Where Were You When Vibe Died?
In your emboldened Wednesday media column: More on the Spin layoffs, "Where were you when Vibe died?" stories begin, Froomkin's proud, Michael Wolff's unnecessarily loud, and newspapers are how(itzer)ed.
Splits at the NYO and MySpace; Viacom's New Channel
• Chris DeWolfe is out as the CEO of News Corp.-owned MySpace. [CNN]
• More on Peter Kaplan's split from Jared Kushner's Observer, and the rumor Kaplan is now heading to Condé Nast Traveler. [NYT, WWD, DHD]
• ABC has renewed 12 series, including Dancing with the Stars, The Bachelor, Grey's Anatomy, and Desperate…
The New Republic Changes Hands, The NYT Raises Cash
• Marty Peretz, former owner of the New Republic, is buying back the mag with a group of investors led by former Lazard exec Laurence Grafstein. [Politico]
• The New York Times Co. has successfully raised $225 million by selling off 21 floors of its Eighth Avenue office building. [NYT]
• "Was last week the worst one…
Current Employees Could Be Future Employees
In your snowy Tuesday media column: media employees forced to re-apply for their own jobs, failed newspaper execs mumbling, and Ben Stein is unpopular:
5 ways the newspapers botched the Web
Here's our theory: Daily deadlines did in the newspaper industry. The pressure of getting to press, the long-practiced art of doom-and-gloom headline writing, the flinchiness of easily spooked editors all made it impossible for ink-stained wretches to look farther into the future than the next edition. Speaking of…
Online advertising might not save newspapers either
Online advertising revenues declined at newspaper publishers Tribune, Lee Enterprises, and E.W. Scripps during the last quarter. While online newspaper ad revenue grew 31 percent in 2005 and 2006, it only expanded 19 percent in 2007. The problem? Besides an awful overall ad market, newspaper analyst Randy Bennett…
Black Thursday
Gannett-the largest newspaper company in America and owner of USA Today-said today it plans to cut 1,000 jobs from its smaller local papers. That amounts to about 3% of the total workforce. Six hundred of those cuts will likely be in the form of layoffs. It's a rough message, coming on the same day that rival…
All News Is Bad News in Newspaperland
McClatchy Freezes Wages
McClatchy, the struggling newspaper chain that made an ill-fated purchase of Knight Ridder in 2006, has just sent out a memo announcing that it is freezing employee wages across the entire company for the next year. The message that is increasingly going out to newspaper employees: accept wage freezes (or cuts),…
Print World Just Got Flatter
This seems like a turning point of some sort. A tipster says the McCatchy-owned Kansas City Star just laid off the entire ad services department. And outsourced the jobs to India! Even more fun: before everyone's last day this summer, their Indian replacements will be flown in so the outgoing ad team can train them.…
Morgan Stanley Ditches 'Times' Stock; Newspapers Bite It In Third Quarter
McClatchy Buys Knight Ridder, Lacks Brotherly Love
Yesterday Knight Ridder finally agreed to sell itself. The pricetag is $4.5 billion and the purchaser is the McClatchy Company, a much smaller newspaper chain heretofore concentrated in California and the Southeast. For editorial types, this is good news: People who value journalism would rather see a newspaper…
