WSJ and FT Buck the Newspaper Trend

These are desperate times for the newspaper industry, and they're not much better in the world of finance. So it's interesting to see Jeff Bercovici and Jon Fine lauding impressive growth at the WSJ and the FT respectively. Is this a spike due to the credit crunch, which will prove unsustainable if and when conditions return to something approaching normality in financial markets and headcounts on Wall Street and in the City inevitably decline? Or is there a bigger trend here?

My feeling is that the Murdoch (NWS) purchase of the WSJ got competitive juices flowing at both newspapers for the first time in a while, and that readers are picking up on that. The internet might be bad for newspapers generally, but competition is nearly always good. And Rupert Murdoch is nothing if not a fearsome competitor.

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Comments

[Adrian Monck:]

Don't speak too soon... FT ABCs are just out:

www.guardian.co.uk/med...

2008 Apr 11 12:58 PM

[Greg Pinelli:]

Felix...what is it you are saying to us? Competition is good...unless, of course, you get hammered and shot into irrelevance. So what are the investible ideas??? You've presented none.....another useless presentation.

2008 Apr 12 11:05 PM