Lots of media business-related posts out there:
- Inaugurating the New York Times Deathwatch. Marc Andreessen writes: “I can’t take it anymore. I hereby inaugurate my New York Times Deathwatch, which will continue until the last Sulzberger has left the building.” Lots of meaty details in the inaugural post.
- Newspaper price hike: dangerous in current environment? Steve Outing wonders if the Boulder Camera’s $4.50-a-month price hike will be a straw that breaks the back of some readers’ newspaper-buying habits.
- Why I Left Print Media for Digital. Related by topic to the above. I think this describes the situation for a lot of folk: “…I’ve done virtually nothing to avoid the switch from print to digital, but rather let it sweep over me naturally. Some people have been fed up with the clutter caused by print media or the fact that the delivery of traditional news is too slow. Others cling to magazines and newspapers out of necessity or because of conviction and dedication to a particular publication. My print-to-digital conversion happened not out of principle but because of a series of mundane circumstances.” Read the article; stay for the comments.
- David Eun: Google Won’t Become a Media Company. Well, that’s a relief. Eun says Google helps media, doesn’t want to compete with it.
- The news biz roundup. Earnings reports from Gannett (Gannett Fourth-Quarter Profit Falls; Ad Revenue Drops (Update4)), Scripps (Weak ad sales tamp down Scripps’ earnings), and Belo (Belo CEO expects pace of newspapers’ decline to slow). Note the wording on the last one: still declining but more slowly.
- How Microsoft could destroy Yahoo (and itself). Okay, I really don’t care that mch about Microsoft buying Yahoo, but Steve Yelvington has an interesting take. Short version: Microsoft is too much like the newspaper industry to make this work.
