

Andreessen: "If you own newspapers, sell. If you own TV stations, sell..." - nickb
http://dealbook.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/07/09/sun-valley-the-old-media-death-watch-continues/?ref=technology

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sethg
Industry behemoths have been known to change to keep up with the times (case
in point: IBM), although it's damn rare. So maybe some of the studios and
newspaper companies will figure out a way to endure.

It would be a useful exercise to go over the list of companies that were in
the S&P 500 in 1950 and see which ones did better than their peers in
1950-2000 and which ones faded from view. Unfortunately, the last time I
checked, online stock listings only go back to about 1970, and with all the
mergers, breakups, name changes, and stock splits that have happened since
then, running these numbers by hand strikes me as a non-trivial project.

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prakash
AFAIK, India is the only country where newspaper subscription is/has been
increasing over the past few years. I have even seen new papers launched in
the past couple of years.

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fortes
Hispanic markets have done better as well.

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joeter
I started thinking on this subject after the major cable networks started
picking up premium channel reruns.

It seems advertisements alone aren't covering expenses. The premium content
(with higher production costs) brings increased viewers, so cable networks
license premium content for better advertisement revenue.

However, I assume the premium channels will continue existing and prosper as
long they get their tech right.

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pchristensen
While I wouldn't want to run a newspaper or TV station (although I could do
some cool stuff if given reins), I'd probably keep my movie studio. Movies are
still a pretty premium form of entertainment, whereas newspapers and TV are
just ad inventory sales in an era where inventory is increasing.

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ilamont
Marc Andreesen should stick to what he knows: Text. He may be right about
newspapers but his remarks about television and movies are premature.
Audiences may be ready to give up ink smeared on paper but they are not ready
to abandon storytelling delivered on a screen.

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volida
how do you know what he knows?

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ilamont
Look at his areas of expertise. Netscape. Ning. Loudcloud. Don't see any TV or
movie industry experience. Do you?

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pg
Henry Ford probably didn't have a lot of experience with horses either.

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ojbyrne
Sell to whom exactly? Marc has also been quoted as saying "Never sell a
company while it's still growing." In both cases he seems to ignore the
motivation of the buyer.

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nostrademons
Sell to the people who say he's full of hot air and traditional media will be
around for a long time.

Saying that one should sell or buy a security is always an exercise in
predicting the future. When you say "sell", it's shorthand for "In the future,
there will be fewer buyers and more sellers for this than there are now, so
the price will go down, so you should unload now while you can still find
eager buyers." You could be wrong about your future prediction, in which case
you lose money. But if you're right, you stand to profit from all the people
who thought you were an idiot.

I found it curious that a lot of people seem to think Marc is trying to pump &
dump media stocks. He's got plenty of money already, and I bet he dumped all
his old media a long time ago. Rather, I think he wants to be seen as the guy
who correctly foretold the death of old media - his incentive is to be right,
gosh darnit, and not to make a whole lot of money.

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ojbyrne
I don't think he's trying to dump old media stocks - he's trying to promote
new media. The natural way to do that is to attack the "dinosaurs" that are
being replaced.

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nostrademons
Yeah, I realized after I'd posted that I'd misread the comments in question.
Anyway, pumping up new media by attacking old media seems like a pretty risky
strategy - investors are just as likely to go to energy or defense or finance
or other hot/undervalued sectors than to new media. I think it's more likely
Andreesen believes that old media is doomed anyway, and that's _why_ he's
interested in replacing it.

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bprater
And they predicted the demise of the motion picture...

And they predicted the demise of radio...

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hugh
"They" also predicted the demise of the steam locomotive, the horse and cart,
the vacuum tube, the oil lantern and the whaling industry.

Predictions are sometimes right and sometimes wrong, we all know this. Do you
have anything to suggest that the newspaper is more analogous to the motion
picture than to the telegraph?

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vizard
The examples you quote are all technologies. What Marc is also predicting is a
change in the technology of content distribution.

But what is not gonna go away are content producers. I still prefer watching
movies made by Hollywood than home-made videos of cats. Where and how I watch
movies may change but the fact that I will still watch professional made
movies is not very likely to change.

Similarly newspapers may go away as a content distribution mechanism. But
professional reporters and news agencies may not necessarily go away even with
bloggers and social news sites and so on.

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edw519
On the surface, this appears to be a major shift in markets. But deep down
inside, it's really a major shift in philosophy. No one clause better
represents the difference between old and new thinking than:

 _...according to one attendee, who spoke anonymously because the sessions are
off-the-record..._

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MaysonL
How is this new?

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ajkirwin
Well, the way of the future, for television, will be ala carte programming
over IP.

We're cancelling our cable TV service today, as all the shows we like we can
get from the cable networks own websites, or places like Hulu.

We'd even pay to subscribe, over the internet, to a HD stream of a few
channels, if we could!

