The Seven Percent Rule: Why A Ridiculously Small Percentage of Digital Audience Drives The Future of News

Written for Traffic, the magazine of paywall provider Piano Media, here I explore in detail how and why less than 10 percent of readers really will make or break a digital news business. Good thinking, and analysis, via Mather Economics, New York Times, Washington Post, Tronc, Star Tribune, ...

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Newsonomics: These Are The 3 Fault Lines Redrawing The U.S. Media Business

On the surface, Meredith’s $2.8 billion buy of Time Inc. seems fairly straightforward: Leading women’s marketing company adds more digital and print audience to its roster of Middle America titles, with People the prime prize. But in that purchase we can also see the deeper tectonic shifts ...

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Who Will Buy Fortune, Sports Illustrated, Time and Two Major Cox Newspapers?

It’s time to reset the clock on Time Magazine, as well as its sister publications Fortune and Sports Illustrated. As Meredith Corp. announced its ability to close its long-anticipated buy of Time Inc.., , one door closed, but another opened. Though Meredith CEO Steve Lacy has ...

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Newsonomics: Seven Big Questions As Meredith Digests Its Time Inc Buy

Des Moines takes Manhattan? The pride of Iowa publishing, Meredith Corp,, looks like it has finally put Time Inc. out of its 20-year print-to-digital agony. On Sunday, Nov. 26, as expected, Meredith agreed to buy Time. While this has been a deal long expected to find a way toward completion, ...

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The DEAL Week That Was: Making Sense Of Fox, Time Inc., Buzzfeed, Mashable, the Kochs and the FCC

It was a day to remember. Media consolidation finally saw its big day in the news, Thursday, Nov. 16, as so many long-running storylines began to reach their climaxes. Fueled by the Koch brothers’ half-billion dollars or more, Midwest stalwart Meredith Corp. looks like it finally has the ...

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Newsonomics: A Call To Arms (And Wallets) In The New Era Of Deregulation And Bigger Media

Quibble, if you will, about the level of degeneracy now afoot in the heart of the Old and New Confederacy, as the Roy Moore saga provides yet more sick drama in the country. That’s a sideshow. What’s quickly appearing on the main stage — if it’s still behind the curtain for now — is the... Read More

Newsonomics: A Q & A With NYT’s Mark Thompson 2020, A Half Billion In Digital Revenue And Thinning Competition

Five years is a long time, especially in the media business. It was five years ago this week that Mark Thompson took on the top job at The New York Times Company. It was an enterprise still wobbling from the effects of the Great Recession, its new paywall only a year old. The Huffington ...

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Newsonomics: Who Might Buy CNN? If AT&T Sells, Consider Murdoch, Bloomberg, Bezos and More

We know that Randall Stephenson says CNN’s not for sale, even though he doesn’t even own it yet. As the news emerged last week that the Department of Justice’s antitrust division has been jawboning with AT&T Inc.) on its agreed-to purchase of Time Warner Inc., with CNN an ...

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Newsonomics: Will Facebook or Google Adopt The Brill/Crovitz News Vetter, News Guard?

Can trust be monetized? That’s just one of the intriguing questions around the mid-2018 launch of News Guard, being brought to audiences everywhere by that veteran New York media production team of Steve Brill and L. Gordon Crovitz. The business partners foresaw the land rush toward daily ...

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Dallas Morning News Reinvents the Art (and Science) of Local Digital Marketing

Plus one. Plus two. Plus three. Call it the new addition, and it’s the now-more-public new business strategy of A.H. Belo Corp,, longtime owner of the fast-changing Dallas Morning News. On Tuesday, Oct. 31, A.H. Belo restructured itself into two operating divisions. Belo Media Group ...

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