hollywood Posted February 7, 2018 Share Posted February 7, 2018 To a local billionaire. What portends? https://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/los-angeles-times-sold-local-billionaire 1 Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Maison Rustique Posted February 8, 2018 Share Posted February 8, 2018 Wow! I hate what has happened to the newspaper world. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
hollywood Posted February 8, 2018 Author Share Posted February 8, 2018 The odd thing is the new buyer is also a substantial shareholder in Tronc which was the former owner of the Times. For years it's been rumored that one billionaire or another would buy the paper. Possibles included Geffen, Broad and Riordan (former mayor). Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Suzanne F Posted February 9, 2018 Share Posted February 9, 2018 Suzanne, strange lead in to your posting. It doesn't sound like you!?! Regardless... Yes, ads are way down; however, the rest of your thesis is really not correct. Circulation and reading of newspapers is dramatically less these days so of course advertisers are curtailing their ads in the newspapers since their exposure is so diminished. Thus, asset value of newspapers is greatly reduced. I doubt that fewer ads cause reductions in readership. But they do account for thinner papers, as you have noticed. And what about people who have online subscriptions? Which way are those numbers going? We certainly gave up buying one hard copy of the newspaper when we started two online subscriptions. That's double the number of "copies" bought by my household. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
voyager Posted February 9, 2018 Share Posted February 9, 2018 Today we have an information overload. We source the news and during the day usually are bombarded with the same news stories over and again. Updated, yes, but most often a rehash and analysis of the same stuff. Publishing a hard copy once a day is beginning to make no sense. Yes, as Peter suggests, keep in close touch with your friends and buy a good book of the puzzles of your choice. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Peter Creasey Posted February 9, 2018 Share Posted February 9, 2018 Suzanne, it appears that you somehow (intentionally?) got it backwards. Advertising is greatly reduced because circulation and readership had dramatically dropped off. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Suzanne F Posted February 9, 2018 Share Posted February 9, 2018 Chicken and egg. If any of the finance mavens can comment without getting personal political, that might be helpful. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Wilfrid Posted February 9, 2018 Share Posted February 9, 2018 New York Times readership. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Evelyn Posted February 10, 2018 Share Posted February 10, 2018 Admin note: I have hidden a number of posts in this thread. Feel free to discuss the sale of the newspaper, lack of content or diminishing ad revenues. Stop with the thinly veiled political commentary. It would really help the Admins if everyone would report posts you consider political, rather than responding to them on the thread. Your cooperation would be greatly appreciated. 1 Quote Link to post Share on other sites
hollywood Posted February 10, 2018 Author Share Posted February 10, 2018 Putting politics aside, it seemed crazy when the Chandler family sold the Times for $1.6 billion in 2007. http://articles.latimes.com/2007/apr/03/business/fi-chandlers3 Things went downhill from there. Guess they knew what they were doing. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Peter Creasey Posted February 10, 2018 Share Posted February 10, 2018 NY Times... Print advertising revenue fell 8.4 percent “We will go on printing the newspapers as long as it makes economic sense,” he (Chief Executive MarkThompson) said. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Anthony Bonner Posted February 10, 2018 Share Posted February 10, 2018 Print readership has declined because people have moved to reading online. It has nothing to do with the quality of newspapers. In fact quality broadsheets have been pretty successful pushing print and online subscription prices, but it can't fill the gap on lost ad revenues. The real issue has been that by definition online ads don't generate the same revenue as print, and the historical economic model of print was that ads not subs paid the bulk of the costs of the journalism. 1 Quote Link to post Share on other sites
taion Posted February 10, 2018 Share Posted February 10, 2018 "By definition" seems like a stretch. It's not like advertising dollars have gone away. It's just that newspapers no longer capture the same proportion that they did. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Suzanne F Posted February 10, 2018 Share Posted February 10, 2018 Print readership has declined because people have moved to reading online. It has nothing to do with the quality of newspapers. In fact quality broadsheets have been pretty successful pushing print and online subscription prices, but it can't fill the gap on lost ad revenues. The real issue has been that by definition online ads don't generate the same revenue as print, and the historical economic model of print was that ads not subs paid the bulk of the costs of the journalism. "By definition" seems like a stretch. It's not like advertising dollars have gone away. It's just that newspapers no longer capture the same proportion that they did. Thank you both. So then how do you define the reckoning of ad dollars for print versus online? Subscribers vs eyeballs? Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Anthony Bonner Posted February 10, 2018 Share Posted February 10, 2018 "By definition" seems like a stretch. It's not like advertising dollars have gone away. It's just that newspapers no longer capture the same proportion that they did. It’s not a stretch - cpm is much lower digital vs print for structural reasons. Digital has something approaching infinite capacity and newspapers priced like a local monopoly Quote Link to post Share on other sites
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