Newsonomics: Poison Pill Swallowed, What’s Next For Reeling Gannett?

Sixty-three cents. That’s all it took to buy a share of Gannett at market close yesterday. The entire company — valued at $18.5 billion-with-a-“b” 15 years ago when it owned TV stations but many fewer newspapers, not to mention $823 million-with-an-“m” as recently as January — is today worth ...

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Newsonomics: In Southern California’s Newspaper Chaos, Is Anyone Really Speaking For The Readers?

William Baer, assistant attorney general in charge of the Department of Justice’s antitrust division, had already bluntly told all involved in the Freedom Communications newspaper bankruptcy auction that Tribune Publishing should stay out of the bidding. He sent an email two days before ...

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Tribune, the Register Auction and DOJ’s Scarlet Letter

For those who have been following the ongoing tragicomedy of California’s dying newspaper industry, today, March 16, marks a climax. And as with all amazing stories, the moments leading up to that climax have made it a nail-biter. The real action is mundane enough: Today is the day that final ...

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Tribune Publishing Builds a Southern California War Chest

Chicago entrepreneur Michael Ferro will soon move across town, into the third-floor chairman’s suite in the legendary Tribune Tower. Yes, he’ll be 16 floors below Tribune Publishing CEO Jack Griffin, and the Tower is for sale anyway, but his new presence there will be something to watch. On ...

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The Newsonomics of Roll-Up

Once you've clustered -- centralized to the max the administration, circulation, advertising, production, finance and newsroom tasks of all of your own owned properties, you look next door to other companies, for fresh cluster bait. (Wait a minute, wasn't that the plot line in Aliens or The ...

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