Thursday, 13 November 2008

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
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






'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.
Financial Times

Amazon.com




For more reviews visit
ianwalthew.com






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


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




'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.
Financial Times



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



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



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


'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.
Financial Times


Amazon.com

For more reviews visit ianwalthew.com

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
o o o o o
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>
o o o o o
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


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

'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



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.

Monday, 10 November 2008

New Low for New York Times Company, New Look for FT.com

Look at this for a new low. Your NYT Company shares, as of about 20 minutes ago were trading -32.4% down on the last three months. Time to buy?

New York Times Co
(NYT:NYQ) 8.95 USD Last
-0.37 -3.97% Change
240.0K Below Average Volume

Data as of November 10, 2008 12:22 exchange time. Market data is delayed by at least 20 minutes.
Today's Open
9.44 USD
Previous Close
9.32 USD
Today's High
9.44 USD
Today's Low
8.92 USD
Today's Volume
240.0K
Avg Volume (10 day)
1.3M
Meanwhile I received this from FT.com
Worth checking out as www.iht.com works on its planned Q1 '09 move to www.nytimes.com.
Usual talk of community and blogs.
Why has it taken this damn long for papers like this to get with it? What is it with them?


Dear FT.com reader,

Here's a sneak preview of our new-look homepage, which launches this week. We're aiming for a more sophisticated look and feel that is consistent with the Financial Times brand - a clean and uncluttered executive briefing on the world of global business.


This is the first step in a series of design changes and functional improvements that will be rolled out across the rest of the site as they become available. These include:

  • expanded coverage of important subjects such as macroeconomics,
    energy and technology

  • better integration between market data and news, to give context
    to market movements

  • more opportunities for users to become part of the Financial Times
    community by contributing to our discussion forums and blogs

    Of course, many of the things we're working on we hope you'll hardly notice at all. Planned improvements to the behind-the-scenes nuts and bolts of our publishing system will make the site quicker and easier to use. Please bear with us while we get there.


    For a preview of the new-look homepage and to give your feedback, please
    visit here.

    We hope you approve and we appreciate your views.

    Sincerely


    Lionel Barber
    Editor, Financial Times

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

'I read A Place in My Country with absolute unalloyed delight. A glorious book.'
Jeremy Irons, Actor and IHT Reader.


Amazon.com


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




International Herald Tribune
IHT
New York Times
The NYT Company

Saturday, 8 November 2008

What the U.S Elections Told Us About MSM



First-off, print is alive and well. The NYT had increased print runs (35% more copies election Wednesday than usual, an increase of about 150,000. It then added another 75,000) and ran a full-page advert on Thursday offering readers an election result day copy of the paper for a staggering $14.95. Despite the fact that if you check EBay the going rate is $200!

What a bloody shambles, what a chronic sign of miscalculation on their print runs. Only a 35% extra print run? You're kidding me right? They had people queing round the block on Wednesday to buy their paper!!!
Kiosks ran dry, they didn't even believe themselves how many copies they could sell. Absolutely staggering and a sign that not even the NYT's own circulation department believes any longer in the power of print.

The anti-newspaper blogosphere was laughing its head off.

Wednesday, Nov 05
Obama Sells Out Dead Tree Editions of Local Newspapers

We've noticed a number of people twittering and facebooking today that they couldn't find a copy of various papers this morning. Turns out they weren't imagining it! The Daily News sold out of even the extra printed copies of their regular morning edition and planned on printing and distributing an updated second edition. The New York Times reported that the New York Post had also sold-out (in our non-scientifically based experience it is always the first to go) along with the Times.

The [Times] printed 35 percent more papers in the 'single copy' print run, which supplies newsstands. Still, by morning, company officials found that papers were "selling out all across the metropolitan area" and decided to print 50,000 more copies for sale in the New York area.This isn't a New York-based phenomenon, either.

Apparently the Washington Post also sold-out of newsstand copies and the Chicago Tribune was experiencing very long lines. Now if Barack Obama could just do something historic and momentous every single day for the next four years he could feasibly save the entire print journalism industry!



Secondly, Palin: She got a free ride. Not only that but I didn't see a MSM outlet explore this possibility, which happens to be my own personal opinion:

Did the Republican Party of George W. Bush want to win this election? I wonder.

With many of its moderate senators and congressmen unseated, that party still exists and it's not evident it belongs to Senator John McCain.

But either way, this was a hospital pass election if ever there was one. Perhaps either McCain, or the GOP grandees, came to the conclusion that this wasn't a ball they wanted to receive, that only a Democrat administration could wipe clean the slate for the GOP or at least begin to. Were I a Republican party grandee, I'd be quite happy to let the Democrats pick up the check for the last 8 years and try and pay it off, because the chances are they'll end up having to wash dishes in the kitchen to sort this mess out.

McCain began his primary campaign well before the financial meltdown, before the war in Afghanistan was lost, before Mexico began the final journey to becoming a narco state (a government plane crashed on the day of the election, an accident we are told, at least for now, but a fine time for a cartel to murder the U.S.A.'s southern neigbbour's Interior Minister); before Bhutto's assasination and a nuclear Pakistan possibly falling to the Taliban, before the escalation of Iran's nuclear capabalities; beforethe Congo, before India degenerating into ethnic chaos, before global recession/depresssion, before Obama won the democractic primary. Surely he must have realised that the presidency was a poisoned chalice.

Chosing Palin, someone so clearly incompetent and in the very midst of an ethics investigation, a person who who stood a 1 in 8 chance of becoming President, given all the variables, was the equivalent of scuttling his campaign.

McCain may have started out wanting to become President of the U.S.A but by the time it looked like he might actually have a chance, he bailed.Palin moved the undecided and previous moderate republicans firmly to Obama. Race relations in the U.S.A are so appalling that only such a fine W. mess could possibly have allowed a black man to be elected, even a half white one who has spent his entire adult life less than 12 miles from an elite American university campus.

Berlusconi's tasteless remarks about Obama being young, handsome and even tanned pretty much summed up what type of black man is 'in'. Gays on the other hand are still very much 'out' as judged by the large number of anti-gay marriage ballot successes.

Nevertheless there was a photo from the campaign trail of a confederate flag with the slogan "Even Rednecks Have Had Enough". Perhaps so had McCain.

I'll leave someone more eloquent than I to explain this Palin Oversight by papers such as the NYT but MSM failing to nail Palin, as they could and should have done, is cited below as a reason why MSM is imploding:


Andrew Sullivan: The Daily Dish 06 Nov 2008 11:51 am
The Civic Responsibility Of Carl Cameron
Look: I understand that information given strictly off the record cannot be used. I am a stickler for that myself and there's stuff I know that I cannot tell Dish readers because of those rules. But at the same time, my commitment to you is never to bullshit my opinion that reflects that information. And the reporting of Palin fell into that category at times. I became convinced very early - just from public information - that she was obviously a disastrous choice, made on a whim, and obviously not ready for prime time. On August 30, I posted the
following quotes from serious leaders in Alaska who knew Palin:
"She's not prepared to be governor. How can she be prepared to be vice president or president?" said Green, a Republican from Palin's hometown of Wasilla. "Look at what she's done to this state. What would she do to the nation?"
And this:
Anchorage Democratic state Sen. Hollis French said it's a huge mistake by McCain and "reflects very, very badly on his judgment." French said Palin's experience running the state for less than two years hasn't prepared her for this.
But actual reporters were soon finding this out for themselves - and not even conveying the gist of that to their viewers and readers. Why not?
They kept taking Palin seriously as a veep candidate when she didn't come close to even minimal standards for passing a citizenship test. I'm sorry but I think this is a terrible failing, and it is a reason the mainstream media are imploding.
They let the rules of the game over-rule their duty to tell the American people the truth as they began to discover it. The truth is that Sarah Palin had no business whatever being on a national ticket. It was an insanely reckless choice. She could never adequately perform the job of president at a moment's notice, and the McCain campaign and their media enablers were putting this country and the world at serious risk by perpetuating this farce.
It was a farce. And it was a potential threat to national security if anything happened to McCain in office. But they couldn't admit a mistake because it would have killed their campaign, destroying our impression of McCain's judgment and management skills. So they kept this farce alive for two months, putting the country at potentially great risk to massage their own careers. Now they are doing all they can to dump on her. But the dumpage goes both ways. The McCain camp picked Palin and stuck with her far longer than any people who put country first would have. Every reason why she should not have been picked is a reason why McCain should never have been president.



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Wednesday, 5 November 2008

The Black Week for Print - October 27th to November 2nd, 2008




Many people are writing that last week was the worst week for Print Media since the Great Depression, as judged by layoffs, results and sea change shifts in reading habits. In many respects they're not wrong.


The front page of the IHT was dominated today by an article speaking about a similar paradigm shift in U.S elections, one that was turned upside down and 'truly became bottom up instead of top down'.

Speaking of the election, and the same can be said of media in the 21st century, the 2000 and 2004 presidential elections 'leveraged the Internet in ways never imagined. This year we went to warp speed.'

Exactly.


I've spoken of tipping points for the NYT Company and it is at one right now, because of this warp speed year.


A part of the Black Week for Print narrative was Gawker announcing rumoured sales of About.com (on Sunday 2nd November) by the NYT Company to reduce its debt and help it go private.
(BTW, all those people who took exception to my recent analysis of About.com really ought to go and read the derogatory comments about About.com posted on Gawker and elsewhere.)

I finally realised what the difference is between a blog and a non MSM news site like Gawker.

A good blog - hopefully this one - speculates on the future, using a platform of what I call 'conditional information' - things that might be true, things that might happen. Sites like HuffPo, Gawker etc rely often on reporting rumours without sources or verifiable fact checking. Nothing wrong with that, provided the reader knows what he or she is getting.

What you're getting at this blog is nothing more than informed speculation. It's what MSM calls opinion, and that the NYT hasn't an official editorial definition of what a blog is or should do tells you all you need to know about just what trouble they are in.

I had blogged several times on the dismantling of the NYT Company and the possibility of it being taken private well before actual rumours hit sites like Gawker.

I'll come back to this so-called Black Week to see if it's as black as everyone says it is.

For now, my personal point of view is that print has DEMAND side problems, not from READERS, but from ADVERTISERS who are losing faith in print as a viable option. I remain convinced that there is a demand for print from the reader, but what papers like the NYT and the IHT are SUPPLYING is not what (enough valueable) readers want.

The NYT Company Annual report of 2007 complained of audience fragementation.

OK. So what's the big effing problem?

Of course there is audience fragmentation, so having a single monolithic entity, be it on print, or online, as the NYT has, is clearly not a very smart idea as the middle ground CONSENSUS about what the intelligent mass market reader WANTS is over. Get it?

When I speak of dismantling the NYT Company, yes, I am talking about selling some assets to reduce debt, and going private wouldn't be a bad idea either.

However, what really needs to be dismantled and built from the ground up is the NYT newspaper and brands within the NYTMG stable, including the IHT.

Now naturally, with a million circulation and over two thirds of the company's revenues coming from the NYTMG, I wouldn't be doing that in a hasty or ill-considered manner.

However, I would be thinking about how the NTY Company can sit atop a framgmented audience and stop pursuing a strategy that seems to think that the NYT newspaper can somehow hold together that fragmentation.

It can't, for reasons of the audience's various, framgmented, age, income, interests, political affiliations and other things too many to get into right now.

The NYT Company needs to strip out its core brand values and apply them to other brands, new ones or existing ones, that cater to various audience splinters, some of which will be highly profitable in print as well as online.

It conspicuously failed to do this with About.com which serious Net Heads haven't looked at since they closed their AOL account about 9 years ago.

On this historic day, I'll leave you with this article from The Economist to think about.



A BIASED MARKET
Oct 30th 2008
Skewed news reporting is taken as a sign of a dysfunctional media. In fact, it may be a sign of healthy competition

BARACK OBAMA recently told a writer for the NEW YORK TIMES MAGAZINE that he was convinced he might be two or three percentage points better off in the polls for the American presidential election if Fox News, aright-leaning television station, did not exist. Sarah Palin, the Republican nominee for vice-president, has made hay railing against the bias of the "liberal media". Allegations of partial news reporting are common in American politics. But few stop to ask what leads to differences in the way the news is reported. Bias can be thought of as a supply-side phenomenon that arises from ideology. Owners' or employees' political views will determine how a newspaper or channel slants its coverage of a piece of news. But this does not square with the assumption that readers and viewers value accuracy. If so, then competition should hurt media outlets that systematically distort the news (in any direction). The brouhaha about bias in America, as free a media market as any, suggests something else is going on. The key to understanding why bias flourishes in a competitive market may lie in thinking more clearly about what readers actually want.

Sendhil Mullainathan and Andrei Shleifer, two Harvard economists,argued in an influential paper*[1] that it may be naive to think that people care about accuracy alone. Instead, they modelled the consequences of assuming that newspaper readers also like to have their beliefs confirmed by what they read. As long as readers have different beliefs, the Mullainathan-Shleifer model suggests that competition, far from driving biased reporting out of the market, would encourage newspapers to cater to the biases of different segments of the reading public.

A more recent paper**[2] by Matthew Gentzkow and Jesse Shapiro,two economists at the University of Chicago's business school, set out to test this proposition. To do so, they first needed a way to measure the political slant of American news coverage. Their solution was rather imaginative. The researchers ran computer programs that analysed debates in Congress and identified phrases that were disproportionately used by Republicans or Democrats. The list of frequent Democratic phrases, for example,included "estate tax". While talking about the same issue, Republicans tended to use the phrase "death tax". (This is not just coincidence. MrGentzkow and Mr Shapiro quote an anonymous Republican staffer as saying that the party machine trained members to say "death tax", because"'estate tax' sounds like it hits only the wealthy but 'death tax' sounds like it hits everyone".) Having identified partisan phrases, the academics then analysed the news coverage of more than 400 American newspapers to see how often they cropped up in reporting. This gave them a precise measure of "slant", showing the extent to which the news coverage in these papers tended to use politically charged phrases.
Mr Gentzkow and Mr Shapiro then needed to assess the political beliefs of different newspapers' readerships, which they did using data on the share of votes in each newspaper's market that went to President Bush in the 2004 presidential elections, and information on how likely people in different parts of that market were to contribute to entities allied to either Democrats or Republicans. The researchers were now able to look at the relationships between circulation, slant, and people's political views.First, they measured whether a newspaper's circulation responded to the match between its slant and its readers' views. Not surprisingly, they found that more "Republican" newspapers had relatively higher circulations in more "Republican" zip codes. But their calculations of the degree to which circulation responded to political beliefs also allowed them to do something more interesting: to calculate what degree of slant would be most profitable for each newspaper in their sample to adopt, given the political make-up of the market it covered. They compared this profit-maximising slant to their measure of the actual slant of each newspaper's coverage. They found a striking congruence between the two. Newspapers tended,on average, to locate themselves neither to the right nor to the left of the level of slant that Mr Gentzkow and Mr Shapiro reckon would maximise their profits. And for good commercial reasons: their model showed that even a minor deviation from this "ideal" level of slant would hurt profits through a sizeable loss of circulation.

HAVE I GOT SKEWS FOR YOU
Showing that newspapers have a political slant that is economically rational does not necessarily answer the question of whether ownership or demand determines bias. Here, the academics are helped by the fact that large media companies may own several newspapers, often in markets that are politically very different. This allowed them to test whether the slants of newspapers with the same owner were more strongly correlated than those of two newspapers picked at random. They found that this was not so: owners exerted a negligible influence on slant.

Readers' political views explained about a fifth of measured slant,while ownership explained virtually none.None of this is particularly helpful to seekers of the unvarnished truth. These conscientious sorts still have to find the time to readlots of newspapers to get an unbiased picture of the world. But by serving demand from a variety of political niches, competition does allow for different points of view to be represented. After all, just as Mrs Palin does not spend her time condemning Fox News, Mr Obama is unlikely to have too many complaints about the NEW YORK TIMES.
* "The Market for News", American Economic Review (September 2005).
**"What Drives Media Slant? Evidence from U.S. Daily Newspapers" (May2007)http://faculty.chicagogsb.edu/matthew.gentzkow/biasmeas081507.pdf[3]-----[1] http://www.economist.com/#footnote1
[2] http://www.economist.com/#footnote1

See this article with graphics and related items at http://www.economist.com/finance/displaystory.cfm?story_id=12510893&fsrc=rss





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The Oxford Times


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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