The Newsonomics of Defense and Offense

It’s the offense that represents a problem. Most pay tests have yielded relatively little new revenue. Digital circulation revenues, if broken out, would be minuscule for most, leaving publishers underwhelmed. While buoyed by the defensive wins, without significant new circulation revenue, ...

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The Newsonomics of (California Watch’s) Single, Investigative Story

So, if California Watch were to be totally supported by foundation money, it would take an endowment of $54 million to throw off $2.7 million a year, at a five percent spend rate. Now $54 million raised one time isn’t an impossible sum. Consider just one gift: Joan Kroc left NPR more than $200 ...

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Nine Questions on Gannett Branding, Patch Widgeting, Stewart Becking, Bloomberg Viewing and Sunday Selling

Am I the only one who doesn't get Gannett's branding campaign? Yes, the Gannett math -- $33 million saved in furloughs, as much as $27 million potentially to be granted in exec bonuses -- seems sadly clueless, but what about the money the company has spent on its branding campaign. New logo and ...

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The Newsonomics of AOL/Patch’s buying Outside.in

Yet it parallels the HuffPo buy in a major way: It’s an attempt by AOL to get bigger faster. Look at AOL’s financials and it’s clear Armstrong is in a race against time. As one savvy newspaper veteran pointed out to me last week, AOL looks, ironically, a lot like a newspaper company. It has a ...

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The New HuffPo-AOL Combo: The Free, Anti-Murdoch Alternative?

Ah, but what kind of new face will AOL/HuffPost's be? It could be, simply, the anti-Murdoch. Sure, The Daily is "centrist," whatever that means in the world of 2011, but the right-leaning proclivities of Murdoch Media are clear. MSNBC has tiptoed into position, leaning forward gingerly, but ...

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The Newsonomics of Do-Over

If 2009 was a period of emotional as well as economic depression for those in the industry, 2010 was one of simmering hope, which the glimmer of tablet emergence stoked. Now, in 2011, we’ve got a convergence of factors beginning to create a new sense of where traditional news publishing may go. ...

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The Newsonomics of Tablets Replacing Newspapers

A few companies are now laying new strategy, based on private projections. They are forecasting that 20-25 percent of their print readers will migrate to the tablet within five years. (Remember, at the forecast rates, one in five Americans would have a tablet by 2014.) All admit that it’s ...

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Paywalls, Patch, Public Media & Pointcast Memories: 11 Conventional News Wisdoms We’ll Test in 2011

Conventional Wisdom #1) Readers won't pay for non-business content. Yes, we know that readers will pay for the Wall Street Journal and the Financial Times, and that Consumer Reports, which helps us save money, counts more digital subs than anyone else. While some smaller dailies have begun to ...

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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.

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The Newsonomics of Replacement Journalism

The second half of the year has so far produced TBD’s hiring of 50 in Washington, Patch’s push to pick up 500 journalists across the country, and the new alliance for public media plan to hire more than 300 journalists in four major cities, if funding can be found in 2011. In addition, the ...

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