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LOS ANGELES (AdAge.com) — Public broadcasting sponsors have a new name to add to their Rolodex. Stephen Moss is the new CEO of National Public Media, the corporate sponsorship firm for National Public Radio, PBS and WGBH, taking the reins for departing CEO Robert Williams, the founder of National Public Broadcasting who retired in June.

An average of 74 million people visited newspaper websites in the third quarter of 2009, representing 38 percent of all Internet users, according to a custom analysis by Nielsen for the Newspaper Association of America (NAA).

Newspaper website visitors generated more than 3.5 billion page views during the quarter, spending 2.7 billion minutes browsing the sites over more than 596 million sessions.

The NAA says there are higher levels of subscribers keeping subscriptions, with subscriber “churn” falling dramatically to 31.8 percent in 2008, compared with 54.5 percent in 2000.

The higher retention rate among subscribers could be due to the fact that in 2008, 92 percent of newspapers offered a discount for participating in a recurring payment plan; 38 percent of new subscriptions were sold on a recurring payment plan while only 28 percent were sold with no initial payment required.

In addition, 32 percent of newspapers priced their daily edition at 75 cents at the end of 2008 (vs. just 2 percent in 2006), while the average seven-day, home-delivery weekday rate rose 8.6 percent at the same time newspapers are increasing retention

“Newspaper publishers continue to aggressively reinvent their business models, leveraging trusted brands to attract a growing and sophisticated audience in the digital space,” said NAA President and CEO John F. Sturm.  “At the same time, industry executives have adopted smarter circulation strategies that are growing circulation revenues even though paid circulation numbers are lower.” 

“This places the focus where it belongs:  retaining core readers who deliver maximum value to advertisers while harnessing digital platforms to broaden our medium’s audience and position us strongly for the future.”

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Yesterday, the surprising news that Facebook and MySpace are negotiating a content-sharing partnership broke, yet that’s not all the latter social network has on its plate.  A fresh report indicates MySpace is also in talks with MSN over some sort of music deal.

MSN is interested in “using the social networking site’s music service, MySpace Music, to help power music offerings on the giant portal,” according to Kara Swisher.  She then continued, “While sources at both companies cautioned the talks were still early, Microsoft (MSFT) - which has its own music site that it programs with original and partnered content - execs are interested in goosing it.”

An arrangement that would give MSN users access to more music would be of obvious benefit to Microsoft.  The exposure - and/or cash - that MySpace would receive from such a deal would no doubt help it, too.

Plus, it’s not like either company has defined itself as some sort of lone wolf.  Microsoft’s reached out to Yahoo and Twitter in recent months, and MySpace CEO Owen Van Natta was quoted yesterday as saying, “Partnerships are going to be a big part of our strategy moving forward as a lot of value can be derived from them.”

So stay tuned and see what happens.  It may be that little “powered by MySpace” graphics will start popping up in quite a lot of places.

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With the holiday season on the way, online retailers are obviously going to be looking for big sales. A lot of retailers are turning to Facebook and Twitter to help in that department, but if you sell goods online, there’s no better place to start than on the site itself.

Amazon, probably the most successful online retailer there is, knows this, and that is one reason why it has prepared for an influx of holiday shoppers by creating its own Holiday Toy List. Amazon knows what people are going to be looking for, and it has put together this list to make finding these things as easy as possible. It’s not just a list, but a page that points to these items.

“The Holiday Toy List is a helpful tool for parents, friends and family members who are searching for the perfect toys for the kids on their list,” says Sarah Wood, director of the Toy Store for Amazon.com. “With navigation that’s simple, convenient and fun to use, it’s easier than ever to find great gifts at Amazon’s everyday low prices.”

Not only has Amazon created the page, but they have promoted it. They have issued a press release for news organizations and bloggers to pick up, which should give the list plenty of coverage. It will likely lead to increased sales on popular items.

Now, granted, not everyone can put out a press release and expect to get the kind of coverage Amazon does. Amazon’s huge. Your online business is probably not quite so big. That doesn’t mean you can’t put special focus on the items you expect to sell the most during the holiday season and promote them in other ways.  You may still issue a press release, but you can simply use social media marketing, search marketing, email marketing, etc., but have a focused landing page where customers can easily find what they want, or what you expect them to want.

This may seem like common sense, and perhaps it is, but there is a lot of competition online, and if you are not focused on promoting what has the best chance of bringing you business, you may not be getting the sales you’re after.

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