Newsonomics: A Call To Arms (And Wallets) In The New Era Of Deregulation And Bigger Media

Quibble, if you will, about the level of degeneracy now afoot in the heart of the Old and New Confederacy, as the Roy Moore saga provides yet more sick drama in the country. That’s a sideshow. What’s quickly appearing on the main stage — if it’s still behind the curtain for now — is the... Read More

Newsonomics: Who Might Buy CNN? If AT&T Sells, Consider Murdoch, Bloomberg, Bezos and More

We know that Randall Stephenson says CNN’s not for sale, even though he doesn’t even own it yet. As the news emerged last week that the Department of Justice’s antitrust division has been jawboning with AT&T Inc.) on its agreed-to purchase of Time Warner Inc., with CNN an ...

Read More

Newsonomics: Softbank, Fortress, Trump – and The Real Story of Gatehouse’s Boundless Ambition

Sometimes when you connect the dots, you just get more dots. It looked like head-turning news: A Japanese company had taken control of one of America’s largest newspaper chains, New Media Investment Group, a.k.a. GateHouse Media. Tuesday’s headline: “Robotics and tech firm SoftBank Japan ...

Read More

Newsonomics: Will the Phone Companies ‘Own’ the Internet?

In 1982, the AT&T consent decree seemed like the last word. That’s when the Department of Justice used the nearly-century-old Sherman Antitrust Act to force the break-up of Ma Bell. No longer could one company – for a long-time considered key to the national interest, a next-gen Post Office ...

Read More

Nine Takeaways from the Verizon–AOL Deal

It’s easy to quickly label yesterday’s Verizon purchase of AOL as one aging utility buying another. One superannuated phone company buying a web company that’s gotten long in the tooth. Two companies of slowing revenue growth looking for updated identities and finding ways to compete with ...

Read More

The Newsonomics of Murdoch, Time Warner, the $80B Offer and the New Quest for Big, Big, Big

Follow Newsonomics on Twitter @kdoctor First published at Harvard’s Nieman Journalism Lab   Rupert Murdoch’s announced $80B pursuit of Time Warner this morning seemed like a bolt out of the blue to many. But the strong winds of consolidation make this kind of foray — and the others ...

Read More

The Newsonomics of Breakthrough Digital TV, from Aereo to Dyle and MundoFox to Google Fiber

Today, TV is no longer a box. Sure, even with all the Rokus, Boxees, and Apple TVs, it seems like TV isn’t yet an out-of-the-box experience. But with Hulu, Netflix, and Comcast’s Xfinity, it’s emerging quickly, escaping our fixed idea of what it once was — the boob tube in the living room. If ...

Read More

The Newsonomics of Replacing Larry King

Can CNN find a digital upgrade to the analog King?

Read More

The Newsonomics of Tablet Ad Readiness

We can look at each of the major revolutions in digital news and commerce, and see how news companies responded. Search. Late. Paid search. Way too late. Video. Late. Social. Too late. Mobile. Largely too late. News companies have used old yardsticks to measure new technologies, and the ...

Read More

The Newsonomics of Tablets, floor by floor

News and magazine publishers now see a second digital revenue line. It’s 70 percent of X (the retail price) multiplied by Y (volume of sales). As news companies reinvent not only products, but new business arrangements with the distributors of the day — from Google/Amazon/Yahoo to ...

Read More