Posted on 06/19/2006 4:41:43 AM PDT by abb
Back in 2000, when the Tribune Company">Tribune Company absorbed The Los Angeles Times, Newsday, The Baltimore Sun and other Times Mirror">Times Mirror properties in an eye-popping $8.3 billion deal, there was a premise and a promise.
The premise was that these new Tribune markets could copy the "synergy" model that had worked so well in the corporate hometown, Chicago. There, reporters for The Chicago Tribune shared their work with their broadcast siblings, WGN-TV and WGN radio, appearing on screen or being heard over the air. When it worked well, information from each outlet flowed in a coordinated way among all the outlets and onto their Web sites.
The promise was that this approach could be successfully transplanted to the nation's most cutthroat media markets, on the East and West Coasts. With its combined properties — The Los Angeles Times and KTLA in Los Angeles, and Newsday and WPIX in New York — Tribune would have a stake in the three biggest markets in the country and could reach 80 percent of all Americans.
Not only would the properties in each city cross-promote and cross-pollinate their editorial content, but advertisers could make sweeping national buys across the media and across the country. John W. Madigan, then Tribune's chief executive, called the merger with Times Mirror "the multimedia company of the future."
But the synergy strategy, especially on the two coasts, has failed to gel.
While the entire media landscape is in turmoil, the Tribune properties in Los Angeles and New York have fared particularly poorly. Circulation is down, below the industry standards at both The Los Angeles Times and Newsday; at KTLA and WPIX, viewers have declined and audience share has plummeted.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Ping
Any wonder why people don't read or watch this sh*t. I'll 'fitfully blend' my foot up your arss!
The only difference between the garbage printed in the paper and the garbage spewed across the MSM airways is that you can't wrap the remains of last night's fish dinner in the garbage spewed across the MSM airways!!
But, it's still the same garbage.
That's why I choose to listen to Sean, Rush and, occasionally, Boortz.
I saw three amazing sights in the last few days:
1. A parking place in Manhattan, and,
2. A rapper with his cap on straight, and,
3. A 29 year old actually reading a newspaper.
The MSMs are the new buggy whip
"Out Of Business" industries.
There is a rumor around Baltimore that the Abell Foundation - A S Abell Company were the local founders and owners for 150 years - is considering buying back the Baltimore Sun from the Chicago Tribune, because the paper has gone so far downhill that it really cannot be considered a local paper any longer.
It was a lefty rag when it was locally owned. Now it is a lefty rag with hardly any local writers.
Interesting times!
I happened to see a spokesman for the Pew Research Center on CSPAN the other day, and he was explaining that the Times-Mirror company sold their polling agency [when they sold the LA Times, Balto Sun,etc] and the Pew Charitable Trust decided to fund it. It is 'non-partisan' 501(3)c corp and reports "in an unbiased manner"!
In case anyone has any idea that the Pew conducted polls are impartial, just consider their pedigree.
Local seems like MSM's newest mantra to supposedly save fishwrap. IMHO TRB, along with the rest of the big 6 media companies, remain stubbornly addicted to notions of monopolistic production infrastructure in an era when content is king on commodity infrastructure.
End Times, man, End Times.
Well, Daaa - that's because WE didn't buy into their premise and promise! It was more a nightmare and lies.
Thanks abb.
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