Rusty Lewis is director of university relations for College Media Network, formerly known as College Publisher. Yesterday, I e-mailed him some questions about the Campus Daily Guide (see previous coverage here).

Here are his answers to those questions, unedited.

 What exactly is the Campus Daily Guide?

Basically, the sites are campus resources for students that will also prominently feature CMN affiliates’ headlines, driving traffic between sites. They are still in development and we’re working with our partner newspapers as we map out our roll-out strategy

Was this a CMN project, or something that came from elsewhere in the Viacom universe? How long has the CDG been in development?

The idea for the Campus Daily Guides originated with MTV Networks prior to the acquisition of College Publisher.  The CDGs are still in development, and mtvU is continuing to work with our partners as they finalize plans for them.

Moving forward, what will the relationship between CDG and CMN? Are there plans to integrate the CDG with the member newspapers in affected markets? Are there any revenue sharing plans in the works? Several advisers and editors have expressed concern that CDG is “competing” with their sites for advertising dollars. What is your response to that? Do you think this (CDG) is something campus newspapers should be concerned about? (editor’s note: I sent each of these as a separate question, but they were lumped together in response)

With every guide, there will be opportunities for cross-promotion between CDG and CMN.  In fact, we are working directly with CMN advisors in these locations to map out the best ways to partner to ensure there are opportunities for positive revenue generation.  Some of the best and most innovative ideas that we’ll unveil at launch have come directly from CMN advisors who have given us feedback on what models will work best for their local publications.  This is an opportunity to work together.

What is your response to advisers who are upset that they were not given any “heads up” that this was going to be launched?

The guides are still in the development phase; as many details are unfolding, it was always part of the plan to have conversations with advisors and to mold the business model based off these collaborative discussions.

What has CMN been doing this week to educate their partners about CDG and what’s going on?

We are having in-depth personal conversations with the publications in CMN in the relevant markets to continue to develop mutually beneficial ways to partner.  We have also been hosting conference calls with our CMN partners to answer any questions and concerns they might have.

What about newspapers (like the washington daily, for instance) that are not CP/CMN partners? How does MTVu plan to handle those schools and the “local news” aspect of the CDG sites?

We haven’t spoken to any non-CP/CMN partners.  We are working with the CMN partners first to ensure plans are in the best interest of our partners.

Are you at all concerned that the appearance of CDG will drive student newspapers to leave the college publisher platform?

We think that the CDGs are a great opportunity to work directly with CMN affiliates to partner for cross-promotion.

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One of the questions raised by the Campus Daily Guide launch is how to handle news from the local campus newspaper if that campus newspaper is not a College Publisher affiliate.

For instance, right now, Campus Daily Guide (CDG hereafter) has local portals for the University of Washington and the University of Wisconsin. However, neither of those schools’ student newspapers are CP partners.

So, at present, if you go to their CDG sites (Washington and Wisconsin) the “Campus News” actually is an RSS feed for the University of Washington-Tacoma’s Ledger and the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire’s Spectator.

This, despite the fact that the Wisconsin CDG page URL is uwm.campusdailyguide.com, as in Wisconsin-Madison, not Wisconsin-Eau Claire.

This is going to be a thorny issue for CDG, especially if more schools go off the College Publisher grid (like University of Michigan’s Daily, which launched a new site this week). Indeed, the campus news links on the Michigan CDG point to Michigan Daily archives that show up as a 404 error.

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Insidehighered.com has a long write-up (
College Papers May Have New Competitor: Their Web Site Host)
that explains some of the gnashing of teeth that’s going on about MTVu’s Campus Daily Guides. If that headline looks familiar, it should.

For the record, I’m supposed to talk with Rusty Lewis sometime today or tomorrow to get the official CMN take on this.

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This week, MTVu, which owns College Media Network (the company that used to be called College Publisher) rolled out a new attempt at local information hosting: Campus Daily Guide.

If you click on the link, you’ll find a list of universities. click on the university name and you’ll find a compendium of information about local events, clubs, restaurants, and other information.

It’s a direct competition to those student newspapers for advertising. Not yet, but they plan to sell advertising on the site to local businesses (according to their FAQ).

I’ve e-mailed Rusty Lewis at CMN to get his take on this. At MSCNE this afternoon, several editors expressed dismay at the idea and the fact that the same company that hosting their web sites is now trying to draw away ad revenue.

Who knows, MTVu may offer to “share” revenue from the sites with the campus news media. We’ll find out.

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