4 ms·

> News orgs were never in themselves meant to be profitable Can you talk more about this? I was always under the impression that newspapers and newsrooms were

> News orgs were never in themselves meant to be profitable Can you talk more about this? I was always under the impression that newspapers and newsrooms were always for-profit enterprises.

genericpseudo 10y ago
Local ad networks masquerading as news organizations. Record labels and newspapers have a lot in common; they were global logistics companies first (the core competence of Atlantic was shipping highly-processed petrochemical discs around the world) and media companies not really at all. What newspapers had was a lock on the business now owned by Craigslist, with the transport and fulfillment network (newsagents and delivery vans!) being the key asset. Once that went away they were no longer businesses. They didn't see it that way, but that's because their core business was so good they could afford to delude themselves - it didn't matter that they didn't know what they were really doing, the business model was that powerful. Google is remarkably similar in many ways.
- dilemma 10y ago
  AAA+ comment.
cclements 10y ago
You, know I remembered seeing something about this in the show 'newsroom': https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GXrOqjS9ZyA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GXrOqjS9ZyA But trying to do a little research on it, the best I could come up with for proof is: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prime_Time_Access_Rule https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prime_Time_Access_Rule Still a good show though.
- rhizome 10y ago
  See also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fairness_Doctrine https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fairness_Doctrine
gdubs 10y ago
http://niemanreports.org/articles/the-transformation-of-network-news/ http://niemanreports.org/articles/the-transformation-of-netw...
daffodil-11 10y ago
The networks were given broadcast spectrum in return for one hour a day of public service, which took the form of news broadcasts. This was taken quite seriously by the original owners of the networks as a solemn duty to inform the public. They built large, global news gathering organizations that were a source of pride to them personally. They practically competed to lose the most money on news. (IIRC, by the mid-80's losses were in the $300m/yr ballpark.) By 1987, a number of factors - changes in ownership for the big 3 networks, upstart FOX network, the increasing importance of celebrity anchors on ratings, deregulation of media ownership laws and other factors - caused a mass shift towards looking at news as profit centers. Ken Auletta's "Three Blind Mice" is excellent. (At least on recollection. It profoundly changed my understanding of the media when I read it 25 years ago.) Newspapers have never had such constraints but there were laws limiting the concentration of ownership aimed at making sure people had diverse influences in any one market. For instance, TV channels could not be owned by the same company that owned a newspaper in the same market. I don't know enough off the top of my head to expand more usefully on that.
- gdubs 10y ago
  Also just got James Fallows' book "Breaking the News" – he's one of my favorite writers at the Atlantic, and so far it's a great book – don't know if it talks about this aspect of the news, but still worth checking out.

> News orgs were never in themselves meant to be profitable Can you talk more about this? I was always under the impression that newspapers and newsrooms were always for-profit enterprises.

genericpseudo 10y ago

Local ad networks masquerading as news organizations. Record labels and newspapers have a lot in common; they were global logistics companies first (the core competence of Atlantic was shipping highly-processed petrochemical discs around the world) and media companies not really at all. What newspapers had was a lock on the business now owned by Craigslist, with the transport and fulfillment network (newsagents and delivery vans!) being the key asset. Once that went away they were no longer businesses. They didn't see it that way, but that's because their core business was so good they could afford to delude themselves - it didn't matter that they didn't know what they were really doing, the business model was that powerful. Google is remarkably similar in many ways.

dilemma 10y ago
AAA+ comment.

cclements 10y ago

You, know I remembered seeing something about this in the show 'newsroom': https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GXrOqjS9ZyA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GXrOqjS9ZyA But trying to do a little research on it, the best I could come up with for proof is: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prime_Time_Access_Rule https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prime_Time_Access_Rule Still a good show though.

rhizome 10y ago
See also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fairness_Doctrine https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fairness_Doctrine

gdubs 10y ago

http://niemanreports.org/articles/the-transformation-of-network-news/ http://niemanreports.org/articles/the-transformation-of-netw...

daffodil-11 10y ago

The networks were given broadcast spectrum in return for one hour a day of public service, which took the form of news broadcasts. This was taken quite seriously by the original owners of the networks as a solemn duty to inform the public. They built large, global news gathering organizations that were a source of pride to them personally. They practically competed to lose the most money on news. (IIRC, by the mid-80's losses were in the $300m/yr ballpark.) By 1987, a number of factors - changes in ownership for the big 3 networks, upstart FOX network, the increasing importance of celebrity anchors on ratings, deregulation of media ownership laws and other factors - caused a mass shift towards looking at news as profit centers. Ken Auletta's "Three Blind Mice" is excellent. (At least on recollection. It profoundly changed my understanding of the media when I read it 25 years ago.) Newspapers have never had such constraints but there were laws limiting the concentration of ownership aimed at making sure people had diverse influences in any one market. For instance, TV channels could not be owned by the same company that owned a newspaper in the same market. I don't know enough off the top of my head to expand more usefully on that.

gdubs 10y ago
Also just got James Fallows' book "Breaking the News" – he's one of my favorite writers at the Atlantic, and so far it's a great book – don't know if it talks about this aspect of the news, but still worth checking out.