jay fredrickson

Five Reasons Why Newspaper Industry Will Bounce Back

Looking at the chart of ad revenues Borrell predicts, it shows that the revenue figure is stuck at nearly $40 billion until 2015. So basically, next year revenue goes up 2%, then stays flat for the next 5 years? Not really a healthy picture as there is no way newspaper companies can continue to show positive earnings growth if the top line is not growing.
The story also says that preprints will move from direct mail back into papers. Has that started to happen? Last I saw, the price of Valassis stock was up 700% in the past 5 months. Doesn't appear that they are losing too much preprint revenue to newspapers, does it?

Microsoft - Yahoo Search Deal Leaves Newspapers on the Sidelines

I have found that a lot of local dollars have switched from print to online, usually paid search. The display dollars are still not generating the types of returns to advertisers that search dollars return. When people are searching, they are looking to buy. Display dollars are good for image ads and institutional ads, but still haven't delivered the results that search ads have. Maybe a stronger yahoo, using better search tech, will in turn be a stronger place for advertisers to run Behavioral targeting ads.
Jay

Renewed Cost-Cutting Leads to Newspapers' Return to Profitability

Excellent 2q report for MNI. The cuts have been deep and painful, but this company now looks to be out of the woods for short term and intermediate term bankruptcy. Alarmingly low cash levels could still force this company to draw down the credit line even further.

Print Ad Losses to the Internet: It Ain't Over Yet

Excellent discussion going on here.

How to Save Newspapers: Outlaw Linking

When and if newspapers go away, someone will have to pay a huge price to gather and distibute news. Why not allow newspapers to charge for what they pay to produce? Seems logical to me.

What's the Boston Globe Worth? About a Buck

The losses in the newspaper industry have little to do with politics and much to do with economics. The "liberal media" tag is so tired, so worn out, it's laughable. It's the economy, folks, nothing more and nothing less.

Jay fredrickson

Can Traditional Print Newspapers Survive Creative Destruction?

The newspaper industry will survive if and only if companies such as Google and Microsoft buy them for their news gathering employees.

The search model places a high emphasis on current news, and if newspapers die, the credibility of news gathering goes down, thereby diminishing the value of the news search model.

Google and Microsoft can afford it, and will do it, in the next three years.

Jay Fredrickson
i-95south.com
253-370-9575

The New News

well done, Jeff. Is anyone worried that there is information overload and we all may be writing for only ourselves and a few followers? Newspapers still deliver mass numbers in a relatively short time.
Gannett is still tremendously undervalued.

Buffett: I Wouldn't Buy Newspapers 'At Any Price'

Interesting article. Even Warren Buffett, who has made tons of money over time in Buffalo and with Washington Post realizes that most pure play newspaper companies could have zero long term value. MCClatchy, New York Times,Lee, Journal Sentinel all have nearly 90% or more of their revenue tied up in daily papers. Gannett and Washington Post at least have other revenue streams that may keep their heart pumping a little longer.

Newspaper Circulation Skids Another 7% over Latest Six-Month Period

Newspaper companies try to put a spin on it by saying their total readership is up, when including online. That does not make up for the drastic loss in ad revenue, and it appears online revenue will never, ever take the place of ROP and preprint revenue. Very sad what has happened to newspapers, but the companies have way too much debt on their balance sheet to ever be a force again.

GeoCities = MySpace = Newspapers?

Jarvis, excellent points. It appears to me that you are saying newspapers still don't get it. How can they possibly raise the price of the Sunday product and expect anything but massive abandonment?

Jay Fredrickson

Apple Netbook Will Fill Newspaper Void

obviously I have never been more wrong in my entire life. The author of this article has a big fan base and I understand the error of my ways. I should have known better to criticize Apple or confuse business with innovation. What I really wanted to do was criticize the author based on an article he wrote several months ago bragging about how much money he made selling short bank stocks.
I thought he was vermin then, and still do.

Jay Fredrickson

If He Asks: My Testimony to Sen. Kerry on Failing Newspapers

Excellent article and excellent comments. As someone who has spent his entire life in newspapers, it is hard to explain why the oncoming tsunami was ignored.

At first the web was AOL and others, loaded with young guys. Then young women joined the group, then older more influential people started going online.
Craigs list went from 3 cities to 200 cities in less than 4 years. Google started getting into the local market less than 4 years ago. It came on papers so fast no one was looking past the next quarter's earning report. Home sales slowed, car sales slowed, those ads dried up, and most major newspaper companies made acquisitions at the wrong time, loading up the balance sheet with unpayable debt. The past three years have been most brutal, as competition ramped up, the major focus of all newspaper companies has been paying off debt. Instead of spending money to innovate, they have been slashing expenses to cover their debt.

So yes, it was the newspaper industry's fault for allowing this to happen. Greed got in the way of innovation.

On the Constitutionality of a Newspaper Bailout

Good article, jeff. Not much chance the government is going to be dumping any money into newspapers any time soon. These guys are on their own and NEED to stay totally independent of the government bailout.

Ariel Investments recently increased their investment in Gannet so now they own more than 12% of the outstanding common. President Obama's best friend runs Ariel. Obama had his pre-inaugural office in Ariel owned office space. The Ariel-Obama-Gannett newspaper tie in is interesting. Some reporter should find out why Ariel doubled down on Gannett. Do they know something?

Jay
i-75south.com

A Brutal Q1 for Magazines, Newspapers

Jeff:
What papers do you predict will report being down 30% in ad revenues in the first quarter ? I haven't seen that number anywhere, you often throw around numbers with no basis in fact. There will be NO MAJOR PAPERS reporting revenue losses of 30% for the first quarter. Pure poppycock and speculation on your part.

jay fredrickson
washingtoncheap.com