Newspapers and magazines need to change radically if they are be successful in the digital marketplace. Whilst print media will be with us for a long time to come, the future for newspapers is likely to be: smaller staff, format, influence, attention, profits and margins; focus on niches not mass audiences; linkages to other media; emphasis on more explanatory, investigative narratives.
The Indian media company Bennett, Coleman & Co, which owns the Times of India newspaper, has acquired Virgin Radio in the UK for $106 million. SMG, the Scottish broadcasting company which owns Virgin Radio (it bought the company in 2000), sold the national AM licence and FM London licence to TIML Golden Square, a subsidiary of Bennett Coleman, and Absolute Radio, an Irish radio investor and consultancy. This is B&Cs first international acquisition and its first step towards an ambitious vision of creating a new music entertainment brand for the UK. It is also the largest acquisition to date by an Indian media company outside India.
Sarita Jones, 10 June 2008
CBS, the US broadcast network, is paying $1.8bn in cash to acquire CNET Networks, a technology and entertainment website operator. CNET was one of the last of the major independent internet content providers, and the sale price left some experts questioning whether CBS is overpaying to make up...
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Michelle Wong, 16 May 2008
Guardian Unlimited, the Guardian Newspaper’s online presence continues to maintain its leadership amongst UK Newspaper Groups, attracting over 19 million unique users in January 2008. This bald statistic, however, belies the fact that 75% of these visitors were from outside the UK, which has...
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Uday Phadke, 11 January 2008
BT is finally moving back into the online classifieds space by acquiring the classifieds website site Ufindus for £20m in cash. BT lost its monopoly over 192 directory inquiries when Oftel deregulated the UK telecoms market in 2000, enabling new brands to combine new online and phone listings.
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Reiko Uchida, 15 July 2008
Guardian News & Media is expanding its US presence with the acquisition of ContentNext Media, the B2B media company which covers digital media, the entertainment and technology sectors, and publishes the online service paidContent.org. The terms of the deal were not disclosed.
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Michelle Wong, 15 July 2008