The plight of traditional newspaper businesses is depressing many people in the UK, US, Australia and elsewhere. Journalists see their jobs at risk from the limitless supply of “free” always-on news and lean online ‘aggregators’. Investors face losses and the decline of historic, once so-powerful news brands. And proprietors, bloated by years of prestige, power and…
Is quiet Brit becoming the most influential person on Earth?
There’s a captivating, almost-magical web site where you can feel the passion and share the big ideas of brilliant and insightful people including many of the world’s leading thinkers and doers. The site is free and open to everyone. It’s called TED and, although that originally was an acronym for ‘Technology, Entertainment and Design’, the…
Who or what killed Britain’s best media company?
Seventeen years ago, The Independent described a British group as “one of the most admired media companies in the world”. It was a widely shared view of a business which had grown, in 50 years, from humble origins as a regional newspaper publisher to a £1bn turnover public company with fast-growth, vibrant operations in magazines, online…
Can daily newspapers survive?
The media is accustomed to calling ‘time’ on industries. How many (or how few) newspapers ever spoke out in support of ailing car, steelmaking or shipbuilding industries, under siege from low-cost manufacturing countries and newer technologies? Media pundits have frequently amplified the calls for long-established industries to ‘face facts’, ‘get real’, and ‘stand on their…
Stand by for (gulp) the post-Murdoch media world
It’s time to use the past tense. Rupert Murdoch was the original international media mogul. Before him, there were (quite distinctly) press barons, television tycoons, book publishers, and film studio moguls; separate industries, mainly in separate countries, with their own distinct traditions and leaders. But that was until Rupert Murdoch stormed across national and industry…
Is this the world’s most successful magazine?
What is the most successful magazine in the world? Is it Hearst’s feisty Cosmopolitan, published monthly in 58 countries and 34 languages? Or Conde Nast’s 120-year-old Vogue, the ultimate fashion statement in 19 countries? Or Time magazine, the first name in international news weeklies since 1923 ? Or could it be an altogether more surprising success: a…
Harry Potter keeps changing things
The book publishing and retailing business is in turmoil. Nothing new about that. But look at the momentous things, happening in the UK right now, that will transform the industry at speed: In October, J.K.Rowling is launching Pottermore.com to publish Harry Potter ebooks. The author, who 14 years ago kick-started a worldwide boom in book…
Magazines in the headlights
The BBC’s £165m mainly-UK magazines business notched up an impressive-sounding 9% increase in profits – just as it is about to be acquired by private equity firm Exponent. The £21.6m of profit from all the magazines including Radio Times, Top Gear, Gardeners World, Good Food etc is actually reckoned to be not much more than…
UK readers will miss Rupert Murdoch (honestly)
As predicted here and variously across the planet, Rupert Murdoch is in the fight of his life with politicians, regulators and courts in the US and UK. Leaving the mounting horrors aside, it is timely to examine the context for Mr Murdoch and News Corporation, viz: Newspapers represent under 20% (and falling) of News Corp’s…
And another thing about the ‘News of the World’…
The News of the World closure may have been a firewall for the storm threatening to envelop News Corp. It also, though, throws an interesting light on the fight by UK newspapers to survive in the era of always-on news. Yesterday’s punch-the-air televised exit of News of the World journalists who had just completed the…
