the newspaper business

Wallstrip.com is the most watched business video blog on the web. Monday through Thursday the cover a single stock at an all time high. Friday, Lindsay Campbell chats with a mover and shaker in the internet world.

Today she talks with Fred Davis a lawyer who represents some very successful singers as well as companies that would appear to be a threat to the income of the singers.

As I watched it, I was struck by the similar changes the newspaper business and the music business are going through.

The newspaper business and the music business have a lot in common. Both have depended on a distribution method and way of making money that is drastically effected by the internet.

Newspapers were distributed by trucks to distribution points where 14 year olds delivered them to the doorsteps. This has evolved to adults delivering complete newspapers to a tube or thrown somewhere on the lawn. Newspapers are evolving again by delivering news to the home without any distribution system other than the internet.

The music similarity is that it used to be that a 14 year old had to wait for Mom to drive them to the mall where they bought an complete CD.

Davis says that the music business needs to do better to monetize rich and robust content, so they are experimenting with alternative methods of distribution.

He also comments that the music business used to be much more profitable, but by adapting to the change, the can be “exponentially” more successful.

On Wallstrip they play a game called long/short, long if you are bullish, short if you a bearish.

Davis surprised me with his answers: short MTV, iPod and satellite radio.

Interesting how differentlythese two business are dealing with major changes. The music business seems to be busily adapting and transforming.  The newspaper business seems to be striving to preserve their margins.

I think Davis would be long music business, short newspapers.  I’m still long newspapers, but reserve the right to “revise and extend my remarks.”

This entry was posted on Friday, July 13th, 2007 at 9:59 am and is filed under Future of Newspapers. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.