Posted on 12/09/2008 2:48:34 AM PST by abb
NEW YORK: Faced with declining advertising revenue and mounting debt, the US media has plunged into a deep financial crisis.
The publisher of the two most popular dailies, The Los Angeles Times and The Chicago Tribune, has filed for bankruptcy. The New York Times is seeking a $225 million loan against its headquarter in mid-town Manhattan. The popular Miami Herald has been put on sale by its owner. And stocks of CBS, one of the popular new channels, have fallen below $5 in recent weeks.
Most American media outlets are now struggling to survive. They have gone into massive cost cutting, resulting in hundreds of journalists and non-journalists in the mainstream media losing their jobs in recent months.
In the latest sign of crisis that has hit the once flourishing US media, The Tribune Company - which owns as many as 23 television stations and 12 newspapers including its flagship Los Angeles Times and The Chicago Tribune on Monday announced that it has filed for bankruptcy. The company is said to have nearly $13 billion in debt compared to $7.6 billion in assets.
"Unfortunately, factors beyond our control have created a perfect storm -- a precipitous decline in revenue and a tough economy coupled with a credit crisis that makes it extremely difficult to support our debt," Tribune CEO Sam Zell said in a statement on Monday.
David Carr, popular media columnist for The New York Times, said: "Media companies have been hammered on the leading edge of the recession because they run on advertising, a discretionary expenditure that always is among the first things to go."
The New York Times Company, which runs one of the most popular American newspapers by the same name, on Monday said it will borrow as much as $225 million against its skyscraper property in mid-town Manhattan, which happens to be its headquarter.
This has become essential to prevent a possible cash flow jam. It is facing a debt repayment of $400 million. Notably, stocks of The New York Times have dropped 55 percent this year.
So have stocks of several other media outlets. Besides CBS news channel, News Corp stocks have recently been trading below $6 and those of Time Warner have dropped under $8.
Only a few days ago, The McClatchy Company, America's third largest newspaper chain running more than 30 newspapers, had put its popular The Miami Herald newspaper on sale. The Miami Herald with a circulation of 210,000 has won as many as 19 Pulitzer Prizes.
Latest statistics released by Newspaper Association of America has disclosed that newspaper advertisement revenue in the third quarter of this year dropped by $2 billion; a record 18.1 percent decline. The online ad revenue too declined for the second quarter in a row, it said.
The USA Today had announced a cut in jobs in its newsroom a fortnight ago. So did The Chicago Tribune last week. Gannett, the parent company of USA Today, has announced that it will cut 10 percent of its workforce at the more than 80 newspapers run by it.
The 17-member Cox Newspapers chain has announced it is closing down its Washington bureau and would depend on news agencies now. Independently-run Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel has lost 20 percent of its staff in the past 18 months. A majority of the US media has already shut down its foreign bureaus or cut costs drastically.
If I get to see Ted Turner living in a box under a bridge, I will be content.
And that's something even Obama wouldn't dare touch because the First Amendment guarantees no interference with the media from the government. A bailout of the Tribune and McClatchy companies would constitute a direct interference in a form of favoritism, and that's grounds for a major lawsuit.
“US media in deep financial crisis (Dinosaur Media DeathWatch™)”
Great Noose!
Favoritism...precisely!
I won’t put it past them to try, though. The cry will be “think of the workers, jobs lost, unemployment, etc.”
I think this phrase has jumped the shark. (then again, "Jump the Shark" as a phrase has retrograded and has now jumped the shark.
Anyone taking bets on when some big city Democrat congressman tells us that we have a First Amendment obligation to bail out Big News...
On the up side - Eveything. On the down side - Nothing.
...but in order to protect the taxpayers’ interests, the government should appoint a “news czar” to oversee operations mand make sure future reporting meets appropriate social standards.
Bull! The factors weren't beyond their control.
They could have been blowing the whistle years ago about the mortgage mess being caused by members of Congress, the Senate, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, and the greedy connivers on Wall Street who were packaging crap mortgages disguised as gold. But instead of telling the truth, they chose to look the other way and support their good friends who were scamming the country into bankruptcy.
Now they are complaining because their readership and viewing audiences have smelled a rat and have decided they aren't worth paying attention to and have abandoned them.
They deserve to die. It serves them right. They left honest journalism and reporting behind years ago. They propped up these thieves for years. They are accessories to these crimes - before, during, and after the fact!
Unfortunately, they'll probably get a huge taxpayer bailout as their friends will soon rule the country and themselves can't survive without the help from these same propaganda organs.
Its the consequences of trying to manipulate and censor the news, most pointedly the thereof lack of coverage of the ineligibility of Barack Hussein Obama.
If they want to get revenue back in a hurry especially now all they need to do is drop the Obama lock on news.
Maybe nobody has put two and two together and thought that maybe several million advertisers are upset at the media and MSM and are boycotting them.
You were not omnipotent MSM, America owns you.
Maybe nobody has put two and two together and thought that maybe several million advertisers are upset at the media and MSM and are boycotting them.Dinomedia boilerplate answers accusations of bias by claiming that they receive complaints from both sides of the aisle. Allow me to clue in dinomedia.
“an internal memo indicates that those ex-employees still receiving buyout payments are now creditors of the company and will have to wait to get paid–if they get paid at all.”
Sweet!
Is it wrong to be happy about this?
Thanks for posting this.....
The sooner, the better.
I think that needs it’s own thread.....be back ....later;
Forget that idea/.....GD see link at post #22.
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