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

[SockPuppet]

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.

 

[Some Guy]

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?

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.

 

[Saint Lou]

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.

 

[Saint Lou]

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.

 

[Medial Collateral]

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.

 

[tonysoprano]

Ouch

 

[txsportsscribe]

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.

 

[Football_Bat]

Scroll even further down and you discover the big lie;

http://newsosaur.blogspot.com/

 

[dargan]

Had to have been the hair.

Few people rock a do like Chip Brown.

 

[Medial Collateral]

even if it's faux

 

[dixiehack]

Scroll even further down and you discover the big lie;

http://newsosaur.blogspot.com/

Don't know which one you were referencing, but about a third of the way through is a five-alarm, man the lifeboats call to action. A company that is resorting to receivables financing is about a half-step ahead of the friendly neighborhood bankruptcy trustee.

Tribune gets a ‘payday loan’
Sparing few efforts to raise cash to service its daunting $12.6 billion in debt, the Tribune Co. has taken a highly unusual step for a media company: Borrowing against its future ad revenues.

While it is commonplace and legitimate for companies in many industries to borrow against the value of invoices that customers have yet to pay, most media companies never needed to do this, because their operations historically generated more than enough cash to remain solvent in the few weeks between running an ad and getting a check for it.

But the Tribune Co. reported in a brief press release issued on the eve of the Fourth of July weekend that it has established a line of credit enabling it to borrow up to $300 million against the future value of the advertising revenues that it books. The company already has taken down $225 million of the available funds.

This move, which is roughly akin to a strapped wage-earner borrowing against his next paycheck in what often is called a "payday loan," is but one of several initiatives that Tribune has undertaken to ensure it has sufficient cash to fund the $962 million in interest payments it is obligated to pay this year.

Other steps include selling Newsday, reducing its newspaper staffs by double-digit percentages, dropping 500 pages of newshole a week across its portfolio of publications and cracking down on the consumption of office supplies.

Tribune’s decision to borrow against its receivables struck several media-finance experts as not only unusual but also slightly self-defeating. Instead of waiting for its money for the 60 days it normally takes most advertisers to pay their bills, Tribune will be giving up some of the proceeds in interest payments to Barclays Bank, ensuring that the publisher will collect something less than 100 cents on the dollar.

Tribune did not disclose the terms of the loan, so it is not possible to tell how many pennies it will have to fork over to the bank. If the company paid 7% interest on $225 million for a full year, the bill of nearly $15.8 million would just about pay the salaries of the 150 journalists about to be axed at the Los Angeles Times. Interest of 3.5% for a full year would be nearly $7.9 million, or just about enough to fund the annual compensation of the 80 journalists about to be cut at the Chicago Tribune.

A spot check of newspaper companies determined that no major publisher has found it necessary or economically advantageous to finance its receivables in the same way. The concept is new to Tribune, too.

“No, we haven't done this before,” said Tribune spokesman Gary Weitman in an email responding to my inquiry. “As to why we're doing it now, we simply feel that strategically this is a good move to make. I think it is also worth noting that in the face of what seems to constant doom and gloom (from you and others) about the future of newspapers and newspaper advertising, someone out there thinks the future is strong enough to provide financing backed by advertising receivables.”

Thanks, Barclays.