Does the economic turmoil have you pinching pennies and clipping coupons? Then the newest product from the Financial Times isn’t for you: The daily’s new quarterly magazine is aimed at people worth more than $1.6 million.
The Financial Times’s pay wall for its FT.com site has been a success. So what’s with the note warning wayward emailers?
Every year, media moguls gather at the Allen & Co. Sun Valley conference to listen to each other gab, parade around in casual wear and occasionally make deals. And for the last several years, the New York Times has provided excellent on-the-ground coverage, usually via Dealbook’s Andrew Ross Sorkin. Not this year.
You can hear the head-scratching going on at movie studios and music labels across the world: What just happened to The Pirate Bay? Reports out of Sweden are murky at best. But supposedly, a Scandinavian software outfit is buying the world’s most notorious file-sharing site for about $8 million and will create a service that pays copyright owners when people download their work. But let’s be honest: That’s never going to happen.
Microsoft acquired digital ad agency Razorfish two years ago as part of its $6 billion purchase of parent company aQuantive. The industry has been waiting for Redmond to part ways with the ad shop since then. Now it’s formally on the block: Microsoft has reportedly hired Morgan Stanley to broker a deal.
Just to be clear: Google still doesn’t plan on bailing out the New York Times or any other paper. As a buyer, at least. CEO Eric Schmidt reiterated that position, which he’s already made a couple times this year, in an interview with the Financial Times. Schmidt did allow, though, that Google had at least mulled the idea at one point.
The New York Times has already tried charging people to read part of its Web site. Now, like everyone else in the publishing business, it’s trying to figure out how to charge for online access again. The Times is reportedly mulling two options: A Financial Times-style “metered” approach and a Salon/NPR/PBS version whereby everyone gets free access to the site, but subscribers/donors get bonus goodies.
Ever let one of your pals log on to the Financial Times using your password? Careful! You may be headed to court. Just ask the Blackstone Group, the powerhouse private equity house that just got slapped with a fraud lawsuit.
There’s been lots of dark muttering about Carlos Slim, the New York Times’s new benefactor/loan shark: Exactly how did he make his money, after all? And what does he want with the Times? In any case, it turns out Slim probably has some questions about the Times himself. Like who runs it and what they do?
One of the supposed buyers for the New York Times’s stake in the Boston Red Sox–one of the few assets the paper can unload as it tries to bail itself out of a cash crunch and looming debt problem–says he’s not buying.
Peter Kafka has been covering media and technology since 1997, when he joined the staff of Forbes magazine. Most recently, he has been the managing editor of the tech and media Web site, Silicon Alley Insider. Read more »
Here is a statement of my ethics and coverage policies. It is more than most of you want to know, but, in the age of suspicion of the media, I am laying it all out.
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