October 29, 2008
Christian Science Monitor to Publish Online Only
By STEPHANIE CLIFFORD

After a century of continuous publication, The Christian Science Monitor will abandon its weekday print edition and appear online only, its publisher announced Tuesday. The cost-cutting measure makes The Monitor the first national newspaper to essentially give up on print.

The paper is currently published Monday through Friday, and will move to online only in April, although it will also introduce a Sunday magazine. John Yemma, The Monitor’s editor, said that moving to the Web only will mean it can keep its eight foreign bureaus open while still lowering costs.

“We have the luxury — the opportunity — of making a leap that most newspapers will have to make in the next five years,” Mr. Yemma said.

The Monitor is an anachronism in journalism, a nonprofit financed by a church and delivered through the mail. But with seven Pulitzer Prizes and a reputation for thoughtful writing and strong international coverage, it long maintained an outsize influence in the publishing world, which declined as its circulation has slipped to 52,000, from a high of more than 220,000 in 1970.

In an industry that has been conducting layoffs, closing bureaus and shrinking the size of the product, The Monitor’s experiment will be tracked very closely.

“Everybody’s talking about new models,” Mr. Yemma said. “This is a new model.”

Lou Ureneck, the chairman of the journalism department at Boston University, said that it was difficult to interpret what the move meant for other newspapers, because The Monitor was nonprofit, and most newspapers were not. But across the industry, news organizations “are going to simply have to be smaller organizations,” Mr. Ureneck said.

Before The Monitor, a handful of small papers had shifted away from print. Earlier this year, The Capital Times in Madison, Wis. went online only, and The Daily Telegram in Superior, Wis., announced it would publish online except for two days a week.

Dropping the print edition seems to tempt newspaper executives. At a recent conference hosted by the City University of New York’s journalism school, a group of publishing executives discussed what a cost-efficient newsroom should look like. They eventually settled on casting aside paper and starting fresh on the Web.

Still, said Ken Doctor, a newspaper analyst at Outsell Inc., most newspapers cannot give up their paper versions. Print editions still bring in 92 percent of the overall revenue, according to the Newspaper Association of America.

“If that much revenue is tied up in the print product, if tomorrow these companies dropped those editions, they would have 90 percent less revenue,” Mr. Doctor said. While getting rid of costs like printing plants and delivery trucks would help a little, he said, it would not make up for the lost revenue.

Mr. Yemma said that print did bring in money at The Monitor, but most of that was from subscriptions, not advertising. Subscriptions account for about $9 million of The Monitor’s revenue, while print advertising makes up less than $1 million. Web revenue is about $1.3 million, he said. He is projecting that circulation revenue will drop, but he expects the magazine format will appeal to print advertisers. He is planning cuts, too. Mr. Yemma said he was planning some layoffs on both the 100-person editorial side and the 30-person business side. “I’m not sure the same number of people will be needed,” he said, but “there’s certainly nothing like a draconian cut coming.”

Under the new system, reporters will be expected to file stories to the Web and update them a few times a day, along with writing longer pieces for the Sunday magazine.

Mr. Yemma said he hoped to establish CSMonitor.com as an essential place for international news. The site now gets about three million page views a month, according to comScore, and Mr. Yemma said he wanted to increase that to 20 million to 30 million a month in the next five years. Even if he can fill the site only with remnant, cheap ads, he said, if visits grow as he is projecting, “that’s a sustainable model.”

The Sunday magazine, which will have an international focus, is meant to satisfy readers who are attached to print, Mr. Yemma said, but he said he did not expect it to be hugely profitable.

“We certainly know newsmagazines are cratering,” Mr. Yemma said. “We’re under no illusions about it being a growth vehicle.”

The Monitor, which was conceived as an alternative to the yellow journalism of the early 20th century, is financed by the First Church of Christ, Scientist, in Boston through contributions and an endowment. The church wanted its publishing division to contribute to the church rather than vice versa, and plans to reduce its subsidy to about $4 million, from about $12 million, within five years. Mr. Yemma said he was worried about how subscribers would react.

Longtime readers “love coffee and a newspaper. So do I,” Mr. Yemma said. “There’s nothing like it. But everyone, sooner or later, is going to have to make the transition, and that’s recognized.”

Greenspan Concedes to `Flaw' in His Market Ideology (Update2)

By Scott Lanman and Steve Matthews

Oct. 23 (Bloomberg) -- Former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan said a ``once-in-a-century credit tsunami'' has engulfed financial markets and conceded that his free-market ideology shunning regulation was flawed.

``Yes, I found a flaw,'' Greenspan said in response to grilling from the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. ``That is precisely the reason I was shocked because I'd been going for 40 years or more with very considerable evidence that it was working exceptionally well.''

Greenspan said he was ``partially'' wrong in opposing regulation of derivatives and acknowledged that financial institutions didn't protect shareholders and investments as well as he expected.

``We cannot expect perfection in any area where forecasting is required,'' he said. ``We have to do our best but not expect infallibility or omniscience.''

Part of the problem was that the Fed's ability to forecast the economy's trajectory is an inexact science, he said.

``If we are right 60 percent of the time in forecasting, we are doing exceptionally well; that means we are wrong 40 percent of the time,'' Greenspan said. ``Forecasting never gets to the point where it is 100 percent accurate.''

Self-Policing

The admission that free markets have their faults was a shift for the former Fed chairman who declared in a May 2005 speech that ``private regulation generally has proved far better at constraining excessive risk-taking than has government regulation.''

Today Committee Chairman Henry Waxman, a California Democrat, said Greenspan had ``the authority to prevent irresponsible lending practices that led to the subprime mortgage crisis.''

``You were advised to do so by many others,'' he told Greenspan. ``And now our whole economy is paying the price.''

Waxman and other lawmakers repeatedly interrupted Greenspan as he answered their questions, in contrast to deference to his testimony while he was Fed chairman.

Firms that bundle loans into securities for sale should be required to keep part of those securities, Greenspan said in prepared testimony. Other rules should address fraud and settlement of trades, he said.

Resistant to Regulation

Greenspan opposed increasing financial supervision as Fed chairman from August 1987 to January 2006. Policy makers are now struggling to contain a financial crisis marked by record foreclosures, falling asset prices and almost $660 billion in writedowns and losses tied to U.S. subprime mortgages.

Today, the former Fed chairman asked: ``What went wrong with global economic policies that had worked so effectively for nearly four decades?''

Greenspan reiterated his ``shocked disbelief'' that financial companies failed to execute sufficient ``surveillance'' on their trading counterparties to prevent surging losses. The ``breakdown'' was clearest in the market where securities firms packaged home mortgages into debt sold on to other investors, he said.

``As much as I would prefer it otherwise, in this financial environment I see no choice but to require that all securitizers retain a meaningful part of the securities they issue,'' Greenspan said. That would give the companies an incentive to ensure the assets are properly priced for their risk, advocates say.

Subprime Lending

Greenspan said the Fed didn't know the size of the subprime mortgage market until late 2005.

Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Christopher Cox and former Treasury Secretary John Snow also appeared at the House committee hearing.

Snow said the economy is headed down a ``bad, bad path'' and he endorsed consideration of more fiscal stimulus. For the longer term, Snow said the global financial system should be reorganized by focusing on increasing transparency of ``excessive'' leverage to prevent institutions from creating too much risk.

The U.S. needs ``one strong national regulator'' to oversee firms and fix what Snow called ``a fragmented approach'' to regulation. ``Steps to restore transparency and responsibility in the marketplace will go a long way towards restoring stability and confidence,'' he said.

Addressing the trio that oversaw the U.S. financial markets as the housing bubble developed, Representative John Yarmuth, a Democrat from Kentucky, characterized them as ``three Bill Buckners,'' referring to the Boston Red Sox first baseman whose fielding error some fans blame for the team's loss in the 1986 World Series.

Greenspan Concedes to `Flaw' in His Market Ideology (Update2)

By Scott Lanman and Steve Matthews

Oct. 23 (Bloomberg) -- Former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan said a ``once-in-a-century credit tsunami'' has engulfed financial markets and conceded that his free-market ideology shunning regulation was flawed.

``Yes, I found a flaw,'' Greenspan said in response to grilling from the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. ``That is precisely the reason I was shocked because I'd been going for 40 years or more with very considerable evidence that it was working exceptionally well.''

Greenspan said he was ``partially'' wrong in opposing regulation of derivatives and acknowledged that financial institutions didn't protect shareholders and investments as well as he expected.

``We cannot expect perfection in any area where forecasting is required,'' he said. ``We have to do our best but not expect infallibility or omniscience.''

Part of the problem was that the Fed's ability to forecast the economy's trajectory is an inexact science, he said.

``If we are right 60 percent of the time in forecasting, we are doing exceptionally well; that means we are wrong 40 percent of the time,'' Greenspan said. ``Forecasting never gets to the point where it is 100 percent accurate.''

Self-Policing

The admission that free markets have their faults was a shift for the former Fed chairman who declared in a May 2005 speech that ``private regulation generally has proved far better at constraining excessive risk-taking than has government regulation.''

Today Committee Chairman Henry Waxman, a California Democrat, said Greenspan had ``the authority to prevent irresponsible lending practices that led to the subprime mortgage crisis.''

``You were advised to do so by many others,'' he told Greenspan. ``And now our whole economy is paying the price.''

Waxman and other lawmakers repeatedly interrupted Greenspan as he answered their questions, in contrast to deference to his testimony while he was Fed chairman.

Firms that bundle loans into securities for sale should be required to keep part of those securities, Greenspan said in prepared testimony. Other rules should address fraud and settlement of trades, he said.

Resistant to Regulation

Greenspan opposed increasing financial supervision as Fed chairman from August 1987 to January 2006. Policy makers are now struggling to contain a financial crisis marked by record foreclosures, falling asset prices and almost $660 billion in writedowns and losses tied to U.S. subprime mortgages.

Today, the former Fed chairman asked: ``What went wrong with global economic policies that had worked so effectively for nearly four decades?''

Greenspan reiterated his ``shocked disbelief'' that financial companies failed to execute sufficient ``surveillance'' on their trading counterparties to prevent surging losses. The ``breakdown'' was clearest in the market where securities firms packaged home mortgages into debt sold on to other investors, he said.

``As much as I would prefer it otherwise, in this financial environment I see no choice but to require that all securitizers retain a meaningful part of the securities they issue,'' Greenspan said. That would give the companies an incentive to ensure the assets are properly priced for their risk, advocates say.

Subprime Lending

Greenspan said the Fed didn't know the size of the subprime mortgage market until late 2005.

Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Christopher Cox and former Treasury Secretary John Snow also appeared at the House committee hearing.

Snow said the economy is headed down a ``bad, bad path'' and he endorsed consideration of more fiscal stimulus. For the longer term, Snow said the global financial system should be reorganized by focusing on increasing transparency of ``excessive'' leverage to prevent institutions from creating too much risk.

The U.S. needs ``one strong national regulator'' to oversee firms and fix what Snow called ``a fragmented approach'' to regulation. ``Steps to restore transparency and responsibility in the marketplace will go a long way towards restoring stability and confidence,'' he said.

Addressing the trio that oversaw the U.S. financial markets as the housing bubble developed, Representative John Yarmuth, a Democrat from Kentucky, characterized them as ``three Bill Buckners,'' referring to the Boston Red Sox first baseman whose fielding error some fans blame for the team's loss in the 1986 World Series.

Labels: economy

Warner Chappell Strikes Gold With Radiohead Deal
October 15, 2008

Just over a year since its release, data on Radiohead's unique "It's Up To You" presentation of In Rainbows has finally been released by Warner Chappell Publishing. At the "You Are In Control" conference in Iceland, the U.K.-based branch of the publishing company revealed the figures. Warner Chappell U.K. held the digital licensing rights to In Rainbows as part of a groundbreaking deal with Radiohead.

According to Music Ally, Warner Chappell was set to reveal at the conference that the digital publishing income from In Rainbows was bigger than all previous Radiohead digital income (though the band's music wasn't on iTunes at the time) and that Radiohead made more money off In Rainbows before its CD release alone than they made in total from 2003's Hail To The Thief.

Between physical CDs, the expanded box sets and digital downloads, In Rainbows has sold approximately 3 million copies in the U.S. and U.K. combined. It sold 30,000 copies its first week on iTunes in the U.S. as well. Roughly 1.75 million physical CDs have been sold, with 100,000 copies of the limited edition box set sold through the band's own W.A.S.T.E. merchandising.

Warner Chappell Head of Business Affairs Jane Dyball notes that the average price paid for the album fell as the die-hard fans purchased it first, then the casual fans followed. Also, BitTorrent downloads of In Rainbows outnumbered the official downloads from Radiohead.com.

Music Ally notes that Warner Chappell held a major, overlooked role in the rollout of In Rainbows, because "by licensing directly (i.e. outside the collecting society network) and by offering a genuine one stop shop for licensing (i.e. combining all the digital rights into one offer from a single entity) the publisher was able to generate far more money for both themselves and the band than would have been possible under the traditional system."

Dow Peak: 14,163.53
October 9th, 2007.