Category: media

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World Association for Newspapers: Industry ‘Vibrant and Growing’

So I’m not the only one sick of hearing TribCo and others kowtowing to Wall Street’s unnecessarily irrational expectations.

Last week, Gavin O’Reilly, President of WAN, presented “the facts, not the myths, about newspapers” to a group of investors, analysts, and correspondents at WAN’s first Capital Markets Day in London.

Among the findings (PDF):

    • Paid-for circulations grew 1.9 percent over 12 months and 8.7 percent over five years. With free newspapers, global circulation grew 4.3 percent year-on-year.
    • Free daily newspaper circulation more than doubled over five years, to 40.8 million copies a day
    • More than 1.4 billion people now read a newspaper daily
    • Paid-for daily titles surpassed 11,000

Thanks to JoHo for the heads up and Center for Media Research. CC-licensed photo by Sarah.

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Murdoch Bids $5 Billion for Dow Jones

Scary and unsolicited — are newspapers suddenly worth something again? (more to follow)…

Dow Jones owns the Wall Street Journal, among other things, and Murdoch’s News Corp. bends the rules of media ownership with it’s massive stable of multiple media in practically every English speaking market worldwide. Just who does that include? It’s all on this list.

The Bancroft family (which controls Dow Jones), along with practically the entire staff of the Wall Street Journal, currently oppose News Corp.’s offer, while others — like analyst Mort Zuckerman — are calling Murdoch “brilliant.”

Shares of Dow Jones jumped over 50% to just shy of Murdoch’s offering price of $60/share in Tuesday trading. Other publicly traded newspaper company’s saw prices surge as well.

But the offer raises numerous red flags, writes Mark @ News Corpse including News Corp.’s plans to launch a Fox Business Channel to compete with the likes of CNBC.

It may seem insulting to WSJ writers to be threatened with ownership by the likes of the mogul who has turned the likes of the New York Post into practically a supermarket tabloid. But more important and influential could be the residual effect of Murdoch’s lofty valuation of Dow Jones on the struggling (by Wall Street standards) newspaper industry.