College media in the crosshairs
February 14, 2007 in General Media, industry news, management
CICM’s Business Beat #
General manager of The Daily Tar Heel, Kevin Schwartz made a post yesterday on the CMA list-serv regarding Gannett’s acquisition of The Central Florida Future, the student newspaper of the University of Central Florida. You can find the story of the sell in the news column on the right hand side of the page. #
Here’s the brief story as it appeared in Florida Today paper. #
This is Gannett’s second acquisition of a student newspaper. The Florida State paper was the first. #
Is there a pattern here? #
Is college media in the crosshairs? #
At a media conference in December, 2006, Gannett’s corporate brass gave a detailed business report to Credit Suisse, a major investing house. It’s basically an annual report without all the mind-numbing statistics. #
The report is available online in podcast form until March 7. #
You cannot directly link to the podcast. Instead, go to this site and click on the Credit Suisse report which will give you an option to listen. #
This 53 minute Gannett report is required listening for anyone interested in the future of journalism. A theme repeating throughout was the development of “niche: audiences. #
This is a major report for a major stockholder. It’s very interesting that Gannett’s Chairman, President, and CEO, Mr. Dubow, makes mention of the aquistion of the Florida State student paper (10:10) on the podcast. #
A CEO mentioning the aquistion of a student newspaper at a major stockholders meeting? #
This is a company with 90 daily newspapers including USA Today and numerous commercial TV stations. #
This is but another wake up call for college media. #
Colleges have a prime “niche” audience and it looks to me like the corporations have us on their radar. #
This news comes on the heels of Landmark’s announcement of BigLickU. #
I strongly urge you to listen to the full Gannett report mentioned above. It’s downright spooky listening to the media money people talking about the future of journalism. #
Calling this "another wakeup call for college media" is an over-reaction.
This paper, like the one other college paper Gannett previously acquired, was a *commercial*, *for-profit*, *privately-owned* newspaper. This is *not* the model for college newspapers around the United States; in fact, there may be only one or two similar papers in the entire country. These papers, while they aim at the student market and employ students, are *not* traditional college newspapers. Treating them as such without even noting how different these papers are does a great disservice to readers.
*If* Gannett buys out any of the vast majority college papers owned by colleges and universities, or any of the independently-incorporated non-profit college papers which exist at a few dozen schools, *then* this will be news for us to talk about. Until then, I'd suggest that the owners of a small for-profit newspaper business cashing in on their years of hard work by selling out to a larger company is no big deal at all.
Couldn't play the podcast, but no matter. While I agree with Eric 100% on the issue of actual acquisitions of college newspapers, I don't think Ralph would argue that maybe a better headline for his original post would be, "College markets in the crosshairs."
Of that, there can be no doubt, right?
So if college markets are in the cross-hairs, would college media just be "collateral damage?" What are we if not the primary servers of our markets?
It's definitely a wake-up call. Whether or not it's the "model" is irrelevant. I don't think any major chain is going to buy out most college papers because of the models. They'll just build something else that competes – especially online where they have little to lose (relatively speaking) and much market share to gain.
Wow, I didn't expect to hear about another one of these so soon. You already know all of my perspectives on this. Although, I think I should do some follow-up reporting on whether these students will be getting at least minimum wage, access to Gannett's legal department, etc.