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Iconix sets its sights on Playboy

Posted Nov 13th 2009 9:45AM by Tom Johansmeyer (RSS feed)
Filed under: Deals, Media World

It's wabbit season!

There's only good news for Playboy (PLA) when someone expresses an interest in buying it. Shares of the ailing men's lifestyle company shot higher on Thursday when word got out that Iconix is interested in acquiring it. Iconix owns and licenses brands to manufacturers and counts Candie's and London Fog among its holdings. A deal isn't a sure thing, but Playboy now has something it hasn't in a while: hope.

Iconix has been looking to acquire more brands. And Playboy has been looking for a knight in shining armor (and with a hefty war chest in tow) since at least June, when Scott Flanders took the helm. But it looked like acquisition bait well before then, thanks to a rough financial situation.

Continue reading Iconix sets its sights on Playboy

Newspapers' plan to curb decline? Mess with the math!

Posted Nov 6th 2007 3:55PM by Zac Bissonnette (RSS feed)
Filed under: Newspapers, Internet, Marketing and advertising, New York Times'A' (NYT)

NewspaperYou have to stand in awe of the print media's desperation to reverse its decline. Having realized that newspaper circulation is destined to decline indefinitely, they've found a new way to report growth: Change the way you report your numbers! According (subscription required) to The Wall Street Journal:

Circulation at the nation's biggest newspapers slid again in the latest six-month period, by an average of 2.6%, a sign of continuing defection of readers and advertisers to the Internet.

But in an attempt to draw attention away from the sagging circulation data, the industry is trying to highlight a new measure: the total number of online and print newspaper readers instead of simply the number of print papers delivered everyday.

But the advertising industry isn't buying it: "This is helpful information, but we can't just rely on readership and audience," said Merle Davidson, director of Media Services at J.C. Penney Co. "Print circulation is still very important."

Of course it is. That's because newspapers that trumpet their online readership are competing in a whole different space -- against websites, including BloggingStocks.

The industry has essentially changed its "accounting" to try to portray the state of the business in a different light. If this sounds like what some of the great accounting frauds did, that's because it is.

Of course, this isn't fraud, because everything is disclosed. It's just desperation.

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Last updated: November 14, 2009: 09:37 AM

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