Ariel Sees Value in Newspaper - July 21, Chicago Tribune

A little additional support to my belief in prior posts. Traditional challenge of buying value...Have we really seen the bottom of the valuations? Don't think the major ad budget shifts of automotive and other newspaper heavy industries hasn't played out completely. Maybe an initial entry point.

See the Chicago Trib article here

KKR article

See article in Bloomberg Magazine

ND Business Magazine - Fading to Gray

Interesting article by Mark Jurkowitz in the Spring/Summer 2007 issue laying out the challenges facing the newspaper industry today. Again, this is another industry that will look very different 10 years from now given the rise of the internet and digital media. I'm a big believer that the bread and butter for papers of classifieds, etc is going away as the internet can much more easily store and deliver that content for less but there is an ad model in this industry somewhere. At some point (if it hasn't happened already) is that the valuation of these assets will go below their true value.

I think that everybody is viewing newspapers in a similar fashion to retail stores early on in the rise of e-commerce. Everyone thought that Amazon would kill everybody and that bricks and mortar companies were dead. As usual, these fears were overdone as retailers adopted e-commerce aggressively and now have an advantage over some pure plays by offering the end customer choices on how they want to interact and purchase a product. I believe the combination of online and offline media has a certain target market and appeal and good journalism and how that writing is organized for people will be valuable. It will take a bit longer for valuations to readjust and ad models to be changes but there will be value here.

See the article here.

Center for Media Research - Newspaper usage trends

Interesting report but obviously biased to show some positives in a relatively gloomy industry. Another industry that will look extremely different in 10 years after classified revenue goes to almost nothing due to digital media.


Tuesday, July 17, 2007

Four Out of Five Newspaper Website Readers Also Read the Printed Edition

A new study recently released by the Newspaper National Network LP, conducted by Scarborough Research, found that 81% of newspaper website users also read the printed newspaper in the last 7 days. Crossover users (those who used both print and online newspapers in the past 7 days) have deep affinity with both their printed newspaper and their newspaper website, and 83% say "I love both my printed newspaper and visiting my newspapers website." Crossover users visit their newspaper website to:

Access breaking news (96%),
Find articles seen previously (85%)
Find things to do/places to go (72%)
Jason E. Klein, President and CEO of Newspaper National Network, said "The study shows that the core newspaper reader now accesses his or her local newspaper across multiple formats, print and web, and is deeply engaged with both... 83% of crossover users say their newspaper site will be among their primary destinations 5 years from now."

The study found that newspaper website-only users are 55% female, while crossover users are only 48% female. The main reasons newspaper website-only users cited for using newspaper websites include:

Accessing local news (84%)
Entertainment information (74%)
Food or restaurant information (58%)
Newspaper website-only users are web-savvy group as 52% write or read blogs and 46% have joined a web community.

The two segments differ in the time of day they are using newspapers:

Crossover users are more likely to read their printed newspaper in the morning (63% read the printed newspaper before 10am) and access their newspaper website in the afternoon or evening (46%).
Newspaper website only users are more likely to access the website in the morning (49% of website-only users access the website before 10am vs. 34% of crossover users).
Contrary to some perceptions, the web has not hurt overall newspaper consumption, as 87% of crossover users report that their time spent with newspaper media has increased or remained the same versus only 12% who say time spent has decreased.

Other key Study findings:

The last time you read or looked into any printed copy of the (Newspaper Name):

Read last 7 days: 81%
Read 8-30 days ago: 9%
Read longer than 30 days ago: 7%
Never Read: 3%
Combined Time Spent With Print And Web-Based Newspaper Media Since You Began Using A Newspaper Website

52% remained the same
35% increased
12% decreased
1% Don't Know

For more information, please visit here to find the NNN Newspaper Footprint Study.

Steve Job's Greatest Presentation

Two things here:

1. Great overview of how to do a presentation. Good overview of Jobs' presentation and the key elements of delivering a great presentation.

2. Actual presentation by Jobs' on the iPhone. Great example of an innovative product.