city's two free broadcasters, are rescheduling their late news programmes to draw audiences and advertisers. From next month, TVB's Jade channel will air its late news at 11pm instead of 11.35pm. The programme will be 40 minutes long with three commercial breaks, up from a 15-minute broadcast without ads.

The move indicates that more comprehensive news programmes may become a key tool to tap advertisers. In fact, TVB already has a strong news programme on its High Definition (HD) Jade channel on the digital terrestrial platform.

In response, ATV has also rearranged its late news lineup from next month, moving the late bulletin to 10.35pm from 11.35pm. This could help ATV attract more advertising revenue given its relatively strong position at that time.

The station scores about 15 per cent of viewership in the late prime-time slot between 10.30pm and 11pm, much better than its performance between 8pm and 10.30pm, where it commands an 8 per cent share.

Research company Media Partners Asia said sentiment in the local advertising market had deteriorated, meaning prospects for leading broadcaster TVB remained dim this year.

"TVB's Hong Kong ad sales could potentially decline 10 per cent this year while operating profit will contract by more than 10 per cent overall," it said.

However, even improved news programming may not be enough to offset an earnings decline as the broadcaster derives more than 70 per cent of its sales and profit from advertising in Hong Kong and Taiwan.

After a relatively robust nine months to the end of September last year, TVB's advertising revenue plummeted in the fourth quarter by 10 to 15 per cent with reduced demand across all key brand categories, led by financial services. At the end of last year, most key advertisers were cautious on spending with commitments down 20 per cent year on year.

Total solutions

It is not only television broadcasters that are under pressure. Newspaper publishers are also seeking new sources of revenue.

The South China Morning Post has started to provide a "total marketing solution" that allows advertisers to leverage on the newspaper's brand and strong market connections.

The latest project handled by the newspaper is the launch of a book called The Cullinan - Your Jewel in the Crown. The book was produced by the SCMP's designers and editorial team, and is part of a campaign for The Cullinan, a Sun Hung Kai Properties development. The newspaper last week organised a cocktail party for 300 guests to launch the book.

"We hope to provide more marketing services to allow our clients to leverage on our brand," the Post's director of advertising Elsie Cheung told Media Eye last week. "Our services include organising seminars or events, book publishing and other related events for brand building and marketing campaigns."

Winds of change

The chill winds of the global financial crisis began to buffet the entire media industry last October.

Figures from media monitoring firm admanGo show full-year advertising growth of 12.09 per cent last year. However, the peak was in April with a year-on-year increase of 22.96 per cent just before the Beijing Olympic Games.

Things looked different in the second half, with growth falling to single-digits in October. In November, advertising spending retreated 1.68 per cent over the same period in 2007.

Free newspapers continued to gain ground last year with revenue growing 25.23 per cent on a yearly basis, compared with paid newspapers 3.3 per cent growth, according to admanGo.

However, the strong growth in free titles did not benefit the newspaper sector as a whole, which recorded 9 per cent year-on-year growth. Free newspapers accounted for 22.26 per cent of total newspaper spending last year, up from 19.38 per cent a year earlier.