This blog is mainly about the spectacular train wreck at The Sacramento Bee and its parent company, the McClatchy Company. But I also post about current events, the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, politics, anything else that grabs my attention. Take a look around this blog, hope you enjoy it.
Tuesday, May 12, 2009
Tuesday May 12 -- Got news or an update?
If you have news or an update, leave it in comments. . . .
25 comments:
Anonymous
said...
Metro to Sell US Papers
Metro International S.A. of Sweden will sell its US papers to a company run by its former CEO. The deal includes papers in New York, Philadelphia and Boston.
They represent a combined circulation of 590,000 and 1.2 million readers. The company has been on a campaign to reduce expenses, and the US operations have been consistent money-losers. Metro International operates more than 81 editions in 22 countries. CFO Anders Kronborg says he “doesn’t see any growth in the [US] market this year or in 2010.”
Amid the longest sustained drop in newspaper advertising revenue in American history, technology gurus and media watchers are making hopeful noises that Amazon's new Kindle DX reader, and similar portable electronic reading devices, can "save" newspapers.
Unfortunately, a quick look at potential business reveals that, barring a complete reinvention of digital advertising, Kindle and the other mobile devices will do little more than partially offset the continuing overall loss.
Newspapers have traditionally drawn on two main sources of revenue: advertising, which accounted for about 80% of total revenues, and circulation -- including newsstand sales and subscriptions -- which made up the remaining 20%.
So far, most of the proposals have focused on generating revenue from electronic newspaper subscriptions delivered via Kindle or other mobile devices.
However, leaving aside the issue of revenue-sharing with Amazon or mobile service providers, electronic subscriptions cannot produce anywhere near the amount of revenue being lost on traditional subscriptions.
For example, in the first quarter of 2009, the New York Times Co. took in circulation revenues of $228 million, generated by about 1 million full-week subscriptions and half a million Sunday-only subscriptions, according to the Audit Bureau of Circulations.
The bulk of this -- about $150 million -- comes from the full-week subscriptions, which for many legacy subscribers, cost about $600per year.
Conversely, The New York Times' Kindle edition for sale on Amazon costs $13.99 per month. In retrospect, if all 1.5 million weekly and Sunday subscriptions were converted to full-price Kindle subscriptions, total circulation revenue in the first quarter would actually drop more than half -- from $228 million to just $63 million, because the Kindle subscriptions cost substantially less than home delivery.
On one hand, the Times would save millions on the costs of printing and delivery, which could make Kindle subscriptions more profitable than a comparable print distribution base.
On the other hand, most of the current subscribers to the paper edition probably will not make the switch to Kindle. (Their intransigence has prevented them from transitioning to online readership over the past decade.)
CHICAGO Standard & Poor's Ratings Services Monday lowered its long-term corporate credit rating and senior secured debt ratings on Black Press Ltd., saying the Canadian-based parent of the Akron (Ohio) Beacon Journal and Honolulu Star-Bulletin is being squeezed by weak liquidity and an increasing debt burden.
S&P had already rated Black's credit and debt as "junk," or speculative-grade. The latest action downgraded the credit and debt ratings of Black's U.S. and Canadian newspaper publishing subsidiaries to B- from B. By S&P's definition, the lower rating suggests a company currently has the capacity to meet its financial commitments on an obligation, but "adverse business, financial, or economic conditions will likely impair" its capacity or willingness to meet the obligation.
More information about the ratings action is posted on E&P's business-oriented Fitz & Jen blog.
The causes of homosexuality continue to both fascinate and divide people.
Recently, in London, a conservative group of Anglicans, called the Anglican Mainstream hosted a conference to discuss the causes of homosexuality and promote change from gay to straight.
Featured at the conference was American psychologist, Joseph Nicolosi. Dr. Nicolosi stirred much controversy when he said, without research support, that most of his clients show some degree of change in their sexual orientation.
Nicolosi's views regarding causes of homosexuality are also controversial. In response to a question about the existence of a gay gene, Nicolosi said:
In other words, that fact remains that if you traumatize a child in a particular way you will create a homosexual condition. If you do not traumatize a child, he will be heterosexual.
If you do not traumatize a child in a particular way, he will be heterosexual. The nature of that trauma is an early attachment break during the bonding phase with the father.
State Police warned state Senate Majority Leader Malcolm Smith (D-Queens) about Sen. Kevin Parker's temper just days before the Brooklyn Democrat flew into a rage and attacked a Post photographer.
Troopers raised the red flag on Parker on May 4 after the short-fused senator got out of his car at an entrance to a parking garage beneath the state Capitol complex and angrily confronted a security guard.
Parker, who identified himself as a state senator, was fuming over a security gate that was down at an hour he had expected it to be raised, said Capt. Henry de Vries.
Kay Jones, a producer on CNN's Anderson Cooper's "AC360," recently blogged on the show's website that she "deserve[s] the month of May off." Well, she might as well take it because Cooper's fan base is doing just that already.
Cooper's ratings have been in a sharp decline all year, and so far the month of May is no exception. According to Nielsen, the audience for the 10-11 p.m. hour of his show so far this month is 933,000 viewers.
This is the first time he's fallen below the one-million mark since the dog days of last August.
Anderson is losing almost 20% of his lead-in from Larry King and is in danger of being passed in the ratings by MSNBC's 10 p.m. repeat of "Countdown with Keith Olbermann."
Since the start of 2009, Cooper has lost one-third of his audience.
CNN has invested heavily into marketing Cooper as the face of the network. The hype has never really translated into commercial success, and now that MSNBC is suddenly competitive, CNN finds itself being flanked on the right and the left.
Nice fellow though. A little sniffy, a bit disdainful and contemptuous of everyone who isn’t Cooper. But why should that be a problem? Certainly not in his world.
OK, he’s obnoxious. but with very elegant manners. That HAS TO count for something.
Probably he shouldn't have shared that with the nation - his revelation (knowledge of the word) definitely hurt him more than it hurt tea party attendees.
He (and CNN) appear unphased that thousand and thousands of viewers were potentially alienated.
His ratings fall seems to correspond to his outing as a homosexual.
I think you would find that it actually entered into free fall after his staged event during the presidential debates when he had the phony "General" pushing the homosexual agenda.
Once it was found out he was never really a general, Cooper et al claimed that they had no idea who he was. It all sounded good for a minute. Then the video of them having used him in previously concocted events appeared.
Congratulations are in order for Kevin. Given the attacks on the blog today by the left in the form of blog spam it would seem that you have become effective enough to attack.
How typical of the left that they debase anything they participate in.
I have a question - is it just in Lexington or have all of the papers fired their cleaning company? We are now required to take out our own trash and run the vacuum as needed. And water the plants b/c they ended that service as well. The hard working people that deliver the mail, move furniture and fix anything that's broken now have to clean the restrooms and common areas. Time to get outta here before they have me scrubbing toilets too. I didn't go to college for that.
At our place we outsourced custodial and the new service doesn't clean offices every night. We can't put food in our office wastebaskets because it draws bugs. They still do a good job of keeping the bathrooms clean.
25 comments:
Metro to Sell US Papers
Metro International S.A. of Sweden will sell its US papers to a company run by its former CEO. The deal includes papers in New York, Philadelphia and Boston.
They represent a combined circulation of 590,000 and 1.2 million readers. The company has been on a campaign to reduce expenses, and the US operations have been consistent money-losers. Metro International operates more than 81 editions in 22 countries. CFO Anders Kronborg says he “doesn’t see any growth in the [US] market this year or in 2010.”
News Analysis: Why Kindle Can't
Save Newspapers
Amid the longest sustained drop in newspaper advertising revenue in American history, technology gurus and media watchers are making hopeful noises that Amazon's new Kindle DX reader, and similar portable electronic reading devices, can "save" newspapers.
Unfortunately, a quick look at potential business reveals that, barring a complete reinvention of digital advertising, Kindle and the other mobile devices will do little more than partially offset the continuing overall loss.
Newspapers have traditionally drawn on two main sources of revenue: advertising, which accounted for about 80% of total revenues, and circulation -- including newsstand sales and subscriptions -- which made up the remaining 20%.
So far, most of the proposals have focused on generating revenue from electronic newspaper subscriptions delivered via Kindle or other mobile devices.
However, leaving aside the issue of revenue-sharing with Amazon or mobile service providers, electronic subscriptions cannot produce anywhere near the amount of revenue being lost on traditional subscriptions.
For example, in the first quarter of 2009, the New York Times Co. took in circulation revenues of $228 million, generated by about 1 million full-week subscriptions and half a million Sunday-only subscriptions, according to the Audit Bureau of Circulations.
The bulk of this -- about $150 million -- comes from the full-week subscriptions, which for many legacy subscribers, cost about $600per year.
Conversely, The New York Times' Kindle edition for sale on Amazon costs $13.99 per month. In retrospect, if all 1.5 million weekly and Sunday subscriptions were converted to full-price Kindle subscriptions, total circulation revenue in the first quarter would actually drop more than half -- from $228 million to just $63 million, because the Kindle subscriptions cost substantially less than home delivery.
On one hand, the Times would save millions on the costs of printing and delivery, which could make Kindle subscriptions more profitable than a comparable print distribution base.
On the other hand, most of the current subscribers to the paper edition probably will not make the switch to Kindle. (Their intransigence has prevented them from transitioning to online readership over the past decade.)
S&P Downgrades 'Akron Beacon Journal' Parent
CHICAGO Standard & Poor's Ratings Services Monday lowered its long-term corporate credit rating and senior secured debt ratings on Black Press Ltd., saying the Canadian-based parent of the Akron (Ohio) Beacon Journal and Honolulu Star-Bulletin is being squeezed by weak liquidity and an increasing debt burden.
S&P had already rated Black's credit and debt as "junk," or speculative-grade. The latest action downgraded the credit and debt ratings of Black's U.S. and Canadian newspaper publishing subsidiaries to B- from B. By S&P's definition, the lower rating suggests a company currently has the capacity to meet its financial commitments on an obligation, but "adverse business, financial, or economic conditions will likely impair" its capacity or willingness to meet the obligation.
More information about the ratings action is posted on E&P's business-oriented Fitz & Jen blog.
What is wrong with you people.
Post a freaking link and maybe the first paragraph, but this is a COMMENTS section, not another blog.
None of you have "cited" where you got your information and as far as I (and likely most) am concerned it is nothing more than blog SPAM.
In every Communist revolution the collaborators who think they will be spared all eventually learn that they were just useful idiots.
Fathers, sons and homosexuality
Christian Post
The causes of homosexuality continue to both fascinate and divide people.
Recently, in London, a conservative group of Anglicans, called the Anglican Mainstream hosted a conference to discuss the causes of homosexuality and promote change from gay to straight.
Featured at the conference was American psychologist, Joseph Nicolosi. Dr. Nicolosi stirred much controversy when he said, without research support, that most of his clients show some degree of change in their sexual orientation.
Nicolosi's views regarding causes of homosexuality are also controversial. In response to a question about the existence of a gay gene, Nicolosi said:
In other words, that fact remains that if you traumatize a child in a particular way you will create a homosexual condition. If you do not traumatize a child, he will be heterosexual.
If you do not traumatize a child in a particular way, he will be heterosexual. The nature of that trauma is an early attachment break during the bonding phase with the father.
COPS: WE WARNED BOSS OF RAGE
State Police warned state Senate Majority Leader Malcolm Smith (D-Queens) about Sen. Kevin Parker's temper just days before the Brooklyn Democrat flew into a rage and attacked a Post photographer.
Troopers raised the red flag on Parker on May 4 after the short-fused senator got out of his car at an entrance to a parking garage beneath the state Capitol complex and angrily confronted a security guard.
Parker, who identified himself as a state senator, was fuming over a security gate that was down at an hour he had expected it to be raised, said Capt. Henry de Vries.
Viewers Doing A 180 On anderson cooper's '360'
Kay Jones, a producer on CNN's Anderson Cooper's "AC360," recently blogged on the show's website that she "deserve[s] the month of May off." Well, she might as well take it because Cooper's fan base is doing just that already.
Cooper's ratings have been in a sharp decline all year, and so far the month of May is no exception. According to Nielsen, the audience for the 10-11 p.m. hour of his show so far this month is 933,000 viewers.
This is the first time he's fallen below the one-million mark since the dog days of last August.
Anderson is losing almost 20% of his lead-in from Larry King and is in danger of being passed in the ratings by MSNBC's 10 p.m. repeat of "Countdown with Keith Olbermann."
Since the start of 2009, Cooper has lost one-third of his audience.
CNN has invested heavily into marketing Cooper as the face of the network. The hype has never really translated into commercial success, and now that MSNBC is suddenly competitive, CNN finds itself being flanked on the right and the left.
Reading about CNN and MSNBC fighting over their dwindling share of audience.................
....is like watching two dung beetles fighting over a speck of turd.
He looks gay.
Pale and gay.
Nice fellow though. A little sniffy, a bit disdainful and contemptuous of everyone who isn’t Cooper. But why should that be a problem? Certainly not in his world.
OK, he’s obnoxious. but with very elegant manners. That HAS TO count for something.
His ratings fall seems to correspond to his outing as a homosexual.
I think the “tea-bagging” comment sealed his fate.
Probably he shouldn't have shared that with the nation - his revelation (knowledge of the word) definitely hurt him more than it hurt tea party attendees.
He (and CNN) appear unphased that thousand and thousands of viewers were potentially alienated.
Well, he’s Gloria Vanderbilt’s son. But I don't think any kid could emerge from that household and wind up straight.
From age 10 to 13, Cooper modeled with Ford Models for Ralph Lauren, Calvin Klein and Macy's.
Well there's your answer right there!
Poor dweeb never had a chance.
Particularly since Anderson’s brother committed suicide by jumping from their apartment window. Long sad story.
His ratings fall seems to correspond to his outing as a homosexual.
I think you would find that it actually entered into free fall after his staged event during the presidential debates when he had the phony "General" pushing the homosexual agenda.
Once it was found out he was never really a general, Cooper et al claimed that they had no idea who he was. It all sounded good for a minute. Then the video of them having used him in previously concocted events appeared.
But what about John Altevogt?
Congratulations are in order for Kevin. Given the attacks on the blog today by the left in the form of blog spam it would seem that you have become effective enough to attack.
How typical of the left that they debase anything they participate in.
I don't like these long "stories" being posted either. Delete!
As Shakespeare said, "Brevity is the soul of wit."
I have a question - is it just in Lexington or have all of the papers fired their cleaning company? We are now required to take out our own trash and run the vacuum as needed. And water the plants b/c they ended that service as well. The hard working people that deliver the mail, move furniture and fix anything that's broken now have to clean the restrooms and common areas. Time to get outta here before they have me scrubbing toilets too. I didn't go to college for that.
At our place we outsourced custodial and the new service doesn't clean offices every night. We can't put food in our office wastebaskets because it draws bugs. They still do a good job of keeping the bathrooms clean.
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