meek-investor

Family owned and controlled businesses face challenges because of difficulties in passing firms on to succeeding generations of the family. Tax issues are a common problem, but the biggest challenges involve finding effective managers among the family and the needs for new capital that diminishes family control. How family members view the company over time create problems for sustainability. Individuals who establish firms tend to view it as a business enterprise; their children tend to see it as supporting the family; and multigenerational family businesses tend see it has providing status in the community. These latter priorities can interfere with profit and reinvestment objectives and endanger long-term sustainability. As a consequence of these kinds of factors, only about 30% of family firms are passed to a second generation and only 13% reach a third generation. This brings us to the challenges facing media firms. Three big companies—News Corp., Viacom, and New York Times Co.— a...

I recently forged my way the myriad of news reports on networks, papers, and web sites and discovered lots of attention-grabbing stories: Reuters had a story about the death of Mickey Rourke’ 18-year-old pet chihuahua. CBS News reported on cart that transforms into a sleeping tent for the homeless. Associated Press told me that Twitter was limiting message length and intending to start testing ways to make money. The New York Times informed me about people walking and running in stairwells as a means of keeping fit. CNN reported that Lance Armstrong’s stolen bicycle had been recovered. The Los Angeles Times reported on a city council candidate criticizing a rival for being defense attorney that represented a client who was accused of shooting a sea lion four years ago. ABC News carried a story on its website about efforts to produce cola containing cow urine in India. MSNBC reported that Starbucks is increasing the products its offers in offers as part of an effort to improve its perfo...

Financial pages are full of developments and changes at newspaper companies and these are being commented upon anxiously by those in the industry. Unpleasant conditions certainly abound, but these development are not indications that the industry is dead or dying in the near future. What they signal is that things which worked in the past are not working now, that newspaper companies are badly in need of restructuring, refocusing, and renewal, and that the boards of the companies and the company managers are taking badly needed action. The techniques for restructuring are no mystery. First, you need some cash. This can be obtained by attracting new capital through investment or loans. New York Times Co. did this recently by borrowings $250 million from Carlos Slim. Other firms are looking for friendly investors with liquidity. Another way of raising cash is by turning assets into cash. A classic move made by many types of firms is the sell their building and lease back any space that i...

The bankruptcy filings of the Minneapolis Star-Tribune and Tribune Co. are cast by many as a sign of the continuing decline of the newspaper market. However, it is noteworthy that neither firm is owned by a company with a newspaper heritage, but by firms in the newspaper business primarily for financial gain. The Tribune’s owner is from the real estate business and the Star Trib’s is from private equity. There is no doubt that the newspaper business is facing a difficult time now, but the business origins of the owners are important because their perceptions of bankruptcy, how the community will react, and how the company will be seen afterwards are colored by the norms and mores of those business fields. Newspaper companies have long played special roles in communities, exercising social and political influence, and promoting corporate responsibility, accountability, and community standards. Publishers and editors have typically sat with the other civic leaders on boards and committee...

The announcement that the Seattle Post-Intelligencer is being put up for sale—a legally required step before shutting down the paper because it is in a joint operating agreement—has stunned many of its journalists. Their reactions, in news stories and their own blogs, reflect the continuing state of denial that their profession exists within a news business affected by financial and economic forces. Or, at least, their belief that it should be immune from them. It should comes as no surprise that Hearst Corp. is seeking to end publication of the P-I. Its joint operation with Seattle Times has been an unhappy marriage and it has not been financially effective for many years. Changes made in the agreement in recent years have been insufficient to turn the operation around and the paper and JOA operation have continued to be a financial drain on its participants. A similar offer-for-sale-before-shutting-down process is underway in Denver, where the Rocky Mountain News is likely to cease p...

There is one upside to all the advertising disappearing from newspapers……Consumers can now really see what they are paying for. Opps, that’s a BIG downside. With the effects of economic downturn clearly hitting retailers everywhere, they have slashed their advertising budgets and are advertising as little as possible. For the first time in my lifetime it means you can turn several pages in many newspapers without seeing an advertisement. When I read the Boston Globe on Tuesday (January 7), it essentially had 2 pages of ads in the 10-page A section, 3 pages of ads in the 16-page B section, and 1 page in the 8-page C section. It had no ads on page 1 (although it has been announced they will start doing so soon) and the daily classified section is no longer being published on weekdays. What was left was editorial content. Unfortunately, what was there wasn’t pretty. In reading the paper I realized that about half the stories were from news agencies and services and that I had read many of...

First it was record companies suing Napster and peer-to-peer file sharers, and then it was media companies such as Viacom, Universal Music Group, and Agence France Presse suiting Google, YouTube, and Facebook for distributing content whose rights they owned. Now GateHouse Media has filed suit against another newspaper firm, the New York Times Co., for publishing content from its websites and papers on Boston.com. That media companies are suing each other is a sure sign of the maturation of online distribution and that money is starting to flow—albeit slowly and at levels far below that of traditional media, which still account for more than two-thirds of all consumer and advertiser expenditures But the lawsuits really point out the weakness of revenue distribution for use of intellectual property online. In publishing, well-developed systems for trading rights and collecting payments exist. In radio, systems for tracking songs played and ensuring artists, composers, arrangers, and musi...