Features
Newspaper plants are among the more complicated commercial properties to sell because they are special-use structures that are not easily converted to other industrial purposes. ?The same issues that affect the value of the machinery affect the value of the plant,? explains John Woolard, managing partner at the property tax valuation and consulting firm Morrison & Head in Austin, Texas. In the case of newspapers, mothballed printing presses depress the value of the plants that house them.
In the weeks that followed, the site that once barely registered on the media radar became both a hot topic for ethical debate and a new media force to be reckoned with. While praised by some, others spoke out against the very idea of publishing classified information, and others questioned WikiLeaks? motives.
Homeland Security thinks newspapers are a vital national asset to be protected against terrorism. So why are newspapers so seemingly blas? about the department?s efforts to help them?
At Dorf Media, Gary Dorfman, the founder?s son and company president, sees an opportunity to offer his new Sports Gathering CMS industry-wide because other solutions in his view aren?t geared to the peculiarities of prep sports. It?s been a long development process: six months of talks to be sure he had the right software developer and another 30 months to create a CMS ?designed by writers and editors, for writers and editors,? he says.
E&P's monthly look at a newspaper stock. This month: Media General.
INMA?s always-provocative executive director, Earl J. Wilkinson, tells E&P that newspapers have weakened their greatest strength: ?Newspaper brands aren?t anywhere near as strong as publishers think because they haven?t invested anything in building them.?
When The Denver Post referred to the ?late? C.W. McCall, it didn?t make just an embarrassing mistake ? the singer with the Citizens Band AM-radio era hit Convoy is living just 190 miles away in Ouray, Colorado ? the paper became part of an unusual spike in premature burials by newspapers.
Remarkably, the candidate who was a champion of government transparency on the campaign trail now leads an administration that has already prosecuted more suspected leakers of classified information than any other presidency in history. Does President Obama really want to go down in history as the most obsessive leaks prosecutor ever?
How do analysts feel about newspapers these days? E&P talked with six of the top equity and credit analysts who follow newspapers, and found skepticism mixed with cautious optimism about future performance. Similarly, there?s disappointment and impatience among some with the pace of newspapers? transition to digital, but also admiration for the radical steps publishers took to return to profitability and pay down debt.
Paywalls are now ready for their close-up. Newspapers are no longer just talking ? with increasing bravado or increasing scorn ? about walling off or metering their digital content. They are actually doing it or scheduling a date on which to start. It?s a moment that?s been a long time coming.
Highlights of recent product and service introductions, upgrades, sales and other promotions.
? but not standing still. Survivor SCS pushes more products in the pipeline
PricewaterhouseCoopers? latest report on the newspaper industry worldwide contains the usual bad news for North American papers. Ad revenue that?s plunged 38% at U.S. and Canadian papers since 2005 will fall another 16% over the next three years before turning up ever so slightly, PwC estimates. And the Big Four auditing and professional services firm flatly predicts North American newspapers will never again see the levels of print advertising revenue they once enjoyed.