Today Yahoo.com picked up on Mr. Buffett's recent comments, with the home page lead saying "Buffett's Gloomy Advice."  The article quotes Buffett as saying newspapers are one business he wouldn't buy at any price. Even though he's a reader, and he owns a big chunk of the Washington Post Company (in addition to the Buffalo, NY daily), he now agrees there are plenty of other places to acquire news – and for advertisers to promote. 

I guess the topic is very timely given the Marketwatch.com headline "N.Y. Times hold off on threat to close Boston Globe".  Once again, in what might remind us of an airline negotiation, the owner felt it was up to concessions by the workers, via their union, if the newspaper was to remain in business.  After squeezing $20million out of the workers, the owners agreed not to proceed with a shutdown – today.  But they still have not addressed how a newspaper that is losing $85million/year intends to survive.  With ad revenue plunging over 30% in the first quarter, and readership down another 7% in newspapers nationally, union concessions won't save The Boston Globe.  It takes something that will generate growth.

And perhaps that innovation was also prominent in today's news.  "Amazon expected to lift wraps on large-screen Kindle" was another Marketwatch headline.  Figuring some people will only read a magazine or newspaper in a large format, the new Kindle will allow for easier full page browsing.  According to the article, the New York Times company has said it will be a partner in providing content for the new Kindle.

Let's hope the New York Times does become a full partner in this project.  People want news.  And the only way The Boston Globe and New York Times will survive is if they find an alternative go-to-market approach.  Printing newspapers, with its obvious costs in paper and distribution, is simply no longer viable.  Trying to defend & extend an old business model dedicated to that approach will only bankrupt the company, as it already has bankrupted Tribune Company and several other "media companies."  The market has shifted, and D&E practices like cost cutting will not make the organizations viable.

It's pretty obvious that the future is about on-line media distribution.  We've already crossed the threshold, and competitors (like Marketwatch.com and HuffingtonPost.com) that live in the on-line world are growing fast plus making profits.  What NYT now needs to do is Disrupt its Lock-ins to that old model, and plunge itself into White Space.  I'm not sure that an oversized Kindle is the answer; there are a lot of other products that can deliver news digitally.  But if that's what it takes to get a major journalistic organization to consider switching from analog, physical product to digital on-line distribution as its primary business I'm all for the advancement.  Those who compete in White Space are the ones who learn, adapt, and grow.  Being late can be a major disadvantage, because the laggard doesn't have the market knowledge about what works, and why.

This late in the market evolution, the major print media players are all at risk of survival.  While no one expects The Chicago Tribune or Los Angeles Times to disappear, the odds are much higher than expected.  These businesses are losing a tenuous hold on viability as debt costs eat up cash.   Declining readership and ad dollars makes failure an equally plausible outcome for The Washington Post, New York Times and Boston Globe.   Instead of Disrupting and using White Space, as News Corp  started doing a decade ago (News Corp owns The Wall Street Journal and Marketwatch.com, as well as MySpace.com for example), they have remained stuck in the past.  Now if they don't move rapidly to learn how to make digital, on-line profitable they will disappear to competitors already blazing the new market.