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Financial pages are full of developments and changes at newspaper companies and these are being commented upon anxiously by those in the industry. Unpleasant conditions certainly abound, but these development are not indications that the industry is dead or dying in the near future. What they signal is that things which worked in the past are not working now, that newspaper companies are badly in need of restructuring, refocusing, and renewal, and that the boards of the companies and the company managers are taking badly needed action. The techniques for restructuring are no mystery. First, you need some cash. This can be obtained by attracting new capital through investment or loans. New York Times Co. did this recently by borrowings $250 million from Carlos Slim. Other firms are looking for friendly investors with liquidity. Another way of raising cash is by turning assets into cash. A classic move made by many types of firms is the sell their building and lease back any space that i

First it was record companies suing Napster and peer-to-peer file sharers, and then it was media companies such as Viacom, Universal Music Group, and Agence France Presse suiting Google, YouTube, and Facebook for distributing content whose rights they owned. Now GateHouse Media has filed suit against another newspaper firm, the New York Times Co., for publishing content from its websites and papers on Boston.com. That media companies are suing each other is a sure sign of the maturation of online distribution and that money is starting to flow—albeit slowly and at levels far below that of traditional media, which still account for more than two-thirds of all consumer and advertiser expenditures But the lawsuits really point out the weakness of revenue distribution for use of intellectual property online. In publishing, well-developed systems for trading rights and collecting payments exist. In radio, systems for tracking songs played and ensuring artists, composers, arrangers, and musi

Recent weeks have not been kind to newspaper company finances, with lost value and unhappy investors plaguing publicly traded firms. The Journal Register Co. was delisted from New York Stock Exchange because it share price remained below $1, reducing its market capitalization about $12 million, less than one-fifth the capitalization required to be traded on the big board. The Sun-Times Media Group stock also continued trading below $1 and its market capitalization dropped to $61 million, drawing a delisting warming from the New York Stock Exchange. Although those firms have hardly been notable as the best managed firms in recent years, their problems in inspiring investors are symptomatic of difficulties facing newspaper firms in the market. Meanwhile, Moody’s Investors Service lowered the New York Times and McClatchy Co. debt ratings and lowered the Gatehouse Media even further in the junk category. Other firms are also having problems with capital related issues. Rumors are rampant t