UBM Closes Information Week, CRN Print Editions

http://www.foliomag.com/2013/sources-ubm-part-strategic-shift-shutting-down-crn-and-informationweek-print-editions#.UUy2vRmYyKw

UBM is preparing to announce that it's shutting down two iconic print brands in its Tech division, with major layoffs, two sources have told Folio:. InformationWeek and CRN will close their print editions, according to the sources, and more than 100—perhaps as many as 300—employees will be let go.

MediaPost Mag Bag

http://www.mediapost.com/publications/article/196391/mag-bag-atlantic-gets-video-from-nowthisnews.html#axzz2OIr1kBpn

Meredith Expands in Turkey, Italy  

Caine Leaves Time Inc. for Dial Global

Southern Living Names New Food Appointments 

The Atlantic Gets Video From NowThisNews

Washington Examiner Morphs to Weekly Print Magazine

http://washingtonexaminer.com/washington-examiner-shifts-business-model-from-daily-newspaper-to-political-site-and-weekly-print-magazine/article/2524796

Clarity Media Group executives today announced a major shift in the business model of The Washington Examiner, becoming a digital platform and weekly print magazine focused on political news and thought leadership.

AARP Rolls Out Social Monetization

AARP Rolls Out Social Monetization:  AARP, the association for those aged 50-plus and publisher of the largest circulation magazine in the country, is taking advantage of Facebook to not only reach its core membership, but to offer advertisers integrated ad buys as well.

Google Closes Print Edition of Frommer's

Why Google is Pulling the Plug on Frommer's: Sales of guidebooks are down sharply as people instead turn to sites like TripAdvisor for hotel and restaurant reviews. The industry's decline was hammered home recently with two big developments. The latest came Thursday with word that Google (GOOG) planned to kill the print edition of Frommer's, the travel guide giant it acquired last year. Google declined to comment, although Skift, a travel news site, reported that Google's editors had already broken the news to authors of some upcoming titles.

GAO Says USPS Must Comply with Six-Day Provision

GAO Says USPS Must Comply with Six-Day Provision: In a letter addressed to Congressman Gerald E. Connolly, the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) deemed Postmaster General Patrick Donahoe's claim that the U.S. Postal Service (USPS) isn't obliged to comply with the six-day delivery provision as a “faulty USPS premise.” Through this interpretation, the USPS is legally compelled to “continue six-day delivery and rural delivery of mail at not less than the 1983 level.” In effect, this means the GAO rejects that the USPS can reduce mail delivery service to five days.

Make Bill Paying Easier with BREs

Will Saturday Mail Stoppage Mean Booming Business for BREs?:
One of the biggest concerns is for bill payments since consumers will have one less day for their payments to arrive. But Gene Del Polito, president of Postcom, made an interesting observation. If that’s a concern, why not make paying bills easier? Free online bill pay (that is one of my pet peeves — billers who charge for online payments that save them money and improve their cash flow anyway) or pre-paid BREs if they aren’t offering them already.

Leading Economic Index Increases, PMI Up

Conference Board Leading Economic Index for the U.S. Increases: The Conference Board Leading Economic Index (LEI) for the U.S. rose 0.5 percent in February to 94.8 (2004 = 100), following a 0.5 percent increase in January, and a 0.4 percent increase in December.

http://articles.marketwatch.com/2013-03-21/economy/37886972_1_new-orders-and-employment-markit-slower-rate 
March U.S. flash manufacturing PMI rises to 54.9 The U.S. flash manufacturing purchasing managers index rose to a 54.9 reading in March from 54.3 in February.  A level above 50 indicates an expansion in activity

Pulp Mills Taking Downtime

Alberta-Pacific (Alpac) and Sappi Fine Paper North America (Sappi) will separately idle two market northern bleached hardwood kraft (NBHK) pulp mills in Canada and the USA in April. 

In Canada, Alpac is scheduled to idle production at its 650,000 tonnes/yr market pulp mill at Boyle, AB, on April 30. Workers will perform annual maintenance for 14 days before restarting the facility

in mid-May, a contact said.

Vancouver-headquartered Alpac will trim an estimated 25,000 tonnes of market NBHK output during
the outage. In addition to aspen grade NBHK, Boyle makes northern bleached softwood kraft (NBSK).
Meantime in Minnesota, Sappi will idle its 455,000 tonnes/yr Cloquet pulp mill in April for 28 days as workers finish the last tie-ins of a major project that will make it a dissolving pulp (DP) mill.
Cloquet is scheduled to shutdown NBHK production in the first week of April and restart on May 5, when it will produce kraft pulp for a month while officials test the new system.
The outage will shed 1,450 tonnes/day of pulp output with an estimated 41,000 tonnes of total pulp getting clipped. Based on its typical 250,000 tonnes/yr of market NBHK output, the downtime will cut an estimated 19,000 tonnes of market NBHK production.

Nippon WA Union Workers Walk

http://www.peninsuladailynews.com/article/20130320/NEWS/303209990/breaking-about-130-nippon-paper-union-workers-walk-off-job

More than 100 Nippon union workers walked off the job this morning over stalled contract talks, a top union official said. Greg Pallesen, vice president of the Association of Western Pulp and Paper

Workers, said about 130 workers were to begin walking off the job at 11 a.m. and that informational pickets will be set up.

Pallesen served company officials with a strike notice earlier this morning, he said. Workers were still streaming out of the plant at the base of Ediz Hook at 11:15 a.m.
“We’ll take whatever action we need to do and go from there,” Pallesen told Peninsula Daily News.
Hourly workers at the mill are members of of AWPPW Local 155. 
They have been in contract talks with Nippon for 22 months. Without union consent, Nippon on Monday imposed a contract that members had already rejected.

Catalyst Sells 50% Powell River Energy

http://catalystpaper.com/

Catalyst Paper announced today that it has completed the sale of its approximately 50% interest in Powell River Energy Inc. and Powell River Energy Limited Partnership to Powell River Energy Trust, a Brookfield Renewable Energy affiliate, for 33 million.

Approximately 12.7 million of the net proceeds of the sale will be distributed to certain unsecured creditors of Catalyst pursuant to its plan of arrangement under the Companies' Creditors Arrangement Act through the Monitor, Pricewaterhouse Coopers. The company will offer to purchase a portion of its Floating Rate Senior Secured Notes with the balance of the net proceeds

Resolute Idling Fort Frances PM

Resolute Forest Products Announces Indefinite Idling of Kraft Mill and Paper Machine in Fort Frances: Resolute Forest Products (NYSE: RFP) (TSX: RFP) announced the indefinite idling of the kraft mill and paper machine number 5 (PM5) at its pulp and paper operation in Fort Frances, Ontario (photo). The kraft mill has an annual production capacity of approximately 200,000 metric tons of market pulp, while PM5 has an annual capacity of 105,000 metric tons of groundwood specialty printing papers.
Resolute is exploring alternative product possibilities for its Fort Frances pulp mill, which will be idled in a manner that will protect the equipment.
The idling of PM5 is driven by the decrease in consumption as well as the high value of the Canadian dollar.

Greenpeace Regrets Statements Re Resolute

http://foresttalk.com/index.php/2013/03/19/greenpeace-provides-notice-of-correction-regarding-resolute-forest-products-operations/

On December 6 2012, Greenpeace Canada made statements regarding Resolute Forest Products which incorrectly stated that Resolute had breached the Canadian Boreal Forest Agreement by approving and developing roads in “areas of suspended harvest” and that Resolute was secretly engaged in logging, contrary to the terms of the Canadian Boreal Forest Agreement. These statements were repeated and republished in subsequent publications.

Greenpeace has learned that the above-mentioned statements are incorrect and has removed any reference to the statements from all its materials. Greenpeace sincerely regrets its error. 
Greenpeace has extended its regrets to Resolute Forest Products, and to ForestTalk.com.

AF&PA Reports Kraft, Containerboard, Boxboard Ships

http://www.afandpa.org/

Total Kraft paper shipments were 119 thousand tons, a decrease of 15 percent compared to the prior month.  Bleached Kraft paper shipments increased year-over-year 13 percent while unbleached

Kraft paper shipments decreased 13 percent year-over-year.     
Containerboard production fell 10.2 percent over January 2012 and 1.7 percent over the same month last year.  However, the month-over-month average daily production decreased just 0.5 percent.  The containerboard operating rate for February 2013 lost 0.5 points over January 2012, from 97.1 percent to 96.6 percent.  
Total boxboard production decreased by 1.9 percent compared to February 2012 and decreased 5.6 percent from last month.  Unbleached Kraft Boxboard production decreased over the same month last year and decreased compared to last month.  Total Solid Bleached Boxboard & Liner production decreased compared to February 2012 and decreased compared to last month.  

National Geographic et al Release Study

http://www.greenamerica.org/pdf/NatGeo-LCA-Report-2013.pdf

Using recovered fiber in place of virgin fiber for magazine paper has a benefit in 14 of 14 environmental impact categories studied, according to a life-cycle assessment (LCA) issued today by ENVIRON International Corporation.

Supreme Court Decision Favors Timber Industry

Georgia-Pacific Responds To Supreme Court Decision In Forest Roads Case:
The U.S. Supreme Court has overturned the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court's decision in the case of Georgia-Pacific West, Inc. v. NEDC, Sup. Ct. No. 11-347, commonly referred to as the "forest roads" case.

In a ruling announced this morning, the decision overturns a 2011 ruling by a three-judge panel of the Ninth Circuit Court that reversed 35 years of regulation governing management of rainwater runoff from forest roads. Originally, the Ninth Circuit Court had rejected the Environmental Protection Agency's longstanding interpretation of the Clean Water Act and would have required forest road operators in the states under its jurisdiction to obtain Clean Water Act discharge permits for ditches, drains and culverts that channel rain runoff from their roads -- treating rain runoff from forest roads used for logging the same as industrial sources.

http://www.afandpa.org/

American Forest & Paper Association (AF&PA) President and CEO Donna Harman issued the following statement today in response to the U.S. Supreme Court ruling that reversed the Ninth Circuit court decision in Northwest Environmental Defense Center v. Brown (NEDC v. Brown). The U.S. Supreme Court held that the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has authority to exempt discharges of channeled stormwater runoff from logging roads from Clean Water Act point source permitting.

Two Sides: Victory in Go Paperless Campaign

Two Sides claims victory as Go Paperless campaign drops 'save trees' message:
The campaign caused surprise and criticism in the industry when it launched in January, urging people to "Save money. Save time. Save trees".
Two Sides reacted with an open letter to Google's chairman Eric Schmidt, which spoke of "some incredulity" at the ‘Go Paperless in 2013' drive, while pointing out Google's own environmental impact.
But now the Paperless 2013 website has been revised, leading Two Sides to claim victory. Images of trees and claims about paper's negative impact on the environment have been removed, while the tag line has been changed to "Take the paper out of paperwork".

Who’s REALLY Consuming Print?

Who’s REALLY Consuming Print?:
by Joanne Gore
“In the last decade, while the digital marketing space has gotten noisier and considerably less effective, print has enjoyed a renaissance of increased conversion rates and marketing return on investment. Customers actually appreciate getting a nice postcard, well-designed catalogue, or personal thank you note in the mail today.” (via www.printisbig.com)
• Catalogues – According to Forbes, even with everyone on the Internet, catalogues are still mailing in the billions (with a B) and the reason from the marketers’ perspective is the foundation of direct marketing: catalogues work! They more than pay for the costs of getting them into the hands of customers and prospects.
I was recently at a tradeshow featuring the latest and greatest in premium incentives. And what were the vendors handing out? Catalogues! I wondered why they didn’t simply hand out cards with QR codes that went directly to the catalogue online and so I asked why. The answer I got? “We tried that. We found the majority of people still want a tangible, printed catalogue.” Still not sold? Consider this: The IKEA catalogue is the 3^rd most printed publication in the world. (via information-facts.cotm).

Forbes Publishes Spanish Edition

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/18/business/media/spanish-magazine-publisher-bets-against-the-crisis.html?src=rechp&pagewanted=print

Andrés Rodríguez, the publisher and founder of SpainMedia, has the most at stake in the debut this month of a Spanish-language edition of Forbes, the U.S. business magazine, in crisis-hit Spain. 
For Forbes Inc., the New York-based publisher of Forbes Magazine and his partner in the Spanish licensing venture, “their only risk is if the magazine really proves a failure, because that could hurt their image,” Mr. Rodríguez said Thursday during an interview in his office, inside what had been an abandoned printing-equipment plant.

Annual Retail Trends Survey

http://www.retailonlineintegration.com/article/search-engine-25058638/1

A move away from online channels and toward physical spaces — e.g., pop-up, outlet and brick-and-mortar stores — to market products is trending for Retail Online integration readers, at least according to this year's Annual Trends Survey. They'll also rely more on television, digital catalogs and social media this year to increase consumer engagement and ultimately grow sales. Their biggest challenge? For the third year in a row, customer acquisition.