THINK!: 2008-11-09

Saturday, 15 November 2008

Why newspapers need to come up with a paid content model.

Most group think says that paid content models for newspapers won't work.

Well, with current approaches, ideas and technology they won't.

But people like me, who have different approaches, different ideas and different technology don't agree. Problem is: we can't find a newspaper interested in talking about it or the money to invest in making it doable.

If you doubt the need for a paid content model for newspapers, do two things.

The first is to check out my other blog, www.aplaceintheauvergne.blogspot.com which is many things but not least of all an active demonstration of the need for newspapers to come up with paid content models.

My view is this, and as an author I obviously have mixed feelings about this: if you can't come up with a paid content model then you're too dumb to deserve not being ripped off by bloggers like me.

Show us a way to pay and we'll pay.

Secondly, read this little gem, which is, need I say it, a pirated article:

Pirated articles costing publishers
The Associated Press
Friday, November 14, 2008
SAN FRANCISCO: The audience for unauthorized copies of newspaper articles online is nearly one and a half times larger than the readership on the newspapers' own Web sites, a study released Thursday found.
Attributor, a company that monitors copyright issues, said media companies could capitalize on the trend if they could figure out a way to get a piece of advertising revenue from the traffic flocking to their pirated stories.
The worst copyright headaches diagnosed in Attributor's study occurred in stories about automobiles, travel and movie reviews. The readership of unlicensed stories in those three categories was four to seven times higher than on the Web sites where the content originated.
Attributor, which makes software that trolls the Internet for copyright violations, estimated that the average Web publisher could collect more than $150,000 annually in additional revenue by selling ads alongside its unlicensed material.
The company said the estimate was based on an assumption that advertisers would pay $1 for every 1,000 pages of unauthorized material viewed on Web sites that are not owned by the copyright owners.
If anything, Attributor believes its calculations understate the loss to publishers. The company is already working with a few media companies that could generate more than $1 million in annual advertising by enforcing their online copyrights, said Rich Pearson, Attributor's vice president of marketing.
"The people creating all this content are not being justly rewarded and publishers are clamoring for every dollar of revenue that they can get in this environment," Pearson said.
Attributor, which is privately held, would stand to profit if it could persuade potential customers that the Internet is riddled with copyright abuses that could translate into more revenue if the poachers were identified. Attributor's customers include The Associated Press, Reuters and The Financial Times.
But the issue of copyright infringement was a sore point for media executives long before the company began developing its detection system in 2006.
Attributor's study reviewed 30 billion Web pages hosting copies of stories from more than 100 major Web sites. None of the sites belonged to Attributor's current customers. After excluding all properly licensed content, Attributor then discarded any page that copied less than 50 percent or fewer than 125 words of a copyrighted story.
http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/11/13/business/papers.php

READ AN ALTERNATIVE IHT DAILY NARRATIVE AT
A PLACE IN THE AUVERGNE

LOOKING FOR A CHRISTMAS BOOK GIFT TO BUY?
"Books about cosmopolitan urbanites discovering the joys of country life are two a penny, but this one is worth a second glance. Walthew's vivid description of the moral stress induced by his job as a high-flying executive with the International Herald Tribune newspaper is worth the cover price alone…. Highly recommended." The Oxford Times

Amazon.co.uk

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Place-My-Country-Search-Rural/dp/0753823888/ref=pd_sbs_b_title_14

'I read A Place in My Country with absolute unalloyed delight. A glorious book.'
Jeremy Irons (actor)

‘Ian Walthew was a newspaper executive with a career that took him round the world, who one day did a mad thing. He saw a for-sale sign on a cottage in the Cotswolds, bought it, resigned and moved in. For the first few weeks he just lay on the grass in a daze. Then he started talking to his neighbours and digging into the rich history of this beautiful part of England. Out of his inquiries grew this affecting and inspiring memoir.What sets it apart from others of its ilk is the author’s enviable immunity to cliché and his determination to love his homeland better than he used to. His elegiac account of relearning how to be an Englishman should be required reading for anyone who claims to know or love this country.’ Financial Times

Amazon.com
http://www.amazon.com/Place-My-Country-Search-Rural/dp/029785173X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1225089096&sr=8-1

For more reviews visit ianwalthew.com

Business trip to the IHT in Paris or friends and family coming to visit you? Fed up with hotels? Bring the family (sleeps 6) to superb Montmartre apartment - weekend nights free of charge if minimum of 3 work nights booked;. Cable TV; wifi, free phone calls in France (landlines); large DVD and book library; kids toys, books, travel cot and beds; two double bedrooms; all mod cons; half an hour to Neuilly and 12 mins walk from Eurostar. T&E valid invoices.
10% Discount for NYT employees; 15% Discount for IHT Employees

http://www.montmartreabbesses.com

International Herald Tribune
IHT
New York Times
The NYT Company

NYT Company goes as low as $7.25; Harbinger Capital Partners does some housekeeping.

Not a great week.

The opening bell rung Monday at $9.25, so if you thought that was a good buy under $10 you lost 22% of you investment by the weekend. Hope you didn't.

NYT Company stock traded at an all-time low of $7.25 on Friday and closed out the week a cent above it's previous low of $7.33.

At $7.34 that represents a drop of nearly 47% in the last 3 months, -58% YTD, -61% in a year, -74% in 3 years and -84% over 5 years. More than that you really don't want to know.

Feb. 26th, 2004, it closed at $48.60 at a volume of nearly 3.5 million shares traded. Looking at recent volumes, who knows what's going on.

Meanwhile Friday, a Form 4 regarding The New York Times Company was filed with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission concerning 10% Class A Common Stock owners Harbinger Capital, moving some 40 million shares from its Special Situations Fund into another of its vehicles last Wednesday. This they did at $8.38. They also did some derivative stuff on nearly 400,000 shares that maybe made them some bucks, so someone, at least is making money.

You've gotta ask yourself if some naked short selling on NYT stock isn't the way forward. But remember:

Ring-a-ring o'roses,

A pocket full of posies,

A-tishoo! A-tishoo!

We all fall down.

New York Times Co
(NYT:NYQ) NYT on other Exchanges
7.34 USD Last
-0.62 -7.79% Change
2.4M Above Average Volume

Data as of November 14, 2008 16:05 exchange time. Market data is delayed by at least 20 minutes.
Today's Open
7.82 USD
Previous Close
7.96 USD
Today's High
8.06 USD
Today's Low
7.25 USD
Today's Volume
2.4M
Avg Volume (10 day)
1.3M

READ AN ALTERNATIVE IHT DAILY NARRATIVE AT
A PLACE IN THE AUVERGNE

LOOKING FOR A CHRISTMAS BOOK GIFT TO BUY?
"Books about cosmopolitan urbanites discovering the joys of country life are two a penny, but this one is worth a second glance. Walthew's vivid description of the moral stress induced by his job as a high-flying executive with the International Herald Tribune newspaper is worth the cover price alone…. Highly recommended." The Oxford Times

Amazon.co.uk

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Place-My-Country-Search-Rural/dp/0753823888/ref=pd_sbs_b_title_14

'I read A Place in My Country with absolute unalloyed delight. A glorious book.'
Jeremy Irons (actor)

‘Ian Walthew was a newspaper executive with a career that took him round the world, who one day did a mad thing. He saw a for-sale sign on a cottage in the Cotswolds, bought it, resigned and moved in. For the first few weeks he just lay on the grass in a daze. Then he started talking to his neighbours and digging into the rich history of this beautiful part of England. Out of his inquiries grew this affecting and inspiring memoir.What sets it apart from others of its ilk is the author’s enviable immunity to cliché and his determination to love his homeland better than he used to. His elegiac account of relearning how to be an Englishman should be required reading for anyone who claims to know or love this country.’ Financial Times

Amazon.com
http://www.amazon.com/Place-My-Country-Search-Rural/dp/029785173X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1225089096&sr=8-1

For more reviews visit ianwalthew.com

10% Discount for NYT employees; 15% Discount for IHT Employees

http://www.montmartreabbesses.com

International Herald Tribune
IHT
New York Times
The NYT Company

Friday, 14 November 2008

New York Times Company to be bailed out by private investors?

I've been blogging for some time on the very real possibility of the NYT Company taking themselves private as part of some sort of philanthropic bailout by civic minded members of the great and the good of New York. No pressure to make vast profits, worry about shareholders etc.

Interestingly, this tongue in cheek piece from Businessweek, like any satire, has more than a grain of truth behind it.

The money won't come from government, but it may come from a group of very rich, liberal investors.

I wonder if the Family are working the dinner parties and putting out feelers to see if anyone is willing to throw their hat into the ring?

Media Centric November 13, 2008, 5:00PM EST

A Bailout Plan For U.S. Newspapers
A modest proposal for a lobbying campaign to save America's battered dailies
By Jon Fine

TO: Senior executives at U.S. newspaper companies
FROM: Tongue & Cheek Lobbying Innovations LLC
The post-Election Day landscape brings great change for America and its governing philosophy, and this is why we must move quickly to craft a federal bailout for the newspaper industry.
I know from some previous discussions that not all of you agree. Unlike with banks, the collapse of American newspapers does not endanger the world's financial system. Unlike car companies, the newspaper industry does not lose billions of dollars each month. No matter. We can position this as a proactive move to save the only industry prominently mentioned in the Bill of Rights. (Our message team likes that last bit. You'll hear it a lot.) This industry employs over 52,000 journalists, thousands of other workers, and it faces unprecedented challenges. It takes more than a quadrennial sales spike from a closely watched election to save newspapers. Also, the bailout money is there, and—ask any struggling retailer or chain of hair salons soon to claim that they, too, are banks—it won't be there forever.
An Obama Administration will likely show little love for the workaday press, as a simple holler out to your reporters that covered his campaign will confirm. (If you still employ campaign reporters, that is.) But Barack Obama is a civic-minded man. He will appoint civic-minded staffers. They may not love reporters, but they grew up with newspapers. They won't want them to go away, especially since we will paint a news paradigm without papers as being dominated by Fox News and bloggers banging on spittle-flecked laptops.
Decades ago, legislation passed to allow joint operating agreements between competitive local papers, in order to preserve diverse editorial voices. Our mission today will be cast as preserving educational voices.
Two potential Newspaper Rescue Acts:
Debt Relief/Subsidization. The U.S. assumes all outstanding debt at all newspaper companies. At midyear that was $14 billion for the publicly traded players (excluding News Corp., which only owns two U.S. newspapers, but more on them later), $12.5 billion for the Tribune Co., plus more for other private players. The U.S. may take equity stakes in all companies, should the government deem this wise. This plan also includes a onetime sum to offset current revenue shortfalls. Newspapers took in $45 billion from advertising in '07; let's assume ad declines this year and next will total $15 billion. Cost: Around $45 billion.
Industry Digitization. Think of the "license fee" British households pay to the BBC. Government will subsidize Amazon's (AMZN) Kindle (or equivalent device) and mandate that each household purchase one for $50. (Households below the poverty line will get one free.) This plan also provides several billion dollars to develop new digital news products, retrofit or dispose of obsolete assets (like printing presses), and roughly maintain existing newsroom staffs. Government again has the option to secure passive equity stakes. We will stress this plan's "green" aspects. Cost: Approximately $55 billion.
To paraphrase incoming Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel, never let a crisis go to waste—it allows you to do big things. Tongue & Cheek can guide the lobbying push essential for our mutual success, but we will require the participation of industry leaders who can navigate Washington with finesse and charm. In other words: Sam Zell, please stay home and tend to Tribune. (By the way, Tongue & Cheek has cultivated News Corp. (NWS) executives. Having Rupert Murdoch on board will defang those who howl about liberal media bias.)
Should our proposals fail, we can still shake loose much low-hanging fruit. For starters, a special—and substantial—tax credit for daily newspapers, given our "educational" rebranding. Consumers' subscriptions will win tax-deductible status as well. I'm less certain than some of you that lifting laws preventing newspapers from owning radio or TV stations in the same market will fatten bottom lines. But here, too, a persuasion campaign can reap benefits.
I recognize some may perceive all this as an admission of defeat. But let's feel a sense of opportunity, not shame. And always remember how your business differs from the other supplicants. No newspaper ever bankrupted a country or peddled a product as patently putrid as the Pontiac Aztek.
Fine is BusinessWeek's MediaCentric columnist and Fine On Media blogger .

Meanwhile, how are those stocks doing?

Er, not too good. As of about 20 mintutes ago, here's the story.

New York Times Co
(NYT:NYQ) NYT on other Exchanges
7.49 USD Last
-0.47 -5.90% Change
687.4K Below Average Volume

Data as of November 14, 2008 13:27 exchange time. Market data is delayed by at least 20 minutes

That would be a 20% drop this week, with a low of $7.33 and a low of $7.44 this week. If there's ever a time to do this, it's now.

It's not a strategy for survival, it's not a business plan, even as a non-profit making foundation funded newspaper, but it would buy some much needed time for someone, please someone to come up with some ideas.

This ad recession is going to go into 2010, no doubt about it, and that means 2 years of agencies and clients finding cheaper and cheaper alternatives that work. I don't think there is a lender out there right now with that much patience or risk carefree.

People are talking about GM going bankcrupt. Well, wait till you see the Q4 earnings, then the 2009 Q1 and Q2 and need I go on......

READ AN ALTERNATIVE IHT DAILY NARRATIVE AT
A PLACE IN THE AUVERGNE

Amazon.co.uk

'I read A Place in My Country with absolute unalloyed delight. A glorious book.'
Jeremy Irons (actor)

‘Ian Walthew was a newspaper executive with a career that took him round the world, who one day did a mad thing. He saw a for-sale sign on a cottage in the Cotswolds, bought it, resigned and moved in. For the first few weeks he just lay on the grass in a daze. Then he started talking to his neighbours and digging into the rich history of this beautiful part of England. Out of his inquiries grew this affecting and inspiring memoir.What sets it apart from others of its ilk is the author’s enviable immunity to cliché and his determination to love his homeland better than he used to. His elegiac account of relearning how to be an Englishman should be required reading for anyone who claims to know or love this country.’ Financial Times

Amazon.com

For more reviews visit ianwalthew.com

10% Discount for NYT employees; 15% Discount for IHT Employees

International Herald Tribune
IHT
New York Times
The NYT Company

Hoaxes and Non-existence: When is Richard Pérez-Peña going to start writing about the future of the NYT Company?

Richard Pérez-Peña, the New York Times senior media writer, does a stand up job of covering the American media scene, most recently A senior fellow at the Institute of Nonexistence By Richard Pérez-Peña and coverage of the hoax NYT edition (covered by this blog before the NYT).

The IHT is happy to run corporate press releases concerning good news stories - appointments of new editors, opening of print sites, publishing partnerships etc.

But there seems to be a resounding silence from the NYT and the IHT's media writers about the future of their employee.

Normally, I am against in-house media writers covering their own paper, and don't like the above mentioned examples of corporate puff pieces - there is a credibility problem.

But if the senior editors will run these puff pieces, isn't it time for some serious reporting about the rather dire straights of the NYT Company. It is, presumably, a two way street, and of some interest to IHT readers (at least judged by emails and traffic to this blog).

Time, I think, with NYT time stock trading below $8 and the blogosphere awash with NYT stories, for either Pfanner or Doreen C. to be tasked this story, because it sure ain't coming from Richard.

They even managed to run a piece about how companies were turning to blogging to report layoffs (especially in media sector) to be ahead of the blogosphere. Perhaps someone might re-read that story and see whether they can see any relevance in it to the NYT itself.

READ AN ALTERNATIVE IHT DAILY NARRATIVE AT
A PLACE IN THE AUVERGNE

Amazon.co.uk

Amazon.com

'I read A Place in My Country with absolute unalloyed delight. A glorious book.'
Jeremy Irons (actor)

‘Ian Walthew was a newspaper executive with a career that took him round the world, who one day did a mad thing. He saw a for-sale sign on a cottage in the Cotswolds, bought it, resigned and moved in. For the first few weeks he just lay on the grass in a daze. Then he started talking to his neighbours and digging into the rich history of this beautiful part of England. Out of his inquiries grew this affecting and inspiring memoir.What sets it apart from others of its ilk is the author’s enviable immunity to cliché and his determination to love his homeland better than he used to. His elegiac account of relearning how to be an Englishman should be required reading for anyone who claims to know or love this country.’ Financial Times

For more reviews visit ianwalthew.com

10% Discount for NYT employees; 15% Discount for IHT Employees

http://www.montmartreabbesses.com

International Herald Tribune
IHT
New York Times
The NYT Company

Thursday, 13 November 2008

Opinion: Questioning the The New York Times business model? The NYT needs a lender to see the big picture.

That is according to Editors Weblog's simple summary of the brilliantly incisive (er?) analysis by Scholars and Rogues (full marks for spotting the obvious), and I couldn't agree more.

Problem is, for a lender to see the big picture, the NYT Company needs to present them a VERY BIG PICTURE, one full of game changing ideas and innovation, not just one that says the advertising revenue is going to crash out by the end of 2010 if we're lucky, and even then, we're still screwed.

Come on NYT: show us the picture and we'll show you the money.

Why in God's name should anyone bail out the NYT if either they are a) interested in making money (which is why I think they could be bailed by people who aren't) or b) typical investors/lenders who require something to invest in/lend to CALLED A NEW BUSINESS PLAN, because the current one is, well, crap.

It's really not that complicated: we all know advertising is tanking, that it will take till we're dead for online revenues to take up the strain and that newspaper demographics are trending into a slurry pit.

And we all know the banks are about to ask questions about the lending to which the NYT doesn't have answers without killing themselves and their staff and what essentially they are. So they just have to come up with a plan.

Easy to say isn't it?

Well, actually, yes it is. Because I and others have them. I'm not chucking them up here for free however.

It reminds me of Friedman's typically naive recent column imploring the international community to 'show Obama the money' (and troops and aid and diplomatic support etc).

As one astute IHT reader pointed out, first, on what basis should ANYONE show the US government ANY money?

Obama has to show US (that would be us, the world, not the U.S.A) the BIG PICTURE, his business plan for the world and America, just like the NYT has to show a lender some god-damn half-decent ideas about its future.

Snap to boys and girls and smell the coffee.

Opinion: Questioning the The New York Times business model?
Posted by Rosemary D'Amour on November 12, 2008 at 4:18 PM
For over 100 years, The New York Times has set the standard for print publications in the US and all over the world. In an article on Monday, Scholars and Rogues, a blog offering commentary and analysis on breaking news, said that the legacy could be close to its end, because the Times has "significant debt coming due, and insignificant cash on hand."Scholars and Rogues comments that the Times did not accept the Internet as an "effective colleague" to distribute news and information, regarding it as "ineffective." This has now proven "costly," as the numbers indicate.
Scholars and Rogues reports that while the Times' online readership remains high, "it's not translating into sufficient online advertising revenue." According to Henry Blodget of the Silicon Valley Insider, based on recent NYTCo. filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, the Times owes $453 million more than it has. The Times' business model, which has been applied by many publications, is "faltering." It faces the problem that every other newspaper in the United States faces - how to make online adverting pay off fast enough to keep up with costs. According to Scholars and Rogues, "Internet ad revenues, though increasing, will not produce sufficient revenue soon enough to stave off drastic, perhaps catastrophic, changes in the newspaper industry."So the question is, what can the NYT do to cut costs and remain afloat? Will cutting jobs be enough? Will they need to end print editions? An interesting point, "any change in the Times company's business model will influence the readership habits and information needs and wants of millions of people." Keeping this in mind, they will need to find a solution that both allows them to maintain their status and have the resources to provide quality news coverage.

Source: Scholars and Rogues

http://www.editorsweblog.org/newspaper/2008/11/us_dreary_outlook_for_the_new_york_times.php

P.S If you were on the ball today you could have had yourself some NYT Company action for as little as $7.33. Currently trading, as of about 20 minutes ago, at $7.57. That's nearly 46% down over 3 months.

$7 here we come and half the value of the world's largest economy's No. 1 newspaper site blown away in 3 months. Oh yeah, there's a future on the Internet for quality content providers. Just not much money.

This year is like watching the Berlin Wall coming down.

New York Times Co
(NYT:NYQ) NYT on other Exchanges
7.57 USD Last
-0.13 -1.69% Change
1.5M Above Average Volume

Data as of November 13, 2008 14:17 exchange time. Market data is delayed by at least 20 minutes

READ AN ALTERNATIVE IHT DAILY NARRATIVE AT
A PLACE IN THE AUVERGNE

Amazon.co.uk

'I read A Place in My Country with absolute unalloyed delight. A glorious book.'
Jeremy Irons (actor)

‘Ian Walthew was a newspaper executive with a career that took him round the world, who one day did a mad thing. He saw a for-sale sign on a cottage in the Cotswolds, bought it, resigned and moved in. For the first few weeks he just lay on the grass in a daze. Then he started talking to his neighbours and digging into the rich history of this beautiful part of England. Out of his inquiries grew this affecting and inspiring memoir.What sets it apart from others of its ilk is the author’s enviable immunity to cliché and his determination to love his homeland better than he used to. His elegiac account of relearning how to be an Englishman should be required reading for anyone who claims to know or love this country.’ Financial Times

Amazon.com

For more reviews visit ianwalthew.com

10% Discount for NYT employees; 15% Discount for IHT Employees

International Herald Tribune
IHT
New York Times
The NYT Company

Jeff Jarvis vs. Slate on the future of print.

New-media guru is forever down on print, in fact name a media web operation that isn't (hello FishbowlNY - any of this ring any bells).

Slate columnist Ron Rosenbaum has had a gutfull and there is lot I agree with in his remarks. There's even more I agree with about Jarvis and the need for newspapers to get fucking real (to paraphrase Jeff).

It's interesting about Jarvis' remarks about newspapers calling him for brainstorming and him asking whether Ron would have him tell them to fuck off and die (quote unquote).

That rings a bell. I know media people who are trying to contact newspapers with ideas and if not being told to fuck off and die, then at least not having their proposals followed-up or emails replied to or calls returned.

The death of print must be fully under control at all these newspapers, in a kind of 'we've got the funeral plans well in hand thanks, we don't need your help, young whipper snapper, to lower the coffin'.

Thank God for big media Strat Planners. They've only had 13 years to spot the iceberg and change direction. Do they ever read what their own journalists have been reporting?

Jeff Jarvis Is Kind of Jerky About Journalism: Daily Intel at nymag

11/12/08 at 12:45 PM

Slate columnist Ron Rosenbaum unleashed a fusillade of attacks on new-media guru Jeff Jarvis today for "gloating too much about the death of print." Rosenbaum exhaustively recounts examples from Jarvis's speeches and his blog, showing how the former EW and Daily News editor repeatedly mocks old media institutions and makes claims like: "The fall of journalism is, indeed, journalists' fault." Rosenbaum, a journalist who straddles both worlds, is insanely offended, and attacks the writer cum Internet consultant:
Not all reporters had the prescience to become new-media consultants. A lot of good, dedicated people who have done actual writing and reporting, as opposed to writing about writing and reporting, have been caught up in this great upheaval, and many of them may have been too deeply involved in, you know, content — "subjects," writing about real peoples' lives — to figure out that reporting just isn't where it's at, that the smart thing to do is get a consulting gig.
"It makes you wonder whether Jarvis has actually done any, you know, reporting," Rosenbaum asks, lamenting his "contempt for the beautiful losers who actually made journalism an honorable profession." Citing Jarvis's own practice of not reporting out blog posts (and his book on Google), Rosenbaum didn't contact him for comment. But we did, and his response was: "I'll post later today after I — gasp! — teach my class of journalists."
Jarvis calls Rosenbaum a "pissy third-grader" and says he criticizes because he's only trying to help!
I’m not sure what he’d rather have me do: Sit in my room and mope, sitting shiva for the past? Refuse to discuss the future of journalism? Tell newspapers when they call asking for brainstorming to fuck off and die? Would that be in solidarity with my hack brethren who did too little to transform journalism in the last 13 years of the web?
"Whether we save all the journalists today is entirely another matter and not my goal," Jarvis explains. "Rosenbaum believes that makes me heartless. I think it makes me realistic. And we need some realism in this business." It goes on like that for about 1,200 words.
Ugh, if we have to spend any more time meditating on new media today, we're gonna hurl.
Is Jeff Jarvis Gloating About the Death of Print? [Slate]There, There, Ron [BuzzMachine]

http://nymag.com/daily/intel/2008/11/jeff_jarvis_is_kind_of_jerky_a.html

READ AN ALTERNATIVE IHT DAILY NARRATIVE AT
A PLACE IN THE AUVERGNE

Amazon.co.uk

His elegiac account of relearning how to be an Englishman should be required reading for anyone who claims to know or love this country.’

Financial Times

Amazon.com

For more reviews visit ianwalthew.com

10% Discount for NYT employees; 15% Discount for IHT Employees

International Herald Tribune
IHT
New York Times
The NYT Company

Advertising Industry May Not Recover Until 2010, Citigroup Says

Finally, a MSM outlet gets to the self-evident point.

This isn't a 2009 advertising slow down problem, this is going to go well into 2010.

If you take the ad revenue forecasts below, and apply them to NYT and IHT revenues re. 2007 (see the last annual report for details) you can well see that something don't add up.

Bottom line, when the NYT Company comes to renegotiate its debt who is going to lend it and at what price?

This is going to get brutal or it's going to get clever, clever meaning some game changing ideas for the NYT OR some sort of private philanthropic bailout leading to Newspaper Capitalism 2.0.

My money is currently on brutal.

Advertising Industry May Not Recover Until 2010, Citigroup Says
By Philipp Schlaeger
Nov. 11 (Bloomberg) -- Advertising in the U.S. may not recover until 2010 if businesses wait for the economy to bounce back before boosting marketing spending, analysts at Citigroup Inc. said.
Ad spending across all media, including print, broadcast and the Internet, may fall 1.8 percent this year and 3.6 percent in 2009, Citigroup's Catriona Fallon and her colleagues said in a report yesterday. Citigroup had originally projected growth of 0.2 percent in 2008 and a decline of 0.3 percent next year.
Because campaigns take time to plan and execute, an ad recovery can lag behind a resurgence in the economy, the report said. While the Beijing Olympics and political campaigns contributed to ad revenue this year, local and national ad media have experienced ``severe slowdowns,'' the report said.
``We now see a sharp falloff in consumer spending and economic output and a high likelihood of a recession through most of 2009,'' Fallon wrote. ``We believe U.S. advertising spending will see the first back-to-back annual declines since at least the 1950s.''
Newspaper spending may suffer the biggest drop, slipping 16.3 percent this year and 12.5 percent the next, Citigroup forecast. Internet spending growth, projected at 11.4 percent for 2008, could slow to 5.8 percent in 2009, according to the report. Search-based ads and digital video are among the few bright spots in online advertising, Fallon said.
The U.S. economy will probably grow 1.6 percent this year and 1.1 percent in 2009, according to a Bloomberg survey of economists. The same survey suggests fourth-quarter gross domestic product will contract 0.35 percent, following last quarter's 0.3 percent drop.
To contact the reporter on this story: Philipp Schlaeger in New York at pschlaeger@bloomberg.net Last Updated: November 11, 2008 11:02 EST

READ AN ALTERNATIVE IHT DAILY NARRATIVE AT
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The Oxford Times

Amazon.co.uk

His elegiac account of relearning how to be an Englishman should be required reading for anyone who claims to know or love this country.’

Financial Times

Amazon.com

For more reviews visit ianwalthew.com

10% Discount for NYT employees; 15% Discount for IHT Employees

International Herald Tribune
IHT
New York Times
The NYT Company

If the future of newspaper print is so grim, why would progressives imitate the NYT in print to make their point?

I'd say this story about a fake edition of the NYT, circulated in NY yesterday, is about the best news the NYT has had in a long time. Who says print is dead? It isn't, it just isn't giving (younger) people what they want.

It's interesting that this parody/satire was in PRINT and NOT just a web-based venture.

I rest my case.

Not that the ever-anti dead tree gang over at FishbowlNY see fit to make this rather critical point.

By the way, it wasn't the "Yes Men" who did it, it was me (and a few others).

Wednesday, Nov 12 (Fishbowl NY)
The Future of the New York Times is Fake!

Those of you who work in the city are probably already aware that some enterprising souls (Gawker is pointing to the "Yes Men," which seems to be the case) took the future of news into their own hands today and created their own fake(!) New York Times. The spoof paper, which was distributed by thousands of volunteers across the city, was dated July 4, 2009 and ran the headline "Iraq War Ends." By all accounts it was "an exact replica" of the real thing (notwithstanding the content, obviously):
[The fake Times included] International, National, New York, and Business sections, as well as editorials, corrections, and a number of advertisements, including a recall notice for all cars that run on gasoline.We have yet to see the real thing, but according to people we've talked to it's rather well done — complete with a Thomas Friedman op-ed ("The sudden outbreak of peace in Iraq has made me realize, among other things, one incontestable fact: I have no business holding a pen, at least with intent to write") as well as an apology from the Times for supporting the Iraq war. It even comes with fake ads!
There is even a website to accompany the paper, which was down for much of the morning, is eerily similar to that of the real NYT (except without the page-long Mac ad). As the Times City Room blog noted many of the links lead to "dozens of progressive organizations." Obviously this was a huge and expensive undertaking, but why now?
Bertha Suttner, one of the newspaper's writers, tells Romenesko:
"It's all about how at this point, we need to push harder than ever...We've got to make sure Obama and all the other Democrats do what we elected them to do. After eight, or maybe twenty-eight years of hell, we need to start imagining heaven."Ah yes, heaven. The Times responded to our email (and others' it would seem) thus: "This is obviously a fake issue of The Times. We are in the process of finding out more about it." It's hard to imagine the Times not getting some enjoyment out of such well-done imitation — it is the sincerest form of flattery afterall. Also, we're told that under the parody exception to copyright the Times is pretty much unable to sue.

READ AN ALTERNATIVE IHT DAILY NARRATIVE AT
A PLACE IN THE AUVERGNE

Amazon.co.uk

'I read A Place in My Country with absolute unalloyed delight. A glorious book.'

Jeremy Irons (actor)

‘Ian Walthew was a newspaper executive with a career that took him round the world, who one day did a mad thing. He saw a for-sale sign on a cottage in the Cotswolds, bought it, resigned and moved in. For the first few weeks he just lay on the grass in a daze. Then he started talking to his neighbours and digging into the rich history of this beautiful part of England. Out of his inquiries grew this affecting and inspiring memoir.What sets it apart from others of its ilk is the author’s enviable immunity to cliché and his determination to love his homeland better than he used to.

His elegiac account of relearning how to be an Englishman should be required reading for anyone who claims to know or love this country.’

Financial Times

For more reviews visit ianwalthew.com

10% Discount for NYT employees; 15% Discount for IHT Employees

International Herald Tribune
IHT
New York Times
The NYT Company

N.B One element of this posting is fake.

NYT Company stock now at distressed price: $7.70. What next? Capitalism 2.0's first philanthropic newspaper?

It wasn't so long ago that I was writing that if NYT Company stock fell below $10, that we would be at a tipping point.

As of market close yesterday, NYT Company stock was at $7.70, just 2 cents higher than its lower ever price. I wonder how Mr. Santos and those private investors are feeling now, having seen the value of their investment nearly half in three months. (-43%)

About.com, which I critiqued some time before it was rumoured it would be sold, is no doubt proving to be a tougher sell than expected - basically the NYT Company owns a web site with lots of content but which the younger, more savvy, upscale web generation treat pretty much with disdain. Hard to shift to reduce that debt.

Boston Globe? Who wants to buy that?

And as for the IHT, there seems to be something in the argument that the NYT Company is in fact reducing the value of an asset it holds. They've already given up on www.iht.com with their plans to roll it into www.nytimes.com (hardly an asset value increase move).

My view is, that at these prices, the NYT Company family must be buying shares with a view to taking it private.

My long term prognosis now is leading me to think that unless the NYT Company can reveal a game changing idea or acquisition, the price will continue to be hammered, which leaves the family with the very attractive proposition of taking it private, perhaps with the assistance of some sort of management buyout and/or collection of very rich New York investors more interested in keeping 'their' newspaper alive, seeking modest dividends - or at least prepared to wait out a prolonged zero dividend period whilst debt is reduced.

On the subject of management or employee buyout, let's be honest: stock option packages at the moment aren't looking that thrilling and the job market for staff, B-side or edit, is hardly any better. So as part of this, everyone takes a 15-25% paycut. I can see lots of employees who would be more than happy with that in the current media employment market.

Even the likes of Kristof, Krugman and Dowd might be prepared to swallow it, given their attachment to the value of a free press and their liberal ideologies, and that goes for most of the newsroom.

As for the B-side, the job market is basically dead, so what else are they going to do. Some will go it alone into New Media, some editors too perhaps. But a lot love this institution.

Family says we won't be taking a dividend or a salary -Golden, Sulzberger - and you guys have got to take this as part of the new Sulzberger-Ochs Foundation NYT.

Subscribers may even be asked to put their hands in their pocket for some sort of stock/subscription deal or just a price increase. If you love us so much, pay more, because we're prepared to lose readers and hang on to wealthier ones because our profits are going to be coming crashing down anyway.

In other words, a private sector, philanthropic type bailout.

CSM may be going weekly and web only (and that's a non-profit organisation).

The NYT may become Capitalism 2.0's first philanthropic newspaper - a newspaper working as a genuine public service without all those nasty speculators and investors hassling the family. That gives them time to breathe, pay off the debt, and re-position, re-tool for a new future.

I'd say, if you love the NYT and want it to continue, and have spare cash and don't seek a return on it, start buying.

I'd also say there will be no money any time soon to market the IHT, which, with the end of http://www.iht.com/ makes the end of the IHT and the beginning of the International New York Times highly likely in 2010.

That's not to say that the INYT will become an international version of the NYT, nor that the content or even design (beyond the planned treading water re-design we will see next year) of the IHT will radically change.

Simply, this company can't afford to market two media brands, and one of them globally, in 2009/2010.

So it's fold into INYT - with possible cost reducing move from Paris - or sell brand to vanity publisher e.g an Emirate, based out of one of their media cities?

How much would the Sheiks love to be seen to own a primarily Jewish owned newspaper (in terms of family voting shares) but also be seen to be hands off, democratic media owners?

Frankly, in current market conditions who else is going to buy it? An Icelandic bank?

Dubai here we come, but we'll always have Paris.

There are alternative game changing ideas out there, but I'm sensing a degree of sang-froid cool or complete corporate inertia. This is disonsaurs standing in falling volcanic ash time. Move, adapt, change or die.

New York Times Co
(NYT:NYQ) NYT on other Exchanges
7.70 USD Last
-0.68 -8.11% Change
915.8K Below Average Volume

Data as of November 12, 2008 16:04 exchange time. Market data is delayed by at least 20 minutes.
Today's Open
8.27 USD
Previous Close
8.38 USD
Today's High
8.29 USD
Today's Low
7.68 USD
Today's Volume
915.8K
Avg Volume (10 day)
1.2M

READ AN ALTERNATIVE IHT DAILY NARRATIVE AT
A PLACE IN THE AUVERGNE

Amazon.co.uk

'I read A Place in My Country with absolute unalloyed delight. A glorious book.'
Jeremy Irons (actor)

His elegiac account of relearning how to be an Englishman should be required reading for anyone who claims to know or love this country.’

Financial Times

Amazon.com

For more reviews visit ianwalthew.com

10% Discount for NYT employees; 15% Discount for IHT Employees

Wednesday, 12 November 2008

NEW MEDIA: Columbia J-school panel on Tuesday + ASME Forum on Dec. 4 + Digging Deep workshop on Dec. 13

Sree Sreenivasan is a journalism professor at Columbia University, where he runs the school's multimedia program. He's well worth keeping an eye on.

Folks: Info about three new-media-related events with Columbia connections. The first event is also available globally as a webcast - for those of you not in NYC.
Meanwhile, see my collection of video-on-demand and audio classes at http://www.SreeTips.com
Tuesday, Nov. 11: "Changing Media Landscape, 2008" - Hearst and Columbia J-school's annual look at the journalism revolution, with several fascinating influencers. NOTE: Free in-person event + live and recorded webcast. Also: free open, wi-fi available in the lecture hall for bloggers and others.
Thursday, December 4: ASME FORUM: "How Magazines Can Win on the Web" Innovative Lessons from the Online Categories of the National Magazine Awards
Saturday, Dec. 13: "Digging Deep for Reporters" - Columbia J-school Continuing Education
Details below. Add yourself to this form to be kept posted about future events like these (including "old media" topics): http://snurl.com/columbiasignup
- - - -
"Changing Media Landscape, 2008" Columbia J-school's annual look at the journalism revolution, with several fascinating influencers. This is a different kind of panel, with a real conversation among the participants and audience - with no Powerpoint in sight. FREE IN-PERSON EVENT + WEBCAST
The Hearst Foundation, Columbia Journalism New Media Program and Columbia J-school Alumni Association present...
Columbia-Hearst Journalism Dialogues
Tuesday, November 11, 20086:30-9 pm (live webcast at 7 pm on http://mogulus.com/columbiajournalism - see local time around the worldl here: http://snurl.com/5a88p )
SPEAKERS: Sewell Chan, blogger/bureau chief, New York Times "City Room" blog (coming from midtown) http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/
David Cohn, J2008, founder, Spot.us, a new crowdfunding investigative journalism project; winner of $300,000 Knight News Challenge grant (coming from San Francisco) http://spot.us http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/24/weekinreview/24kershaw.html
Adriano Farano, executive editor, CafeBabel.com - the first multilingual European current affairs online magazine (coming from Paris) http://www.cafebabel.com
Erica Smith, news designer, St. Louis Post-Dispatch and "Paper Cuts" blogger (coming from St. Louis) http://graphicdesignr.net/papercuts
Jacob Weisberg, chairman and editor-in-chief Slate Group - Slate, Slate V, The Root, and the Big Money (coming from downtown) http://www.slate.com
MODERATOR: Prof. Sree Sreenivasan, Dean of Student Affairs
Tuesday, Nov. 11, 2008 6:30-7:00 pm - networking reception - drinks and light food 7-8:30 pm - discussion 8:30-9 pm - reception and networking continue
No RSVP required. No charge. Open to the public. Add yourself to this form to be kept posted about future events like these: http://snurl.com/columbiasignup
Columbia Graduate School of Journalism Lecture Hall, 3rd Floor - 116th St & Broadway [ #1 train to 116th St or get directions: http://www.hopstop.com/route?city=New+York&county2=Manhattan&address2=2950+broadway&mode=s ]
LIVE & ARCHIVED WEBCAST OF THE EVENT WILL BE AVAILABLE VIA MOGULUS.COM: http://mogulus.com/columbiajournalism
NOTE: Free open, wi-fi available in the lecture hall for bloggers and others...
WANT TO KEEP UP WILL ALL THE MEDIA CHANGES? See "Changing Media Landscape," a list of constantly updated articles about the media revolution around us. It started as a reading list for my Columbia students, but I have been told it's useful by folks around the world: http://www.sreetips.com/landscape.html
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ASME FORUM
How Magazines Can Win on the WebInnovative Lessons from the Online Categories of the National Magazine Awards
When: Thursday, December 4, 2008
Where: MPA/ASME Conference Room 810 Seventh Avenue, 24th Floor New York City
Time: 8:30 a.m. to 10:30 a.m. (Continental breakfast available at 8:00 a.m.)
Cost: $285 per person for non ASME members ($185 for ASME members)
For the fifth year in a row, ASME presents a two-hour workshop taught by Sree Sreenivasan, tech reporter for WNBC-TV, Dean of Student Affairs at the Columbia Journalism School and judging leader of the general excellence online category of the National Magazine Awards. All of the previous sessions have been sold out, so be sure to sign up soon.
As magazines deal with the Internet, there's a lot of confusion about what works— editorially and business-wise. What are best practices that can help connect with existing readers and help gain new ones? What are some of the efforts at innovation that are working—and what are not? What can we learn from non-magazine sites that can make a big difference in a magazine's success online? What new tools, software and ideas are worth emulating— and what should you avoid? What makes a site a winner in the online categories of the National Magazine Awards? Answers to all these questions and more in this ASME Forum.
In a fast-paced session filled with what Sree calls "CAT scans" (critiques that look at both the healthy and unhealthy aspects of websites), you will learn useful, practical ideas you can implement right away—no matter what your resources and technical situation.
Magazine editors, designers, publishers, researchers, and writers of all levels of experience are welcome.
ABOUT THE INSTRUCTOR: Sree Sreenivasan is a journalism professor at Columbia University, where he runs the school's multimedia program and is Dean of Student Affairs. He has been involved with the judging of the online categories of the National Magazine Awards since 2002.
He is the tech reporter for WNBC-TV, appearing each week on Thursday mornings at 6:20 a.m. and on WNBC.com/technology (he previously spent six years as the "Tech Guru" on WABC-TV). He runs Internet workshops around the country for journalists and professionals in a variety of fields. His work explaining technology to lay readers has appeared in The New York Times, BusinessWeek, Popular Science, Time Digital, and Rolling Stone. Newsweek magazine named him one of the 20 most influential South Asians in the U.S. More on him and his work at http://www.sreetips.com
Registrations for this seminar will be limited to 50 people and will be accepted on a first-come, first-served basis. Please return the reservation form to reserve your place. Guests are welcome.
You can download your reservation form here: http://snurl.com/582ut
Questions to Andrew Rhodes <arhodes@MAGAZINE.ORG>
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Continuing Education at the Journalism School, Columbia University
Saturday, December 13, 2008
Digging Deep for Reporters with Amy Webb, principal consultant at Webbmedia Group, LLC.
Did you know that when you run a search on Google, you're only finding 1/600th of the information that's actually available? Do you know how to look through social networks such as FriendFeed and Facebook to do your reporting? What about Twitter? Did you know that Google will allow you to search for all kinds of hidden documents and other information found on company intranets --as long as you know how to mine for data? There are many ways that journalists can exploit the web to do better reporting. This is an entirely hands-on workshop with challenging exercises. Participants will each receive a folder with personalized handouts and other resources to use.
Pricing: $125.00 for Columbia Journalism School alumni $150.00 for ALL others Registration Deadline December 1, 2008.
For More Information: http://www.journalism.columbia.edu/ContinuingEducation
o o o o o o
WANT TO KEEP UP WILL ALL THE MEDIA CHANGES? See "Changing Media Landscape," a list of constantly updated articles about the media revolution around us. It started as a reading list for my Columbia students, but I have been told it's useful by folks around the world: http://www.sreetips.com/landscape.html

READ AN ALTERNATIVE IHT DAILY NARRATIVE AT
A PLACE IN THE AUVERGNE

Amazon.co.uk

'I read A Place in My Country with absolute unalloyed delight. A glorious book.'
Jeremy Irons (actor)

‘Ian Walthew was a newspaper executive with a career that took him round the world, who one day did a mad thing. He saw a for-sale sign on a cottage in the Cotswolds, bought it, resigned and moved in. For the first few weeks he just lay on the grass in a daze. Then he started talking to his neighbours and digging into the rich history of this beautiful part of England. Out of his inquiries grew this affecting and inspiring memoir.What sets it apart from others of its ilk is the author’s enviable immunity to cliché and his determination to love his homeland better than he used to. His elegiac account of relearning how to be an Englishman should be required reading for anyone who claims to know or love this country.’ Financial Times

For more reviews visit ianwalthew.com

10% Discount for NYT employees; 15% Discount for IHT Employees

International Herald Tribune
IHT
New York Times
The NYT Company