by drm on November 19, 2009
The FineOnMedia blog yesterday had a short interview with the new editor of BusinessWeek, who talked a little about his approach to his new position.
Today, Jon Fine tweeted that he was leaving BusinessWeek.
Of course, Jon hasn’t been writing the FineonMedia blog for the past several months, as he’s been off on a sabbatical, traveling around the world with his wife Laurel Touby. And, the blog isn’t FineonMedia any longer.
I’ve been fortunate over the years to have a fairly constant dialogue with Jon about media, politics, the overwhelming randomness of fortune, the future of content and stuff like that. Over the past 18 months or so, he’s written some of the more interesting perspectives about the rapid shifts the media industry has undergone.
Here’s one of his more interesting takes on the future of content conundrum.
You can always follow Jon on Twitter at @jonfine.
by drm on October 14, 2009
The BusinessWeek sales saga is over and Bloomberg, whose initial approach were rumored to have sparked the sale in the first place, is the winner.
Business Week’s On Media blog cited “knowledgeable sources” in saying the franchise sold for $5 million or less of cash and the assumption of associated liabilities.
PaidContent.org had a good interview with Bloomberg’s Normal Pearlstine about the transaction. Pearlstine says all the right things, but the bottom line is that BusinessWeek is going to a company that makes money by selling information. That’s the best place for a information-driven franchise to go. Pearlstine explains that Bloomberg’s thinking in the transaction was driven by the value of the weekly brand and the potential power of the combination of the two organizations.
The future evolution of BusinessWeek will be fascinating to watch. In the 1980′s, when I was doing analysis of the business information markets, Bloomberg turned the financial information market upside down with a volume approach to high-value information. The acquisition of Business Week, one of the most venerable brands in business information, shows how profoundly Bloomberg’s vision of the future was right.
Clips from the PaidContent article, along with the link, are below.
| The more we thought about it, the more we looked into it, the more we saw the opportunity to invest in a weekly magazine about global business—and that in doing so we could differentiate ourselves from what is typically thought of as competition for Bloomberg.” By combining the two, they decided, we can “create a unique and powerful brand that can do a lot of good things for us strategically—and over time will reward the investment that we put into it.” |
| we do not have the experience or skill sets here to produce a consumer weekly. That is not what we do here and that means we’re going to have to rely on an awful lot of people from BusinessWeek. |
| We will expand the number of pages devoted to editorial, we will commit to being a true weekly because we think that even in this market the predictability that comes with a weekly has value. I think that’s what distinguishes The Economist and The Week from the fortnightlies, from weeklies that cut back on their frequency. |
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