The Newsonomics of the Tribune Detour

It’s a Koch-around. The unexpected, and real, interest of Charles and David Koch in buying all the Tribune papers has set off a public and labor furor ("The Newsonomics of the Kochs Rising and Uprising"). While the AFL-CIO itself has mounted a quite public protest, two of Tribune’s owners — ...

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The Newsonomics of the Koch Brothers and the Sales of U.S.’ Top Metros

How did we get here? How did we get to a place where a half dozen of the top newspaper nameplates in America could fall into overtly political hands? What does it tell us about the reshaping of the U.S. daily landscape? How might the Koch brothers’ ownership fare, a lesson applied here that may ...

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The Newsonomics of the Boston Globe’s Sale

Make no mistake: 2013, as your friendly newspaper realtors would tell you, is a great time to sell. The last 18 months have seen the greatest volume of deals in the last five years. And, why not: There’s a mildly up economy, all-access is bolstering revenue optimism, and heck, the Oracle ...

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The Newsonomics of The Tribune’s Metro Agony

The Tribune Company owns eight newspapers, six of them metros. Two — the Los Angeles Times and Chicago Tribune — are in top 10 of U.S. dailies; five — adding in the Orlando Sentinel, South Florida Sun-Sentinel, and Baltimore Sun — are in the top 40, while the Hartford Courant ranks 60th. Their ...

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The Newsonomics of 2013 Wizardry: Tribune, Buffett, Murdoch, Paton, Bloomberg, and more

Today, though, most of the reporting power, much of the brand power, and thepolitical power still resides in big companies and their leadership. We may well get our strongest display of that early in 2013: In Washington, the FCC cross-ownership debate may move to center stage in January. And ...

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Now at (Fire) Sale Prices: A Few Daily Newspapers…and Maybe More

The deep freeze in the U.S. newspaper market thawed a bit over the last couple of weeks. There really hasn't been much of a market for metro newspapers for almost half a decade. With advertising revenue down now 21 quarters in a row, it's near-impossible to fix a value on newspaper properties. ...

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San Diego’s Union Tribune: Out of the Private Equity Pot and Into Local Political Fire

In San Diego, we've moved from an old-fogy, often clueless, newspaper family (the Copleys) to on-so-private equity and now onto more overtly political ownership. The saga of dailies is taking some odd turns, and I fear this is a new chapter we will soon see written in other cities. "To my ...

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Reuters America Claims New Territory; First Stop, Chicago & Tribune

Still, it will be an intriguing test. Beyond the immediate test, we're seeing how flexible news content delivery is getting to be. Demand Media is selling content to USA Today and Hearst papers, while Reuters and Tribune buddy up to Examiner. Mix and match is the order of the day and ...

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The Star Tribune Hears a Who

If Sweeney came concerned, he might have left more worried. Yes, Public Radio’s legacy business is radio, and, more recently, audio, via podcast and streaming. What Sweeney heard, though, was a larger Who, public radio’s nascent attempts to assert itself as a major online (and then presumably ...

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Ad Technologies Aim at a Two-Fer: Reduced Costs and New Sales

Important Details:  Tribune Company announced a new partnership with technology provider Mediaspectrum, aiming at quickly spreading self-service display advertising technology among US daily newspapers. Tribune has been testing the self-service set of tools at six of its eight newspaper ...

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