Posted on 11/20/2005 2:53:55 PM PST by abb
On Nov. 1, Private Capital Management LP, a large shareholder in numerous newspaper companies, wrote to the management of Knight Ridder asking that the nation's second largest newspaper chain "aggressively pursue the competitive sale of the company." Two days later, two other large shareholders seconded the motion. Shortly thereafter, Knight Ridder announced that it had decided to "explore" alternatives, "including a possible sale of the company."
It is axiomatic on Wall Street that bear markets beget consolidation. The bear market in the newspaper industry should foretell a spate of mergers and acquisitions. But what if there are no buyers? This is the question that looms over Knight Ridder. Companies that might reasonably be expected to jump at the opportunity to acquire Knight Ridder, like Gannett and the New York Times, have expressed zero interest. New media companies -- Yahoo! and Google -- weren't even called for comment. In the end, it was left to a few Wall Street talking heads to announce interest, which they did by insisting that "big private equity firms" would be the likely buyers, if only to acquire the whole at a discount and then sell off the parts for a gain.
This lack of enthusiasm for a company once regarded as a money machine is evidence of how thoroughly the Internet has disrupted media business models. And with broadband now reaching into more than half of U.S. households, disruption has morphed into menace.
Knight Ridder has been publishing mostly second-rate newspapers for as long as anyone can remember. Its strategy has been straightforward: Leverage de facto monopoly newspaper status in individual cities into ownership of the classified advertising business in those communities. With high-speed broadband and wireless access now a fact for most Americans, consumers are no longer at the mercy of second-rate information providers.
(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...
These folks at Knight Ridder are smart to want to bail while they still may get some value. The question is, who's the sucker who will BUY?? (Caveat: Possibly Murdoch or somebody like him can come along and get rid of all the liberal deadwood in the newsrooms and editorial boards and actually boost circulation.)
That's what I tell the Arizona Republic every time they call asking me to try their paper. I just say "Why should I buy the paper when I can get the DNC talking points directly from their website for free?"
No, what actually needs to happen is to have a lot of little local people buy up the local papers and turn them into local news with a small section on national and world politics that is meticulously unbiased.
An excellent question that deserves some serious treatment IMO. To begin with, I don't know of a major metro area that still has a "conservative" paper. If memory serves(and it may not), up until the late 70's - early 80's, most major metro areas still had at least two competing dailies; each with their own "slant". The conservative leaning dailies still around then either began to fail or were acquired(not sure which) by and consolidated into the liberal rag.
Now, how and why this came about I haven't a clue. There are any number of reasons, or combination or reasons, why this could have happened; none of which I've ever seen discussed in any serious format. The reasons can run from mundane to tinfoil hat stuff, but the bottom line is the leftist media apparently outperformed(by hook or crook) conservative media. It might be instructive to get to the bottom of it, eh?
FGS
Many skyscrapers lease out the sign rights to anyone who wants to pay the price. Knight-Ridder may have rented it to prop up their image but might not have had any office space in the building.
Or Murdoch and a few partners. This could get quite interesting.
Correct
The comics are lame, lame, lame. I used to love reading the comics. I was in the doctor's office and ended up reading a newspaper, and the stuff was awful. They used to be funny.
Why would we want to buy second rate fishwraps which no one wants to buy?
"Knight Ridder has been publishing mostly second-rate newspapers for as long as anyone can remember. Its strategy has been straightforward: Leverage de facto monopoly newspaper status in individual cities into ownership of the classified advertising business in those communities. With high-speed broadband and wireless access now a fact for most Americans, consumers are no longer at the mercy of second-rate information providers."
Yes, very instructive. Things have changed dramatically in the last 10 years. Conservative radio, led by Rush took over talk radio. Fox News has CNN possibly on the verge of bankruptcy. This could be one of the most interesting plays in media history.
Just a thought, but it might be easier starting from scratch, unless of course the physical plants can be gotten "on the cheap". REAL cheap. What with the leftist baggage attached to the old names, would it be advisable to rename 'em as well? Could be a problem, but maybe no worse than a new startup.
In any case, I just wonder if the storefront and barrels of ink format will survive even given a new direction. Part of the problem as I see it, is the centralizing of power by the feral gummint. Local news and issues don't carry nearly the weight they once did. When and if all politics become "local" again, the mom and pop papers might fill a void. Interesting times, eh?
FGS FGS
Excellent points.
Just so, and something many on this forum have been waiting a long time to see. As Drudge would say, developing......
FGS
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Seems a couple of these funds see "opportunity" the rest of 'em don't. Rolling the dice???
A similiar pattern is seen re the fund ownership of the NYT, WPO and TRB, and their stocks have done worse than this loser, the last year and 3 years.
There seems to be a "bent" of certain fund companies to roll the dice with the money of their fund investors with PC/Liberal controlled companies like these fading fishwrap companies.
I refuse to invest my money in any fund that owns even one loser PC/Liberal controlled company in the top 25 holdings.
Some of the big pension/retirement investment companies like to invest in these losers.
I see the same problem with tv advertisers paying more for a 1 minute ad on CNN which has significantly less viewers than Fox News.
Maybe there's some common interests that tie these groups together. A common thread perhaps??? Nah, I'm sliding into tinfoil thinking here. Couldn't be......right?
I see the same problem with tv advertisers paying more for a 1 minute ad on CNN which has significantly less viewers than Fox News.
Huh?! Got some documentation for that? It would add some credence to my argument re target audiences/demographics. That is, you don't necessarily play to the higher income demographic, you go where there's easy pickins'. The simpletons that watch CNN might be a good place to try separating a fool from his money?
There is a common thread among the liberal losers.
RE the ad differential of CNN versus Fox News. That has been posted a couple of times on Free Republic via documentation of the rates charged/paid for ads.
I don't know how to access that, but it should be right there if you knew where and how to access it.
Go to this Yahoo search thread re ad $'s for Fox News and CNN. There are some very interesting comparisons:
http://search.yahoo.com/bin/search?fr=ybr_sbc&p=TV%20ad%20rates%20of%20CNN%20and%20Fox%20News
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