Max Zeledon submits: The digital age has not been kind to the newspaper industry. Not too long ago owning a newspaper was a lucrative enterprise synonymous with large circulation numbers, huge profit margins, and historically high stock prices.The newspaper industry, the second oldest mass media enterprise in the United States with more than 3 centuries of existence, had no outside competition because its structure was practically a monopoly and its core business highly localized. This was before the newspaper business mo... lire la suite
Nonetheless, be thankful if you’re not directly or indirectly invested in newspaper stocks. Newsosaur reported today (HT to commenter dscott) that seven newspaper stocks hit record intraday lows in today’s trading before recovering a bit before the close: The shares of seven publicly held newspaper companies today plunged to the lowest point in modern history in perhaps the worst single trading day ever for the industry. UPDATE: To be fair, it looks like most other radio stocks are in the tank. But that would appear to support the notion that in securing Rush, Hannity, and other talent, Clear Channel is smoking the rest of the pack — with the help of really weak management moves at some of the other broadcasting firms.
The digital age has not been kind to the newspaper industry. Not too long ago owning a newspaper was a lucrative enterprise synonymous with large circulation numbers, huge profit margins, and historically high stock prices.The newspaper industry, the second oldest mass media enterprise in the United States with more than 3 centuries of existence, had no outside competition because its structure was practically a monopoly and its core business highly localized. This was before the newspaper business model was mercilessly dismantled by the web and its three-headed monster: Craigslist, Google, and the culture of free content. With the accelerated growth of the internet via the web browser in 1996, newspaper profit margins began to shrink at faster rates than ever before. Suddenly, news audiences and advertisers had a new platform and the desirability for print newspapers declined. The story is a familiar one but there are a lot of myths. Complete Story »
I don’t think many of us — even though we may have intellectually known it was coming — anticipated the magnitude and the pace of value destruction we’re seeing right now in the newspaper industry. From Alan Mutter: “In a historic rout, newspaper shares have lost nearly $4 billion in the last couple weeks, [...]
Seven newspaper stocks hit record lows on Friday. Alan Mutter explains: “Investor bets against Lee Enterprises and McClatchy were more than twice as big last month as those against the shares of Fannie Mae, one of the mortgage giants whose perceived instability jolted the financial markets.”
We're told the New York Sun—the right-leaning pro-Israel daily newspaper that was more or less doomed by the final, complete death of East Coast intellectual conservatism (thanks, Bush administration!)—will cease publication after all, with a final issue running on Monday. Probably. Former and current Sun staffers are invited to confirm/deny. Read More: Newspaper Bans Comments from Its Website , No You Did Not See Sarah Palin , 'Times' Social Networking Popup Campaign: Get Excited! , Newspapers Soft-Pedal $700 Billion Bailout
The L.A. Times is cutting 250 jobs, the Tampa-Tribune is cutting 21, the New York Times is now available only on Kindle during a lunar eclipse, but all is well in dead-tree medialand — in Korea. An anti-Communist group in Seoul plans to distribute 100,000 free copies of its newspaper to North Korean readers via balloons. The so-called Free North Korea Shinmun "will expose and condemn human rights violations in the communist country with articles written by North Korean defectors living in the South." The good news? The paper's made of plastic, so less atmospheric wear and tear. The bad? There's no food supplement made of real food to actually be use to North Koreans.
This... is odd. UK newspaper company Guardian Media Group just bought a blog! For more than $30 million! (To be fair, that's like 10 million quid now probably, but still.) The blog is paidContent; it covers dry internet media news and chronicles lots of important business-y stuff involving "digital media." It's a very nice site, but $30 million? While media stocks tank? For a site whose revenue comes from, like, bankers making money off media deals? Ok, Guardian! It's your money! But there's more good news: this deal will annoy Jason Calacanis!
The newspaper industry is in the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression. The biggest kiosk seller this month was a highbrow liberal weekly that featured a tabloid satire of a presidential candidate and his wife. The biggest newsmaker this month was a supermarket tabloid that caught a former presidential candidate visiting his extramarital baby mama, and the major journals of record won't even blog about it. Surely this is the End Times of big media. What is to be done? Where are our journalistic standards headed? And how long before what you see above becomes an actual New York Times Magazine cover?
All these people who accidentally destroyed the newspaper industry feel so bad about it! Craig Newmark, whose Craigslist decimated the classifieds sections of the nation, endowed some chair at Berkeley's journalism school to assuage his guilty conscience. Now Google, whose ad company is destroying the revenue model newspapers depend on, is hopping on the "we totally love journalism" bandwagon. Google head Eric Schmidt claimed that their DoubleClick ad service will aid newspapers! In getting more online revenue, obv, not with the whole "saving newspapers themselves" thing. "It's a huge moral imperative to help here," Eric said. Too little, too late, Google! ONCE A WHORE, ALWAYS A WHORE. Still, he acknowledged the boost probably won't be enough to restore the hefty profit margins that newspaper publishers historically have enjoyed from print advertising. It's sad to see the people who killed print have these regrets so publicly. They probably wake up in a cold sweat after terrifying dreams of bloody broadsheets calling their names—"you killllled meeee!" But seriously, it's too late, Eric. Not only is this ad thing a slap in the face, but Google has a nasty habit of aggregating and indexing lots and lots of newspaper content without paying anyone. So give it up and embrace your role! You are become death, destroyer of print! You made $16.6 billion in revenue last year! At least Craig bought the newspaper industry a little going-away present. This empty talk is just sad.