The Newsonomics of Rupert Murdoch’s Long Game

So Thomson’s ascension is no surprise (“Nine Questions as Murdoch Splits The News Corp. Baby”). Sure, he’s an editor — but he’s a News Corp. editor, and has been for a decade. Robert Thomson has been well schooled in the College of Murdoch. He’s a strategic news executive with a good sense of ...

Read More

Nine Questions on the News Corp Split: The Rise of Twenty-First Century Fox and The Daily’s Demise

Why did The Daily fail? I think the short answer is that it missed the first law of media: Make it interesting. The Daily was attractive, even sometimes stunning, in its visual appeal, but too empty-headed to attract a daily readership. If you are going to call something The Daily, you better ...

Read More

The Newsonomics of the News Corp Split

The split made sense even before Hackgate. Viacom, Belo, and Scripps all split off growing assets over the last several years to investors’ cheers. This sequestering of no-growth — what the newspaper business, charitably, has become — businesses has its logic. Media ain’t what it used to be. ...

Read More

The Newsonomics of Tablet Ads That Go Bump in the Night

Commercial conversation, especially targeted commercial conversation, is the Internet’s next generation of advertising. The first generation of impression-based web ads has been a low-clicking disaster. These new ads — some better executed than others, of course — insult our intelligence less ...

Read More

Nine Questions on Murdoch’s Doubly Cool “Daily”

What will The Daily do with Cairo's Time? Egypt is the story of the week. With The Daily planning on being a daily, not an instant, news product, its thinking and philosophy will be tested Day One. If it has yesterday's Egypt news, as the revolution goes down, it will read like yesterday's. ...

Read More

The Newsonomics of Journalist Headcounts

So let’s look broadly at those numbers. Count them all up — and undoubtedly, numerous ones are missing — and you’ve got something more than 65,000 journalists, working for brands of one kind or another.

Read More

Competition for the Business News Reader Intensifies

The push in business news shows several key trends in the marketplace: * Niching. Beefing up “news” in general is out; targeting select readers is where investment is going. * The action is greatest among the Digital Dozen, the term I’ve originated to describe top globally-oriented ...

Read More

News on the iPad: Expectedly, Underwhelming, with the Exception of…..

Clearly, the Journal is trying to anticipate success here -- that's clearly what's behind what some have derided as a high iPad only $17.29 monthly sub fee. Of course, that could be a good problem to have. Tablets, with good subscription price points, potentially lucrative ad rates and low ...

Read More

iPad and the New Five-Fingered Exercise

I think we'll see these companies go head-to-head for reader and subscriber dollars. As they do, I think they'll face a new five-fingered exercise. Raise one hand; five is the probably the maximum number of iPad news sites for which readers will pay.

Read More

Business News Arms War Heating Up

* It's war for the business reader, the global business reader, the investor, the savvy consumer. It's no accident that it's been the FT and the Journal that have led paid content models. Expect to see lots more products, steals and innovations, as a half-dozen top business news brands ...

Read More