Archives: February 2009

AND WE STILL HAVE A DAY TO GO

Posted by: Jon Fine on February 26

Think your industry is having a rough week so far? Take a look at the newspaper business. Sat. Feb 21 – Newspaper chain Journal Register files for bankruptcy protection Sun....

Gone Fishin'

Posted by: Jon Fine on February 25

Out of the country on vacation until Thursday, March 5. Posting more-or-less on hiatus until then. See you when I'm back, all....

Hearst Lays Down Gauntlet For San Francisco Chronicle, Threatens Sale Or Closure Without Significant Cuts And Union Concessions.

Posted by: Jon Fine on February 24

My half-bright idea from the early summer of 2007 was that Hearst should shutter the San Francisco Chronicle's print edition and go all digital, at some point in the next...

Peter Chernin and Rupert Murdoch’s Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Week

Posted by: Jon Fine on February 23

Nikki Finke, L.A. Times and my BusinessWeek colleague Ron Grover are reporting that News Corp President, and longtime Rupert Murdoch #2, Peter Chernin is out. This has already been a...

Philadelphia Inquirer And Philadelphia Daily News Owner Files For Bankruptcy; Internal Newspaper Guild Email Attempts To Reassure Union Members

Posted by: Jon Fine on February 22

And we were just talking about how news organizations needs to find new ways to make a dollar. The Brian Tierney-led consortium files for Chapter 11; The Inquirer writes about...

In Which I Aggregate Too Many Partially-Related Thoughts About Paying For News Online, Micropayments, And Newspapers

Posted by: Jon Fine on February 19

At times I have way too many things--whether they're wise or wooly-headed--to say about any given topic to cram into the space allotted for my column. This is one of...

More On TicketMaster-Live Nation

Posted by: Jon Fine on February 12

My take on the Ticketmaster-Live Nation merger (shortform: I am not a huge fan) can be found in my column in the brand new issue of BusinessWeek. (And, uhm, up...

Barry Diller Defends TicketMaster Against Allegations Regarding TicketsNow. Does Not Mention (Or Apologize To) Bruce Springsteen

Posted by: Jon Fine on February 10

And Bruce, if you haven't heard, is not happy. Although TicketMaster can take heart that at least Bruce's angry fans, or politicians seeking to piggyback on their anger haven't...

Universal, Spielberg End Distribution Talks

Posted by: Jon Fine on February 06

The following comes courtesy of Ron Grover, BusinessWeek's Los Angeles Bureau Chief. The Steven Spielberg Hollywood odyssey continues. Three months after apparently reaching agreement to leave his three-year deal with...

News Corp Posts First Quarterly Loss In Three Years; 14 Laid Off At Wall Street Journal, And The Relative Performance of The WSJ and the New York Times

Posted by: Jon Fine on February 05

A grand coincidence? Well, yeah, actually. Judging from the dynamics for virtually any comparable major media outlet (and especially one that gets the bulk of its revenues from print), you...

A Super Bowl Full Of Bad And Clumsy Ads

Posted by: Jon Fine on February 01

My BusinessWeek colleagues Burt Helm and David Kiley--proprietors of this fine blog--were kind enough to let me crash their annual Super Bowl party. That is, I crashed their annual Super...