Posted Apr 28th 2009 5:00PM by Zac Bissonnette
Filed under: Newspapers

The Wall Street Journal
reports (subscription required) that "Advertising revenue fell just 3.6% last year for dailies with circulations under 100,000, compared to a nearly 17% decline for the industry overall, according to trade groups."
That divergence has some investors looking to make investments in small newspapers. While large newspapers with a national news focus are threatened by the internet, local outlets that report on high school football games appear to be more immune.
Continue reading Small-town newspapers attract investors
Posted Apr 15th 2009 8:00AM by Zac Bissonnette
Filed under: Newspapers
Most newspapers were just hanging on in 2008, but things got a lot worse in the first quarter of 2009.
The New York Times reports that some newspapers saw their ad revenue plunge 30% in the first three months of the year compared to the same quarter in the prior year. The decline in spending brought about by the recession is combining with the flight from print to devastate publishers.
According to the Times, industry analysts and executives "are expecting declines sharp enough to wipe out profit margins at many papers that, despite two years of battering, had stayed comfortably in the black, and to push already-weak publishers closer to bankruptcy, perhaps even closure."
Continue reading Newspaper ad revenue tanked in first quarter
Posted Apr 2nd 2009 4:30PM by Alex Salkever
Filed under: Deals, Bad news, Newspapers, New York Times'A' (NYT), Morgan Stanley (MS), Economic data, Technology, Recession, Financial Crisis
Continue reading Doomsday Scenario: Higher unemployment, no IPOS, Twitter DOA -- already
Posted Mar 23rd 2009 11:24AM by Zac Bissonnette
Filed under: Newspapers, Netflix, Inc. (NFLX)

The
Wall Street Journal's "Heard on the Street" column
suggests (subscription required) that
Netflix (NASDAQ:
NFLX) is overvalued: "The DVD mail-order business's stock has doubled since November, taking it to a rich valuation of 26 times estimated 2009 earnings -- a loftier multiple than either Google or Apple."
I've been bearish on Netflix for a long time and admittedly, the market has proven me wrong. But here's the problem with Netflix at 26 times earnings: The company's business model of renting DVDs by mail has a definite expiration date: Maybe it's five years, maybe it's 15 years.
Continue reading WSJ: Netflix has risen too high
Posted Mar 15th 2009 4:40PM by Joseph Lazzaro
Filed under: Newspapers, Internet, Competitive strategy, New York Times'A' (NYT)
The industry standard in journalism, The New York Times, is revisiting the issue of charging for online content.
New York Times (NYSE: NYT) Chairman Authur Sulzberger, Jr., told a Stony Brook (N.Y.) University audience Thursday that the company is considering "incremental" charges for website users, while keeping most of its site free, Bloomberg News reported.
Continue reading Once again, New York Times will evaluate charging for online content
Posted Mar 13th 2009 4:45PM by Joseph Lazzaro
Filed under: Industry, Newspapers
Journalism in the United States is hurtling toward a new era. The trouble is, no one in the craft knows whether the new period will represent the start of a new golden age... or a brave new world.
There are breathtaking technologies, platforms, and distribution channels that hold the promise of bringing news, news analysis, information, and more, to countless new markets and to new audiences. This holds the promise of increasing knowledge, learning, public input and citizen awareness -- as well as publishers' online revenue streams.
Continue reading Is the news industry changing too quickly?
Posted Mar 9th 2009 10:10AM by Zac Bissonnette
Filed under: Newspapers

As the newspaper industry looks to slow its demise, some publishers are looking for creative ways to stay relevant. MediaNews Group, the fourth largest newspaper chain in the country,
announced that it will begin testing a customized, print-at-home version of
The Los Angeles Daily News -- you receive only the stories that interest you with targeted advertising.
That sounds so cool! In fact, it sounds exactly like an RSS feed that you get from about 15,000 different companies online for free.
But wait, there's more! The Daily News will also be offering customers a special printer for printing their own newspapers.
Continue reading Los Angeles Daily News tries customized newspapers
Posted Mar 1st 2009 4:40PM by Zac Bissonnette
Filed under: Industry, Newspapers, Recession
The American Society of Newspapers Editors has canceled its annual convention for the first time since 1945 mainly because newspapers don't have enough money to buy the requisite packets of Splenda for the welcome breakfast, let alone book a hotel and buy plane tickets.
The event had been scheduled for April 26-29 at the Fairmont hotel in Chicago, and the cancellation will likely result in some fees.
Continue reading Newspaper publishers cancel their annual convention
Posted Feb 27th 2009 12:25PM by Joseph Lazzaro
Filed under: Bad news, Newspapers, Internet, New York Times'A' (NYT), Media World

If it takes a good man to admit when he's wrong, then I'm up there.
My error: the speed of the decline of print newspapers. They're not dropping slowly: they're dropping like flies. And the metro dailies appear to be among the weakest: Detroit, Philadelphia, Chicago, San Francisco, Seattle, Denver. Who's next?
A journalism colleague called from Washington, D.C.: his reporter sister was laid off in Denver, whose ex-college roommate, the editor, got the axe in Seattle, and on and on it goes.
The big error in news/editorial conference rooms (and in this space, I might add): the failure to anticipate the speed of the decline of revenue. It's crumbling, due to the internet and the pronounced recession. (And here's hoping it's just a pronounced recession.) The online operations of many print dailies are doing OK-to-good, but the problem is they've started from such a low base and the ad market has become so fragmented/dispersed on the web that the web sites can't increase revenue fast enough to support the increasing losses from the print daily. The solution? Obviously, stop the print bleeding. In other words, shut down the print newspaper. And down they go. It is so sad. As noted earlier, some print dailies will survive with niches/specialization, but their overall operations will be smaller, due to the considerably lower gross annual revenue (at least initially) on the web.
Continue reading Print daily newspapers are going, going ...
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