Milking mature business that have tipped into decline for maximum profits is an age-old strategy. We have been watching it for some time in newspapers but I have seldom seen it put so clearly as by Alan Ruddock in the Observer today who describes it as, “probably the only sensible approach“.
Ruddock, who is standing in [...]
Earlier today I mentioned the fall in the value of shares in Gannett, the American owners of Newsquest. Now I read at Reflections of a Newsosaur (via Romenesco) that the value of 11 US newspaper companies has dropped by $23bn in the first half of this year.
This is more than a credit crunch thing as [...]
The Silly Season must have started: Media Guardian publishes its Media 100 list of the people who wield the most power in the British media industry. Not only have the old lists been torn up to give the judges a fresh start, but there are 99 people in the list. The hundredth place is given [...]
Pressure on Pearson to sell the Financial Times is mounting following the failure of their scheme to bid for Dow Jones in conjunction with General Electric.
With Rupert Murdoch’s bid for Dow Jones, parent of the Wall Street Journal, looking increasingly likely to succeed, Pearson shareholders fear the prospect of FT facing stiffer competition. [...]
I have always liked research which confirms what I have always believed. So I am delighted that a study by the University of Missouri-Columbia finds: “Newspapers are under spending in the newsroom and over spending in circulation and advertising.”
The full report is to be published in the spring (with convincing methodology, I trust) but one [...]
A proposal to incorporate the rights and duties of editors and their editorial freedom into Norwegian law to protect them from meddlesome owners is said to be a response to David Montgomery’s acquisition of Orkla Media last year. While denying that it was a direct precedent for the new law, the culture minister, Trond Giske [...]
Stephen Glover in the Independent thinks Rupert Murdoch may be losing his touch. He cites a string of problems for the News International empire, and writes: “We have got so used to the idea that Mr Murdoch is invincible that we forget that he is made of flesh and blood like the rest of us, [...]
The knife with which Paul Dacre, the Mail’s editor-in-chief, attacked the “subsidariat” — loss-making media — is neatly turned against him by Peter Preston in today’s Observer.
In his Cudlipp lecture Dacre attacked the BBC, the Guardian, The Times and the Independent, saying: “Subsidised papers are, by definition, unable to survive in the free market”
Preston writes:
But [...]
Having revisited The Times blogs (see previous post), I felt it was time to take a look at the Telegraph’s, another of my targets last October when I asked what was the purpose of newspaper blogs. There I found editor Will Lewis busy at the Davos Diary.
He was tired of talking about blogging. He had [...]
Is Les Hinton about to step down from his role as supremo of Rupert Murdoch’s News International business in the UK?
I suspect that Roy Greenslade must have had a better source than the “rumour-mongers” he mentions before suggesting that Hiton will stand down soon. The replacement suggested is John Witherow, currently editor of the Sunday [...]
