Anyone heard about another buyout at Dallas morn news; Chip Brown to Rivals?

I think the DMN is inly interested in SMU because of June Jones. If he can do what he did at the start in Hawaii, he'll have that program turned around in no time and the effort will be worth the coverage, especially since its right in their backyard.

 

ST just went through some space trimming, but does anyone know if sports got affected?

 

I'm a big college fan (although my playing days were decidedly small-collegeville), but I'm just not seeing the lure to go from a general-circulation powerhouse, whatever its recent status, to a subscription fandom site. Pay must be a factor, but is it compelling to write/edit for a readership that is so narrowly focused?

 

I doubt it. But job security might be a factor, too.

There's got to be a host of other reasons why one would make the jump outside of simply pay, though.

 

What I have heard is that Chip will be writing for Orangebloods.com but also will be covering the Big 12 for rivals. He also has a radio show in Austin that is starting to gain traction.

 

The dude who was running Orangebloods by himself up until this week drives a Beamer convertible. Rumor was he was clearing six figures a year.

There might not be a heavy market for subscription services related to all schools. But there sure as hell is for the University of By God Texas.

 

A quick check of the message board on that site showed there were more than 700 people reading it at that time — on a Sunday evening, which wouldn't seem like a prime time for people to be reading a message board.

They probably have several thousand subscribers, each paying roughly either $10 a month or $80-something per year.

There's a lot of money to be made on some of those sites.

 

Thinking about the money aspect of a site like this a little more ...

If the publisher of the site gets a little less than half of what someone pays for a subscription — Rivals.com would get the other portion — I'd estimate that each subscriber to the site is worth roughly $40 per year to the publisher. And this is a low estimate.

So if the site has 1,000 subscribers for a year, you're talking $40,000 to the publisher. So 2,000 means $80,000. Then 3,000 means $120,000.

When I checked out that message board, it said the record for subscribers signed into the message board at one time was 3,400.

Of course there are costs associated with running a site like that, including paying other writers, stringers, photographers, etc. But we're still talking about potential to make a lot of money at a site that covers a school with a huge fan base.

 

The good news for Chip is he can now be the fan boy he's always wanted to be. He sucked up to Mack and Sally Brown big time when he took over the beat. His fellow writers started calling him Eddie Haskell, I'm told. Then he tried to get objective, and Mack and Sally turned on him. Wow, what a shock.

He wore UT garb to the 2003 Final Four in New Orleans (where UT was playing) when he was covering the Dallas Cowboys. Then he slobbered all over Rick Barnes.

Chip's where he belongs.

 

Ouch

 

500 leaving belo

from d magazine's frontburner blog on monday:

Weeks of newsroom rumors about looming job cuts came true this morning when Belo CEO Robert Decherd sent a letter to shareholders outlining the tremendous challenges facing the newspaper company. After record losses in the first two quarters of 2008, the Dallas Morning News owner believes it needs to get rid of nearly 15 percent of its full-time workforce (it is offering voluntary buyouts, but will institute layoffs if it doesn’t get enough “volunteers”). Also, Decherd says the company will sell off some of its real estate property. Maybe some near the new convention hotel, which has probably gone up in value, hmmm?

and on a related note, belo's "quick" publication will be going to weekly.

 

Scroll even further down and you discover the big lie;

http://newsosaur.blogspot.com/