In eight days, over half a million Oregon and Southwest Washington residents will be subscribers to something they've never heard of before: Xfinity. Comcast's residential television, internet and voice products will bear that new name in eleven markets, including Portland and the entire stretch of service from Longview, Washington to Eugene. The rest of the country will make the switch over the coming year.

Portland was the first market where Comcast converted to digital service, and the Xfinity name is intended to communicate that difference and more, said Comcast CEO Brian Roberts on yesterday's earnings call. "I think we are giving a better and better service experience," he said.

The renaming also introduces a new brand between consumers and Comcast, with Comcast remaining the name at the top of customers' bills. Comcast's beleaguered brand placed second in Consumerist's Worst Company in America surveys in 2008 and 2009, surpassed only by economic disasters AIG and Countrywide Financial, which have also rebranded. Comcast didn't mention any negative associations with its brand in its earnings call.

The Xfinity name will also be added to Fancast, the company's online video service. Comcast customers will retain their existing comcast.net email addresses.

The only Spanish-language radio station in Eugene, as well as four other television and radio stations in the Willamette Valley, fell silent at the end of the year as Churchill Media ended business and sought to liquidate its assets, blaming the economy for a drop in ad revenue.

Churchill owned talk and music station "La X" KXOR 660 Eugene and Portland-area sister station KXPD 1040; low-power Azteca América TV affiliates KXOR 36 Eugene and Salem-area KXPD 52; and Eugene-area KLZS 1450, which switched from Spanish-language sports to smooth jazz in November.

The Register-Guard says 17 people lost their jobs in Eugene and Wilsonville, down from 45 employees in 2008.

The Eugene-area Spanish-speaking market is also served by the bilingual monthly newspaper Adelante Latino.

Public radio's Northwest News Network went public this week with Capitol Currents, a new blog featuring Salem reporting by N3's Chris Lehman. Capitol Currents' news stories go back to September, when the site began testing and development. The Northwest News Network is co-owned by nine public radio stations who also employ its correspondents. N3 is edited by Colin Fogarty, who works out of OPB's offices in Portland.

After a series of layoffs and furloughs in recent years, including the elimination of over 1000 jobs this July, Gannett Co. has announced another week of furloughs for its newspaper division, US Community Publishing, in the first quarter of 2010.

USCP President Bob Dickey sent this memo to all division employees, including workers at the Statesman Journal, earlier today:

December 1, 2009
To: All US Community Publishing employees
From: Bob Dickey

We are just completing the preliminary budgets for 2010. Thanks to all of your hard work and efforts to keep our costs down this year and create greater efficiencies across the division, we are heading into the new year with some solid improvements under our belt. We have seen some promising trends in advertising with ad declines slowing throughout the year and as we begin the holiday shopping season, we are also seeing some indication that retailers may be spending more on advertising.

While these trends are encouraging, the overall economy is still fragile with a number of business uncertainties. Therefore, as we head into 2010, we think it is prudent to take a conservative approach toward managing our business. Toward that end, we have decided to implement furloughs across USCP during the first quarter. This is not a companywide initiative though Corporate and some of Gannett’s other operations have also decided to put furloughs into place during the first quarter. No one on the Gannett Management Committee makes these decisions lightly and we understand and appreciate the difficulties furloughs have placed on many of you and your families. The furloughs we took companywide this year, however, saved Gannett a significant amount of money and helped us get through what has been unquestionably the toughest time we have ever faced as a company and division.

We are instituting the furloughs during the first quarter because it is traditionally the lightest time of the year for us. Non-union USCP employees, including me, will be furloughed for five business days during the quarter. We will be communicating separately with union representatives and asking for their support of the furloughs. However, those union-represented employees who recently negotiated pay reductions in their contracts will not be furloughed.

Exempt, salaried employees must take one full payroll week within the pay period, to be completed by Sunday, March 28. Non-exempt, hourly employees will also take five days at any pre-approved time, before the last weekend in March. If you are not sure which category you are in, check with your Human Resources representative or supervisor. The attached FAQ should answer any questions you may have.

I cannot stress enough how much the entire leadership of USCP and Gannett appreciate your hard work and many accomplishments which have helped us maintain the industry standard for excellence and leadership in many areas during extraordinarily difficult times. Our community publishing business is doing better and, with the organizational changes

The memo was published in part by Romenesko earlier today.

Revenue in Gannett's publishing division fell 18 percent in Q3 2009, better than the 26 percent drop in Q2.

Last week, Bill Church, executive editor of the Statesman Journal, struck an optimistic note on the future of newspapers. That positive outlook for print has become something of a recurring theme in Church's weekly column. Church was also nice enough to mention OMC in his column, so I took that as an opportunity to ask him why he's sounding so confident these days.

I pointed out the trends we're all familiar with. Newspaper circulation peaked in 1990 and continues to slide. Inflation-adjusted ad revenue is now below 1966 levels. Despite large online audiences, online newspaper ad revenue fell last year and continued to fall the first half of this year. Print ads fell faster, yet online media still comprises only 8 percent of a shrinking revenue pie.

In the face of these numbers, I asked Church if he could make his case for optimism. He responded:

So you want me to make my case. Why, oh, why does it seem I’m so Pollyannish about the future of newspapers?

A little context.

I have my grumpy side.

And I’m biased.

I love my job. I love living in Oregon. And I’m protective of my staff.

I’m also passionate, competitive… and a realist.

Newspapers are changing, and it’s understandable why there are many doubts about our future. Industry reports point to decreased circulation, falling ad revenue and staff/expense reductions. I’m not arguing the economic realities. I’m not rationalizing why all the bar charts are going south.

Like any good news story, you’ve got to read more than the headline. You can’t solely take a macro perspective when we live in a micro world.

In my micro world, it’s not about what happened to newspapers in Denver and Seattle. It’s not about the financial hole that current owners created in Chicago, Philadelphia and Los Angeles.

My perspective focuses on the Statesman Journal, readers in the Mid-Willamette Valley and, to a lesser degree, newspapering in Oregon.

The Statesman Journal’s most recent market study (released in January) showed our Mid-Willamette Valley audience increased. The aggregated audience for all Statesman Journal products reaches 73 percent of the market with a frequency of five times a week. No other competitor is even close.

StatesmanJournal.com is having a great year with double-digit percentage growth in page views and unique visitors.

Our journalists continue to focus on watchdog journalism and intensely local news. We’ve expanded coverage of state government this year. And our journalism has been recognized nationally.

And the bottom line? We’re profitable.

I know our story isn’t unique to Salem. The Oregon newspapers I track are creating cool things online and continuing to do relevant print journalism. I’m a fan of the journalism happening in places like Bend, Medford, Eugene and Portland. There are many smaller newspapers – from Astoria to Corvallis to Roseburg – overcoming the economic challenges by connecting with their readers, proving that the naysayers aren’t always right.

Why so?

I’d point out these factors:

• The Oregon newspaper industry fits the model for survival. State newspapers are intensely local and remain the dominant source of community news and information. Industry analyst John Morton offered a similar perspective in a recent column for American Journalism Review.
• There are a lot of smart editors in Oregon, and they’ve been strategic when forced to restructure. (That’s my argument why we shouldn’t fret about The O.) Notes David Beard, editor of Boston.com, in a recent Poynter.com column, “As newspapers shrink, the better ones are thinking deeply about who remains. … The staff may be smaller, but hopefully most of the news will remain.”
• Journalism.org’s “The State of the News Media” points out that most newspapers remain profitable and have grown audience. From the study’s summary: “Small papers, … are doing much better than metros and mid-sized papers.” (See http://www.stateofthemedia.org..., with emphasis on the “Economics” and “News Investment” sections.)

There’s also the matter of reality and faith.

In May, Arnold Garson, president and publisher of The Courier-Journal at Louisville, delivered a stirring speech about how newspapers are alive and well. His main point: Readers and advertisers still trust us.

And you can’t ignore the Media Management Center’s “Life beyond print” study, which touches on journalists’ faith in our changing industry.

Delivery methods will change; so will economic models. But good journalism will be around for a while. That’s the headline and our story.

But I still wanted to know more. I had provided industry-wide circulation and revenue figures. Church rightly argued that "you can’t solely take a macro perspective when we live in a micro world." But in what direction, then, is the SJ's circulation and revenue headed? Church referred me to the paper's publisher, Steve Silberman. I'll update this story if I hear back from him.

In the mean time, I looked up the Statesman Journal's circulation in Gannett's last two annual reports, and in the Audit Bureau of Circulations' current data for the six months ending March 31 of this year. Gannett's 2007 filing reported an average weekday readership of 47,961 and a Sunday audience of 54,399. By 2008, those numbers had slid to 44,975 and 50,958, respectively. ABC now shows audiences of 42,622 weekdays and 49,355 Sundays. New figures will be released on October 26.

As for revenue, Gannett doesn't break it down by publication, but the company released their Q3 earnings report today, which showed ad sales in their publishing division down 28 percent over last year. While that beats a 32 percent fall in Q2 and a 34 percent decline in Q1, year-ago comparisons are becoming easier to make. Revenue was already falling at this time in 2008.

But is such a hard focus on finance too narrow a view? Should measures such as total audience, the quality of the journalism and the trust of readers and advertisers have more weight in assessing a newspaper?

How would you predict a publication's future?

UPDATE (10/20, 12:10 pm): Publisher Steve Silberman responds:

As you noted, Gannett reported earnings yesterday that showed revenues were down companywide and for its publishing division. Even so, the company remains profitable. Revenues are down for many businesses across the country and here in Oregon and Salem. Like many other places, the state of Oregon itself has a significant drop in its revenues, has had to cut expenses, and has furloughed state workers. But that doesn't mean state government won't be around.

Circulation is down nationwide and we are not bucking national trends. Circulation measures newspaper sales, but not our readership and our audience. Our readership has grown and that's what is most significant. (I believe your posting online may have confused circulation with readership; you mentioned readership when I think you were talking about circulation.) Media consumption habits are obviously changing - for broadcast TV, cable TV, radio, etc. Our audience, however, is bigger than ever before and we touch more people than ever. We are seeing a healthy growth in our online traffic. We are still the best way to reach people in our community. No one else provides any where near as much local news coverage as we do. And people still clamor for news about their community.

Obviously, everyone much prefers a booming economy than a sluggish economy. But that does not mean it is all doom and gloom. There are reasons to be optimistic and it's important to share that perspective as well. Bill has tried to do that and I share his optimism.

Comcast Cable tells Oregon Media Central that they have resolved the reception problems that have affected customers in Oregon and Southwest Washington recently, most notably for the past two nights.

"First, we apologize for any inconvenience to customers who have experienced intermittent video issues, often times called tiling," Comcast said in a statement. "Our engineers have been working diligently to identify the root cause of the problem and resolve it, and customers should not experience any interruption this evening."

Viewers from Vancouver to Eugene reported experiencing severe tiling problems and audio loss, including in our forums. Theressa Davis, Comcast's Vice President of Communications in Oregon, told OMC that the trouble "stemmed from how the signals are transported around the regional network."

While some had speculated that demand during primetime was exceeding bandwidth, Davis said that there wasn't any one cause as direct as that. "Any number of things" could be a factor in the routing, she said.

Davis also pointed out that "many, many customers didn't experience any interruptions." Rather, the problems "affected certain parts of the system at different times."

Many customers had said that the trouble was particularly severe with OPB, but it's unclear why. It's possible that OPB viewers were simply more irritated by the video issues because they occurred during a Ken Burns documentary that featured high-definition scenic photography.

There was "no channel disparity" with the video issues, Davis said, though the episodic nature of the problems could have made them worse for one channel at a particular time.

One customer noted in our comments that they received a free week of service credited to their account after reporting the issue. Davis says that Comcast is working with customers on a case-by-case basis.

While Comcast doesn't anticipate continued problems tonight, anyone experiencing trouble should contact 1-800-COMCAST. You can also leave a comment to this story, and we'll contact an executive if troubles persist.

Below the break, see videos of the problem, which viewers have uploaded to the internet.

A website redesign is underway for Capital Press, the Salem-based weekly agricultural newspaper serving the Western US.

Navigation will be streamlined, search will be improved, and more attention will be placed on photos and videos. The home page and section fronts will feature more headlines, and related links will be added to story pages. Readers will also be able to focus more on news from their state, as the print newspaper offers separate editions for Oregon, Washington, California and Idaho. Additional features are aimed at increasing interactivity and connectivity.

You can read more about the changes, and visit a live sneak peek here. You can also click the before and after images below for a closer view:

Before

After

Capital Press is a subsidiary of the East Oregonian Publishing Company.

Statesman Journal owner Gannett today reported a profit of $70.5 million in the second quarter, surprising analysts and beating forecasts. The company lost $2.29 billion a year ago, when it wrote down the value of its newspapers and other assets.

Revenue, however, fell 18 percent from a year ago, to $1.41 billion. In newspapers, revenue fell 26 percent while ad revenue tumbled by 32 percent, which was only slightly better than in the first quarter. The company managed a profit by cutting operating expenses by 67 percent. The extraordinary cost-cutting measures included a one-week furlough that affected all Statesman Journal employees.

In a conference call, Bob Dickey, president of U.S. Community Publishing, Gannett's newspaper division, said ad revenue so far in July is down 24 percent, excluding UK publishing. He cautions that while national retailers are beginning to commit spending, local ad buys have been slower. Executive Vice President and CFO Gracia Mortore added, "demand seems to be firming up a bit in some categories and in some geographic locations," including in classifieds. She emphasized, however, that the advertising picture varies from state to state.

Second-quarter earnings do not reflect last week's layoffs.

Gannett shares are currently up $1.01, or 29 percent, to $4.50.

Remember back in June, when we received a message from an anonymous, out-of-state Gannett employee who wanted to share their perspective on the reported layoffs at the company? We can now reveal his name. He is Chris Brewer, former freelance video editor and photographer for KPTV, and he just lost his job at the Springfield News-Leader. In a post to his blog from yesterday, he writes:

At 5:30 today, I walked out the doors of the Springfield News-Leader as a reporter for the final time.

Only three hours prior, I had been notified by Executive Editor Don Wyatt that my position as Multimedia Reporter had been eliminated by corporate. I proceeded to spend the next three hours wiping my work laptop’s hard drive, packing my important items and making the rounds to tell everyone goodbye.

...

The worst part of being laid off isn’t so much losing my sole source of income, but rather the great people I worked with. They’ve been through hell too, trying to make sense of the changing face of the newspaper industry and making something good out of so little being afforded to them. Everyone I worked with in that newsroom was great, from the copy editors all the way up to the editorial staff.

...

My next chapter in life is to move back home at the end of July. More details on that will be forthcoming, but I fully expect to have a new job and be living with friends in Vancouver or Camas, Washington in a little over a month.

...

The layoff happened all too soon for my liking, and not on my own terms. But God has a plan for my life, and I resign myself to that.

Of course, I only now have fully learned to do so.

Read the full post.

And we can now restore the redacted location in Chris' original message:

What's weird about this whole thing is that I'm going on furlough/vacation (to Portland, nonetheless) and the axe is expected to fall the day I get back. Talk about a jolt back to reality.

Best of luck, Chris, on your future back in our neck of the woods! For all who are interested, Chris' demo reel:

Whew! The last day or so has been exhausting, but certainly nothing compared to what people at the Statesman Journal have been going through. Our heart goes out to them.

A few other items today:

• As we first reported July 1, Brian Barker is leaving KATU and television news. His last day is today. Best of luck to you, Brian!
• Former Willamette Week columnist and current Portland gossip blogger Byron Beck has landed his first big story for a major magazine. Congratulations, Byron!
• OMC loves its fans, and they love us back. Thanks, Fatboy!

I'm sure there were plenty of other things that happened while we were liveblogging. If anyone can fill us in, that would be great. Later today, we have a story about major staff changes at a local TV station that are so complex, we may actually need to come up with a flow chart to follow it. And we've got another big story coming very soon that we can't even hint at. Stick around!