Circ Math 101: Less is Less

Look at some of the individual results, and you understand why the New York Times just announced that it is taking another 100 jobs out of its newsroom and why other newsroom (and, of course, wider) cuts may increase -- not decrease -- as Wall Street indicates that an overall economic recovery ...

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Nine Questions: Rupert’s Dollar Sale, Self-Service Ad Revolution, the California Watch Model and JO’s Tech Friends

Charging for non-desktop/laptop access should be a new revenue stream for news publishers. The math, though, isn't huge. Who is most likely to pay for Journal mobile? Presumably it's online subscribers, of whom there are about a million. So $12 a year, if all of them signed up, would be $12 ...

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Yahoo-Microsoft Search Deal Leaves Newspapers on Sidelines

Search advertising does have an impact on newspaper companies. Most consortium members take Yahoo search and paid search, both services that would be replaced by Microsoft's new Bing and related products. The newspapers' paid search deal with Yahoo has provided a steady, if small, revenue ...

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Can You Feel the Bottom? Born-Again Cost-Cutting Leads Back to Profitability

What the predictions failed to get right was how deeply newspaper companies have cut expenses. Consider these cuts, 2Q, 2009 compared to 2Q, 2008: * McClatchy: 29% * Gannett: 20% * Media General: 23% * New York Times: 20% It is these cuts -- coming on a base that has been shrunken quarter by ...

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New Detroit Daily: Nature (and Entrepreneurs) Fills Gaps

Yes, SDNN is an online site, while the Detroit Daily News in a print product, with some secondary digital presence to come. Both, though, point to an emerging reality: The rapid shrinking of daily newspaper companies is beginning to leave vacuums in local markets and marketplaces. Entrepreneurs ...

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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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Google and Newspapers: Fairplay, Fair Share and Fair Use

I think it's time we get beyond this tired storyline and confront the realities of the moment. Just as God didn't ordain that newspapers should drive 25%+ profits from their daily monopolies, God didn't set the pay-out rules that drives current web business models. It's time to re-boot the ...

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Goodwill Hunting: How to Really Value News?

We're fumbling for words, non-profit, for-profit, angels, foundations, funders, members. Those are all means to do good journalism. We just need to focus on the end -- paying experienced and newbie journalists to do good work -- and get less caught up in the cross-fire of the how. There won't ...

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Sam Zell’s Plan D: It’s All About Buying Time

Buying time, though, is what everyone in the newspaper industry is doing. The New York Times did it today as well, mortgaging its landmark building for $225 million. Scripps is doing it by "selling'' the Rocky Mountain News. All the companies are doing it as they refinance their businesses with ...

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Tribune’s Descent Sends New Shock Waves

* We've learned that Zell isn't too good with math. He told Portfolio's Joanne Lipman just last month that: "When we looked at the historical numbers, we saw an average erosion of about 3 percent. At the time we underwrote the transaction, we used a 6 percent erosion." But look at Tribune's 4Q, ...

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