New York Times: Online Can’t Save Her Now
November 9, 2008
My indifference to the plight of traditional media companies is documented elsewhere in the addled goose’s articles and essays. I would like to call your attention to Henry Blodget’s analysis of the the New York Times’s most recent financial challenge. You can read his “Cash Crunch at the New York Times: $400 Million Due in May” here. I liked the write up and I particularly liked the thumbnail of the Times’s headline on the occasion of the sinking of the Titanic. Mr. Blodget outlines some of the options the Times’s management team, aided no doubt by the wizards who run the online service that I a print subscriber simply don’t use. Mr. Blodget identifies such maneuvers as:
- Selling assets
- Borrowing more dough
- Cutting costs.
To this list, I would add sell the company to a media mogul in another country. I can name a couple of prospects in China and Thailand right off the top of my head. The company could contact a highly reliable and sensitive, loving investment banker in the hopes of identifying and marrying a white knight. Robert Maxwell is no longer with us. Conrad Black is temporarily indisposed. Rupert Murdoch may find it tough to own another major newspaper in New York City. Sam Zell seems to have his hands full with the Chicago Tribune. Perhaps Thomson Reuters, Bloomberg, or another professional publishing company will jump into the fray. I wonder if the spurned LexisNexis operation will come forward with a billion dollar deal. Maybe not? Reed Elsevier has its own financial demons to calm.
In my opinion, making the gray lady dance the two step is going to take some serious investment, effort, and maybe a bee pollen treatment in Switzerland. Never say never, so I think the old gal and its business and tech savvy team will find a way to make lemonade from today’s lemons. Lemons, however, don’t have a long shelf life. In my opinion, as goes the New York Times, other traditional publishing companies will follow.
Watch for my Google and Publishing monograph from Infonortics. I attempt to explain why the GOOG is a partial cause and a potential beneficiary of these publishing disruptions.
Stephen Arnold, November 9, 2008
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