Media News, Bankruptcy and the Fog of Media War

Who will be next? And is the mating of banko companies the look of the next year? Dean Singleton bit the bitter bullet last week. After staving off bankruptcy for all of 2009, telling MediaNews execs that the company would not need to take that route, the company succumbed. MediaNews is ...

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Attributor “Fair Syndication Consortium” Completes Newspaper Trifecta

So, the three, somewhat ungainly pieces -- combined, represented a trifecta of web reckoning --I see going forward now are: Renegotiation of news producers' relationships with Google, Yahoo, MSN and AOL. I've written about my notion of Fair Share (no relation and coincidental timing with ...

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“Fair Share”: Google, Trust, Anti-Trust….and What Happens Next

On the other hand, Google is particular has become the gateway of our times. It is the number one sender of traffic to news sites -- 25-35% as a rule. In saying that news companies are free to tell Google not to index them, and that Google will be glad to comply, you can practically hear the ...

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Forget Newspapers’ Local-Local: Think Location, Location, Location

Hard as it may be to believe, we may have entered a new rocky period for newspaper companies. It would be a period in which the real estate on which they sit determines their market value. Consequently, their real estate value may determine who wants to sell the newspaper property and who wants ...

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Chronicle Crackdown Prompts Question: Where’s the Bay Area Online Super Startup?

Could the Chronicle indeed go away? Well, don't expect anyone to buy it. The newspaper market is, to use the kind word, illiquid. Frozen solid by two minor problems: 1) the credit meltdown, which will someday ease; 2) no one knows how to hell to value a newspaper company because no one has ...

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San Jose Mercury News, Mumbai Edition

Well, Bay Area News Group (BANG) staffers decided Dean's words needed illustration. They created a new map showing the familiar newspaper titles, including the once-proud San Jose Mercury News, Contra Costa Times, Oakland Tribune and Marin Independent-Journal (with the Santa Cruz Sentinel ...

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Nine Questions on Newspapers’ 2Q Reports

So what do we make of the first half of 2008 in DailyLand? Bad and getting worse. I’ve listened to the CEO webcasts — so you don’t have to! — and must say that there were a couple of eerie echoes of my own suggested remarks, offered a couple of weeks ago ("Candidly, ...

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Frankly, Candidly, Truthfully: Newspapers CEOs Talk About 2Q

It’s time for second-quarter newspaper earnings reports, with Gannett leading off Wednesday, with the long tale of woe to follow. Given the many newspaper staff cutbacks, which I thought might include the investor relations people, I’ve put together a few boilerplate remarks that I ...

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L.A. Times: The Inconvenient Poster Child

Is the L.A. Times the new ground zero of newspaper staff cuts and frightsizing? Los Angelenos, of which I am one by nativity but not choice, may think so, imagining L.A. as the center of everybody’s universe. It’s not, of course, but the saga of the Times has been one of the more ...

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What’s Wrong With Tribune’s Math

So, it’s clear, that Randy Michaels knows how to draw attention. His 50/50 ad/news plan isn’t exactly revolutionary, but it’s become a lightning rod for the news industry, as it comes to grip with near-death experience. Two weeks ago, Rupert Murdoch opined that print would ...

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