CIQ Headlines for May 2, 2007

CIQ Headlines

Murdoch Bids $5 Billion for Dow Jones–(NYT) “Mr. Murdoch’s offer comes as the newspaper industry is under financial pressure and many newspaper stocks, including Dow Jones’s, have been in a prolonged slump. The Journal, while prestigious, is only marginally profitable.” Murdoch would move aggressively, insiders say, to move the Journal into a more aggressive online strategy, making it the financial backbone of the Newscorp empire. CIQ: It’s sad to see venerable old publishing families like the Bancrofts under such pressure. Most old-time publishers have not moved aggressively enough into electronic media to support their futures.

Book Reviews Endangered Species— (NYT) Some papers are firing their book editors and cancelling book-review sections? The reason: Falling readership of print news combined with an upsurge in book-review blogs. Many authors, agents, and publishers are disspointed their books won’t be appearing in a venerable book review, but rather in curledup.com. CIQ: It’s odd to us that many focus on the “death” of old media without realizing how much greater potential there is online.

Comcast-Yahoo, the Deal that No One Noticed –(Blogmaverick) Yesterday, Comcast and Yahoo announced the following deal: Yahoo will be serving ads into Comcast websites, including Comcast.net. This article is a little technical, but describes how this might be the deal of the year. Why? Because Comcast is a private network. So advertisers don’t have to deal with the vagaries of delivering over the internet. The video-ad stream can be matched to the user’s bit-rate. In addition, the ads are being served to Comcast subscribers– people for whom there is customer data. CIQ: We believe that participation of cable companies is crucial for an ad-supported internet model.