Turns Out Warren Buffett Won’t Be The Billionaire Who Saves Newspapers Either

By JOSHUA BENTON AND KEN DOCTOR  Circa 2012, one of the most popular lines among American newspaper journalists went something like this: “Newspapers can’t be that terrible of a business if Warren Buffett, the smartest investor in the world, wants in.” That was the year that Buffett’s Berkshire ...

Read More

Newsonomics: The Gannett–GateHouse Merger Is Really Happening, And Expect To See More Than 10% Of Jobs Cut Off The Top

The megamerger is really happening. Expect the new Gannett — the brand that will survive that chain’s acquisition by GateHouse Media — to officially take wobbly flight soon, perhaps around Thanksgiving. Both companies, the country’s No. 1 and No. 2 newspaper publishers, say it’s full speed ...

Read More

Newsonomics: The Perils — And Promises — Of New Gannett

  There’s the megamerger, and then there are the numbers: $1.8 billion, 11.5 percent interest, 5 years, $300 million, 18 percent…and many more.   RELATED ARTICLE Newsonomics: The GateHouse/Gannett newspaper megamerger could be announced as soon as Monday morning August 4, 2019 ...

Read More

Newsonomics: The GateHouse/Gannett Newspaper Megamerger Could Be Announced As Soon As Monday Morning

  Editor’s note: Gannett and GateHouse officially announced the merger Monday afternoon. Here’s the company announcement, confirming that the company will be called Gannett, be based at Gannett’s headquarters, and retain GateHouse’s New Media Investment Group CEO Mike Reed. Barring ...

Read More

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 ...

Read More

The Newsonomics of Anton Chekhov

2012 budgeting, still in full swing at many newspaper companies, is too much like a medical examiner’s exercise. What I hear: Dailies are budgeting down from mid-single digits to as high as low double-digits in print advertising for 2012, compared to 2011. That would compare to how much they’ve ...

Read More

The Newsonomics of the Next Recession

Overall, what a next recession would do is accelerate most the current trends. We’d see some impact in the fourth quarter, but most of it in 2012, as those budgets are now warily being planned. We’ll beginning asking the question — again — of which companies can survive and under whose ...

Read More

The Newsonomics of ARPU, Counting Revenue per Visitor

If close to right, the value of a unique visitor is 3.5x greater for the Times than for HuffPo, in advertising. It’s 4x greater for the Guardian than Mail Online.

Read More

The Newsonomics of the Dead Cat Bounce

Are there any positive growth numbers to report? Which categories may be turning positive — maybe national or retail display ads — as the sagging economy continues to plague the traditional classified strengths of auto, recruitment, and real estate?

Read More

Lee: A Glimpse into the Slimfast Strategy

Lee's Slimfast Strategy is one that you can see throughout the newspaper industry -- a recognition, greatly reinforced by lenders, that reduced revenues are here to stay and that operating costs had to see draconian cuts.

Read More