New Hollywood Sequel: Aaron Kushner’s L.A. Register

Why, I asked, Aaron Kushner, is he announcing the new L.A. Register as we’re winding down toward the end of the year? Given that the big questions about it — when will it launch, how will it be staffed — are as yet unannounced, why put the news out now? “We were ready to ...

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The Newsonomics of Scripps’ TV Paywall & the Last Man Standing Theory of Local Media

First published at Harvard’s Nieman Journalism Lab   How much would you pay for online access to Ron Burgundy — or at least the Ron Burgundys of Cincinnati? In an industry-shaking move, E.W. Scripps’ WCPO.TV — that’s the website of Cincinnati’s ABC affiliate — is putting up a paywall ...

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As Digital First Media Announces Its Paywalls, 41% of US Dailies Will Soon Have Them

Even the paywall contrarians are coming around. John Paton’s Digital First Media will announce today its adoption of metered paywalls at all its Media News and Journal Register sites. That’s more than 75 papers, including big ones in Denver, San Jose, L.A., Salt Lake City (among the ...

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The Newsonomics of Jeff Bezos Buying the Washington Post

First published at Nieman Journalism Lab It is a thunderbolt. If not tossed down from Mt. Olympus, it is thrown from Mt. Amazon, not far from Washington’s beatific Olympic Mountains. Jeff Bezos’s surprise buying of the Washington Post whipsaws media, and a media-watching world, intrigued by Red ...

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The Newsonomics of the New York Times Running in Place

Let’s look at today’s numbers with some peer-group context. Then let’s draw five lessons — in seven-day print trends, the plateauing of all-access subs, the allure of video, the role of events, and the crying need for smart curation — that undergirds this strategy. Three numbers — print ad ...

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The newsonomics of 2013’s second half, from ad depression to day dropping to real estate as destiny

The newest News Corp sets sail. Cast adrift — but with a handy $2.6 billion in cash and no debt, making its peers oh-so-envi0us — the world’s largest newspaper company is in the midst of furious change. At the flagship Dow Jones/Wall Street Journal, it’s tough to find anyone in management ...

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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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Gannett Now a Broadcast Company, More or Less

No longer is Gannett a newspaper company with broadcast and digital assets. It can now be thought of as a broadcast company with major newspaper and digital assets.

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NYT 1Q Numbers: Back to Revenue Loss as Ad Declines Swamps Reader Revenue Gain

As the Times Company readies its sale of the Boston Globe (at the Nieman Lab today, I further explore the sale of the Globe and Tribune metro properties), it's clear the Globe is underperforming the Times. It was down 6.7% in overall revenue, as its reader revenue lost 1.9% and advertising ...

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The newsonomics of the Orange County Register’s contrarian paywall

It's the membership program — one that's not unique in the industry — that will catch the headlines.The Register wants to go big. It approached the Angels, located 10 minutes away, with the idea of better using the empty seats the Angels couldn't sell. The Angels found themselves sitting on ...

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