Why that?
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The newsonomics of Digital First Media’s Thunderdome implosion (and coming sale)
Project Thunderdome is dead and DFM will soon put its newspapers on the auction block. Are the new rounds of investors who bought into newspapers over the past half-decade getting antsy?
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Today, we’ll hear official word of the demise of Project Thunderdome, one of the news industry’s highest-profile experiments in centralized, digital-first, mobile-friendly, new-news-partner content creation. Digital First Media CEO John Paton first announced the creation of what became a 50-plus person, New York City-based operation three years ago.
In the closing, and in other cuts at Digital First Media, we see the impact of unending high-single-digit loss in print advertising. The ongoing devastation in print is overwhelming even DFM’s relatively faster pace of digital innovation.
The move also signals the fatigue of majority DFM owner Alden Global Capital — and that it is readying its newspaper properties for sale. They’re not yet on the market, but expect regional auctions of DFM properties (with clusters around the Los Angeles area, the Bay Area, New England, Philadelphia, and Texas) — unless Alden can find a single buyer, which is unlikely. (bold mine)
Okay, folks. Don't be all doom and gloom about The Sun going under.
Maybe, Sal Lupoli will have a 'big decision?'
3 comments:
Losing the newspapers is not good. I expect the markets will eventually sort this out. What we don't need, I would suggest, is more Government help. The Government's current help is in keeping the internet and radio waves open and free and in the cheap mailing of newspapers, and that is sufficient. Otherwise, it is picking winners and losers.
However, we do need the courts to understand that the Internet has expanded the membership in the Fourth Estate. How many know what that means, I wonder?
Regards — Cliff
I wonder, if Jim Campanini knows what "Fourth Estate" means?
Since I haven't won the lottery, I can only hope that an entity with integrity and a sense of journalism takes ownership, should ownership of The Sun change hands.
I long to refer to my media nemesis as, "The Newspaper of Record."
Agree with the need to keep an independent watchdog, but the SUN has corrupted that classification. Don't understand the reference to "Government help" - is that even on the table? Or do you mean the expansion of public notices? (It didn't work in reverse a few years ago, so will someone try to curry favor with an expansion?) Let's say that the local newspaper were the perfect watchdog - would that make the business model work? Probably, not - there are too many better ways to advertise, and increases in the cost of the paper only reduces the volume of deliveries.
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