In 1998, the McClatchy Co. purchased the Minneapolis Star-Tribune for $1.2 billion. It has now sold the paper for $530 million. Avista Capital Partners, a private equity firm, is purchasing the paper. It sounds like the new folks are hinting at changes down the road. Said Avista’s Chris Harte, who will serve as chairman of a board overseeing the paper, “You and I and everyone who works with us will have to listen carefully to our readers and our advertisers and make sure we provide them with the information and advertising they want, when they want it, how they want it… By doing that, the Star Tribune will continue to be the dominant medium in the Twin Cities.” McClatchy is selling off some of its properties after purchasing Knight Ridder earlier this year, and says it’s selling the Star-Tribune - its largest property - to take a tax loss on the acquisition. (Via PaidContent)
Several reports say AT&T will announce it is rolling out its TV offering, U-verse, in seven more markets. U-verse, AT&T’s answer to Verizon’s FiOS, had originally planned to be in 15 cities by January 1, 2007. But it is scaling back the next step a bit, according to MediaPost, to “ensure that all the kinks are worked out.” U-verse is currently available in parts of San Antonio, San Francisco, San Jose and Houston. AT&T hasn’t yet announced what the next seven cities will be, but it is establishing some serious goals: the company is projecting having its service available in 19 million homes by the end of 2008. Verizon is shooting for FiOS availability in 18 million homes by 2010. While the big cable operators are downplaying the importance of the telcos moving into the TV biz, the long term threat to their businesses is real.
If anyone doubts how BIG mobile content will become, just take a look at the ad below for the new Nokia N95, which is launching early next year. It’s designed to handle new high-speed networks, such as HSDPA, which delivers internet browsing and streaming video at 10-times the speed of 3G. It has an on-board GPS unit, which pinpoints your location on an interactive map. It has a 5 megapixel camera which also takes DVD-quality video. And it has an on-board MP3 player. Wow.
For example, that John Mellencamp song “Our Country” that has played, like, 16 billion times in Chevy ads. The album isn’t due out until January, nearly six months after the ads starting airing, and Mellencamp’s record label is worried it’s suffering from overexposure. You think? Plus, there’s the little issue of picturing a Chevy Silverado every time you hear the song, which is reason enough to never listen to it again. (WSJ sub. req.)
In the two months that Google has undertaken a pilot program to sell advertising in newspapers, it has generated some buzz in the biz. Apparently it has also generated some success. Google is selling leftover ad space in 66 newspapers, and is pleased enough with the results that it intends to expand the program after the pilot ends at the end of January. The director of print ads at Google says the volume of ad sales is “tripling where we thought it would be.” Still unclear is whether the program will generate significant revenue for the papers. (WaPo free sub. req.)
The Oregon Alliance to Reform Media (ARM) wants the FCC to deny license renewals for every commercial TV station in Portland. The group says the stations’ coverage of the 2004 elections did not meet the minimum FCC requirements. Oregon ARM points to a study that showed that, in the four weeks leading up to the elections, less than one percent of newscasts were devoted to coverage of state elections. While it’s unrealistic to expect the FCC to pull the licenses, the Oregon ARM makes a point - and I’m not trying to pick on Portland stations. I’ll bet the time given to local politics was similar in most markets. Local news doesn’t cover local news enough. I don’t buy that people don’t care about politics - they just don’t like the way TV covers (or doesn’t cover) politics. One of my guesses as to why? Viewers are tired of the predictable, counterproductive black-and-white, right-vs-left, horserace coverage TV gives to politics. The web has shown that people are passionate about politics. They want real, useful substantive information. I’m guessing more than one percent of the audience does, anyway.
Rex Sorgatz (”The Godfather of Lists”) has his Predictions for 2007 in Media/Tech/Pop over at Fimoculous. Now, normally I don’t do or link to predictions. Why? They’re just predictions. But Rex’s list is a good one, written in his usual witty and irreverent prose. Examples: “…the iPhone: Nope, never. Why? Cuz the iPhone is like God — if it really existed, you wouldn’t care that much.” This, about AOL: “I have no idea. And neither do they.” Web Man of the Moment Ze Frank? “The funniest guy in America lands a deal at Comedy Central.” And the out-as-soon-as-she-was-in “lonelygirl15: Remember Ellen Feiss?” Read Rex if you don’t already. He just may be the world’s best nemesis.
William S. Paley usually gets the credit but it was his partner, Frank Stanton, who was also responsible for starting up the CBS television network. Stanton died in Boston Sunday at age 98. He was president of the network in 1946 when it was primarily a radio operation. Paley didn’t want to get into TV initially, worried it would hurt his radio efforts. (Does that sound familiar?) Stanton pushed The Tiffany Network forward, signing Jackie Gleason for “The Honeymooners” and Lucille Ball for “I Love Lucy.” From Variety: “The long duet of Stanton and Paley was both richly fruitful and problematical. Never friends, the two titans were polar opposites in many ways, with Paley the charming dreamer, while Stanton was the thinker and doer.”
Jimmy Wales, who founded Wikipedia, is going to start up his own search engine. Wales has the backing of Amazon.com, and is calling the new search Wikiasari. (”asari” is Japanese for “rummaging search.” Nice.) According to the Times, the project has major funding from Amazon and a group of Silicon Valley VCs. Wales is calling out Google too, with a little trash talk: “Google is very good at many types of search, but in many instances it produces nothing but spam and useless crap. Try searching for the term ‘Tampa hotels’, for example, and you will not get any useful results,” the Times quotes him as saying. If anyone else were to launch a new search, I’d say they were doomed to failure. But Wales may just put up an interesting alternative. (More information here.)
In 1998, the McClatchy Co. purchased the Minneapolis Star-Tribune for $1.2 billion. It has now sold the paper for $530 million. Avista Capital Partners, a private equity firm, is purchasing the paper. It sounds like the new folks are hinting at changes down the road. Said Avista’s Chris Harte, who will serve as chairman of a board overseeing the paper, “You and I and everyone who works with us will have to listen carefully to our readers and our advertisers and make sure we provide them with the information and advertising they want, when they want it, how they want it… By doing that, the Star Tribune will continue to be the dominant medium in the Twin Cities.” McClatchy is selling off some of its properties after purchasing Knight Ridder earlier this year, and says it’s selling the Star-Tribune - its largest property - to take a tax loss on the acquisition. (Via PaidContent)
In the two months that Google has undertaken a pilot program to sell advertising in newspapers, it has generated some buzz in the biz. Apparently it has also generated 
Rex Sorgatz (”The Godfather of Lists”) has his 
William S. Paley usually gets the credit but it was his partner, Frank Stanton, who was also responsible for starting up the CBS television network. Stanton died in Boston Sunday at age 98. He was president of the network in 1946 when it was primarily a radio operation. Paley didn’t want to get into TV initially, worried it would hurt his radio efforts. (Does that sound familiar?) Stanton pushed The Tiffany Network forward, signing Jackie Gleason for “The Honeymooners” and Lucille Ball for “I Love Lucy.” From 
