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Who did it best?

2014 Best of Local Media Award Winners

This year's most successful business initiatives from local media tranforming business models

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The Best of Local Media Awards, 2014, in PDF
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It's here! The list of who had the most successful, innovative revenue strategies of 2014. Use this round-up as snapshot of where we are in developing new revenue models for journalism-based media, and as a list of contacts for specific initiatives.

Case studies are linked; those we have not covered will be reported in 2015.

Without further ado, the who's who in local media for 2014 are....

Best of Local Sales

Best Sales Contest

Company: Swift Communications

Contest: 2014 Digital Drive

Winner: Colorado Mountain News Media

Samantha Johnston, MBA Samantha Johnston Jim Morgan Jim Morgan  Lynn Virgilio Lynn Virgilio

GM, Aspen Times                    GM, CMNM                   Sales Director, Swift 

Judges take: In 2014, its third year, Swift's company wide digital sales contest, Digital Drive, hit $700,000 in all new, digital revenues over 13 weeks. The initiative kicks off at the annual meeting, has five individual awards in each of two categories – most sales and highest revenues - plus team awards of $2,000 for one team in the East and West. With team names like Darth Digital and even team costumes, the teams have gotten more competitive every year, tracking progress companywide in a weekly email. The winner? The Colorado Mountain News Media, which includes the prosperous but small circulation Aspen Times and surrounding weeklies, and $275,000 in brand new digital sales. Congratulations to Lynn Virgilio, founder of the program and of course the winners at CMNM.


Best Sales Innovation

Company: A.H. Belo

Market: Dallas Morning News - Dallas Tx

Circulation: 409,265

Initiative: Pay-per-lead program

DanPhelanBW14

Key Executive: Dan Phelan, Chief Digital Officer

Judges Take: Pay-per-lead software has paid off in revenue growth from key high revenue, low-serviced categories such has HVAC and other home services. There are now 50 plu

ah belo, schurz, deseret digital, speakeasy, dallas morning news, chattanooga times, swift digital, cmnm, aspen times, berkshire hathaway, omaha world herald, findit, localedge, hearst, media, albany times union, wral, wfaa, ksok, cox, palm beach post, entercom, smartreach, advocate digital, victoria advocate, advocate publishing, capitol broadcasting, brandconnect, graham holdings, washington post, sarasota observer, the observer group, sarasota manatees, quad city times, lee enterprises, utahmore, utah media group, digital first media, bay area news group, bang, atlanta journal constitution, postmedia network, ottawa citizen, amador ledger, ledger dispatch, villages daily sun, evening post, post & courier, wehco, ky3, metro publishing, boulevards new media, federated media, atlanta radio group, wrsw, wawc, wleg, wrsw, lctv, cowley county broadcasting, vilcom, wchl, chapelboro.com, koit, morris communications, augusta chronicle, boston globe, globe.com, calkins media, the intelligencer, digital first media, york daily record, ksl.com