Following up a few recent Media Nation posts:
Hyperlocal is about conversation, not traditional news. Writing for the Online Journalism Review, Tom Grubisich takes a deeper look at the Washington Post’s LoudounExtra.com site, recently pronounced a failure by the Wall Street Journal. Grubisich’s verdict is that the site falls short in large measure because it doesn’t provide much in the way of interactivity and social networking.
Parsing the financials at GateHouse Media. The financial blog 247WallSt.com last week claimed that GateHouse Media — a national chain that owns some 100 community newspapers in Eastern Massachusetts — could go broke later this year because of its plummeting stock price and $1.2 billion debt. But, in fact, there is some positive news to report as well.
According to GateHouse, in the first quarter of 2008 revenues were $168.9 million, an increase of 78.4 percent over the previous year. And its EBIDTA (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization) was $30.1 million, up 93.9 percent over the previous year.
A not-so-mysterious increase in listeners. The Boston Globe today profiles “TOUCH 106.1 FM,” a pirate radio station serving the black community that’s been threatened by the FCC. Globe reporter Brian Ballou does a thorough job, but I had to chuckle at his writing that the station’s Internet listenership has recently jumped from 2,000 to 5,000 without offering any possible explanation.
Here is the explanation.
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Anonymous
The only reason the GateHouse revenues are up is because they have been on a buying jag. The figure says nothing at all about the quality of the company or the wisdom of its leaders.