"Washington Post to be sold to founder of Amazon" by Ryan Nakashima | Associated Press, August 06, 2013
LOS ANGELES — Jeff Bezos, the Amazon.com founder who helped bring books into the digital age, stunned the media industry Monday by announcing plans to acquire another pillar of mainstream media: The Washington Post.
Bezos, 49, struck a deal to buy the Post and other newspapers for $250 million. It was a startling demonstration of how the Internet has created winners and losers and transformed the media landscape....
Related:
"What's most interesting, is what one of the members of The Graham Family had to say about the sale and about Bezos, "Jeff Bezos' proven technology and business genius, his long-term approach and his personal decency, make him a uniquely good new owner for the Post." Awh... isn't that special. It is especially special in light of this and this lovely specimen of pure evil. What the heck, just google, 'Amazon abuses workers' and here's the page(s) you will get.
--MORE--"
The Post, like most newspapers, has been losing readers and advertisers to the Internet while watching its value plummet.
Related: The Washington Post lost $34 million last quarter
The newspaper, famed for first reporting the Watergate scandal that brought the downfall of President Richard Nixon, has been forced in recent years to scale back its ambitions, cut its newsroom staff repeatedly, and close several bureaus....
The Poynter Institute’s media and business analyst, Rick Edmonds, compared Bezos’s purchase of the Post to billionaire John Henry’s $70 million purchase of The Boston Globe, which was announced Saturday.
The newspaper transactions remove well-loved, established publications from publicly traded parent companies that had to answer to shareholders who demanded good quarterly financial results....
Newspapers are losing money despite my patronage. That's what happens when you wrap elitist insults around lies and distortions.
--more--"
NEXT DAY UPDATE:
"Amazon also has a trove of consumer data, from reading and shopping habits to credit card information. The company was a pioneer in targeting products to customers based on previous purchases — techniques that could benefit the newspaper industry as well.
How about telling the truth for a change? Wanna give that a try?
‘‘Amazon has acquired an incredible amount of data about its customers over the years, and advertisers are clearly interested in using that data to improve ad targeting,’’ Clark Fredricksen, vice president at eMarketer, said in an interview. ‘‘The opportunity is definitely there for the company to leverage that data on outside websites through the form of an ad network.’’"
All of it went to the NSA, too.
Related: Bezos the Bozo
Proved it by buying the Post.
Also see: Sunday Globe Special: John Henry a Hit With Globe
He's running the bases:
"In Globe visit, John Henry plays role of observer; Declines to offer hints on plans for company" by Beth Healy | Globe Staff, August 05, 2013
John W. Henry spent several hours at The Boston Globe Monday, meeting employees desk-by-desk in the newsroom and other departments, but he still made plenty of time to chat, devoting 90 minutes to navigate through the newsroom on Morrissey Boulevard and engage in one-on-one conversations with reporters, editors, designers, and photographers.
Henry, 63, also had a lunch meeting with the Globe’s senior management and afterward spent time in the sports department, talking with sports editor Joe Sullivan and other staffers.
I hope they cleaned up the cafeteria; otherwise, you might want to try the food truck or Fenway.
Globe editor Brian McGrory, in a meeting with the staff Monday afternoon at which Henry was not present, said he was optimistic about the future under a new owner.
McGrory said Henry told him he wants to boost revenues rather than slash costs, and does not plan to influence the paper’s coverage of the Red Sox.
“I was adamant with him that our coverage wouldn’t change. But I didn’t have to be, because he was adamant with me that our coverage wouldn’t change,’’ McGrory said.
“He would, in his view, only diminish the value of the Globe and the Red Sox if he tried to influence our coverage in any way at all.”
**************************
He bested a half-dozen rival bidders to buy the Globe, including some who offered the Times Co. more money."
What?
"3 groups say they topped Henry’s bid for Globe" by Beth Healy | Globe Staff, August 05, 2013
Three of the groups that lost out in the bidding for The Boston Globe say their offers were higher than Red Sox owner John W. Henry’s winning $70 million bid — prompting them to question the New York Times Co.’s sales process.
John Gormally, a Springfield television station owner and publisher of BusinessWest magazine, said that after meeting the Times Co.’s final bid deadline on July 26, he heard nothing from the company until a week later, in the early hours of Saturday morning, when an e-mail around 3 a.m. from the investment bankers announced the sale to Henry....
Robert Loring, a Massachusetts native and founder of Revolution Capital, a West Coast investment company that owns the Tampa Tribune, also said his bid was larger than Henry’s, and included $80 million in cash.
Loring, too, said he was taken by surprise when he learned Henry had won, and was disappointed by how the bidding was handled.
“We felt we had a strong offer for the company and we had a strong offer for management. We felt we were the best buyer for the business,’’ Loring said. But, he added, “It’s the way it goes sometimes — you win some and you lose some.’’
Like baseball!
***********************************
Henry won the Globe bid over a half-dozen rival offers. In addition to Gormally, John Lynch, chief executive of the U-T San Diego newspaper, and Revolution Capital, the losing bidders included members of the Taylor family, which sold the Globe to the Times Co. in 1993; a group led by Boston businessmen Jack Connors and John Fish; and a group led by Boston attorney Shannon Liss-Riordan, who had hoped to include employee ownership in her offer.
She never had a chance.
The Times Co., in a statement, said, “The sale to John W. Henry is the result of a very full and active sales process.’’ Spokeswoman Abbe Serphos also said that in reviewing the bids, the Times Co. “took many factors into consideration, and at the end of the process concluded, along with our board of directors, that this agreement to sell the New England Media Group to Mr. Henry was in the best interest of our shareholders as well as of The Boston Globe, the Worcester Telegram & Gazette, and the Boston community.’’
Taking less money was in the best interest of shareholders?
*****************************
“The Times is able to sell to whomever they wish. That’s the way America works and we are fine with that,’’ Lynch said in his e-mail....
He and Gormally both said they wished Henry the best. “Our issues are with the Times” and their investment bankers at Evercore Partners, he said.
The Globe had previously reported that Henry had one of the lowest bids in the mix. People involved in the process said he won the sale because of his stature in the community and his ability to pay cash. Henry also has had a long relationship with the Times Co., which was his Fenway Sports Group’s largest outside investor in the Red Sox for a decade.
Gormally, who said he is “still interested in buying the Globe if the deal with Henry falls through,’’ emphasized that while he was frustrated with the Times Co.’s process, he is not against Henry owning the Globe.
“If it does work out,” he said, “John Henry’s a great businessman and I think he’ll do very well in making sure that the Globe is around for a long time.’’
I guess I'll be blogging until I die then.
--more--"
