Some of these statistics depress me for various reasons. Fifty percent don't realize they are clicking ads?

Commercial writer gives his side to lottery advertising issues of Gov. Pat McCrory

The Town Council voted not to accept any more bus advertising late Wednesday after learning a policy change last year banned most political and religious ads.

The 6-1 vote suspends new interior and exterior advertising until the council can review the town’s policy. Existing ads will stay up until their contracts end, Mayor Mark Kleinschmidt said.

The council apparently adopted an amended policy on June 13, 2011, that specifically excludes religious advertising “in which the primary message is one promoting or opposing religion, particular religions, religious issues, or religious doctrines.” It also excludes ads that promote or oppose “a particular view on political or social issues.”

If the council chose not to suspend the advertising program, the previously approved policy would have taken effect, and non-conforming ads would have been removed from buses, he said.

“This was an extraordinarily rare thing to ever happen in this town. It was a mistake, it was discovered, and we’re quickly taking action to remedy it,” Kleinschmidt said.

The town’s bus ad policy has been a point of contention since Church of the Reconciliation bought 98 ads in August advocating for an end to U.S. aid to Israel. The national group American Freedom Defense Initiative responded by submitting an ad for approval that refers to Muslims as savages and encourages support for Israel.

Chapel Hill town staff released a list this week of the advertising that has run on Chapel Hill Transit buses since January 2009.

The list includes the sponsors, the subjects, the cost and the duration of the ad campaigns. Only one ad - the Church of the Reconciliation ad advocating for an end to U.S. aid to Israel - has stirred up controversy, town staff said. No ads have been rejected, although the church's ad is the only paid non-commercial political ad submitted so far.

The town's bus ad policy requires political and religious ads to include contact information, and it refuses false, misleading, deceptive or disrespectful ads; ads that imply the town endorses their message; and ads that are obscene.

Follow the link below for a closer look at the current and previous bus ads.

Documents:

Shares of McClatchy, owner of the News & Observer and the Charlotte Observer, jumped more than 25 percent today after the Sacramento, Calif.-based newspaper chain reported fourth quarter earnings that beat Wall Street expectations.

The company reported net income of $42 million, or 49 cents per share, compared to income of $15.7 million, or 18 cents per share, during the fourth quarter of 2010.

That beat the consensus of 40 cents per share among analysts surveyed by Bloomberg News.

Revenues in the fourth quarter were $351.4 million, down 5 percent from the same period in 2010. Advertising revenues were down 5.7 percent and circulation revenues were down 3 percent.
 

Newspaper publisher The McClatchy Co. reported weaker third earnings today, with ad revenues slumping 10 percent compared to the same period a year ago.

Third-quarter revenue fell to $300.2 million, down 8.4 percent from a year earlier. While better than the double-digit declines the company recorded during the depths of the recession, today's results are further proof of how the weak economy is continuing to hurt newspapers.

Sacramento, Calif.-based McClatchy publishes 30 daily papers across the country, including the News & Observer, Charlotte Observer and Miami Herald. Its papers in Florida and California have been especially hard hit by the housing slump and high unemployment rate.

Net income fell to $12.4 million, or 14 cents a share.

Dex One, the Cary yellow pages publisher that continues to shake up its operations to offset slower sales, today named a new chief financial officer.

Gregory Freiberg, 44, joins the company on Sept. 12. He replaces Steven Blondy, who stepped down as CFO in July. Blondy had been CFO of the company previously known as R.H. Donnelley since March 2002.

Freiberg will report to Alfred Mockett, who took over as CEO nearly a year ago. Since then, Dex One has been remaking itself into a digital business, as customers shift away from traditional print yellow pages. The economic slowdown has also hurt advertising sales, and Dex One is still losing money.

On the back page of the August 15, 1978 edition of The RaleighTimes is this ad for the new car telephones.

Dex One, the yellow pages publisher that's remaking itself into a digital advertising business, reported another drop in quarterly revenue this morning.

The Cary-based company has seen advertising sales slump as the economic slowdown erodes demand from small businesses.

For the current quarter, the company expects ad sales to drop as much as 15 percent.

But Dex One raised its estimate for 2011 cash flow, a measure of profit for companies with lots of debt, to $375 million to $400 million.

The company's stock, down 89 percent in the past year, fell 24 cents to close at $2.09 today.

WakeMed has started a short advertising campaign to bolster support for its $750 million offer to buy rival hospital Rex Healthcare.

The print and radio ads, which will run for a week or so, are designed to answer some questions about why WakeMed made the offer, said spokeswoman Debbie Laughery.

"One way for us to get our side of the story out there is to put it in ads," she added. "We received questions and there are some misunderstandings."

The ads contend that combining Rex with WakeMed won't disrupt health care or limit choice, and will create a stronger, unified health system that's better able to focus on adding new services rather than duplicating existing care.

The UNC Health Care System has owned Rex since 2000. UNC officials have said they aren't interested in sale, but on Monday, the UNC Health board announced it has formed a committee to review WakeMed's offer over the next several weeks.