10 Predictions for the News Industry, 2008

My crystal ball's a bit hazy, with images of Sam Zell, Rupert Murdoch, Kevin Martin and revolving doors all swirling about. But, if these things actually happen (as they like to say on "Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me,"), I'll opine on them:

1. Sam Zell and Dean Singleton form a domestic (business) partnership, offering a twist on Zell's "grave digger" business philosophy. Singleton partners up but assigns 47% of what comes to be known as the "living dead initiative" to Hearst and 56% to unnamed partners. NPR uses its Joan Kroc investigative reporting fund to hire forensic accountants to track the partnership's financing.

2. Rupert Murdoch offers Zell and Singleton their own Fox reality show.

3. San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom offers to include the losing-more-than-a-million-dollars-a-week San Francisco Chronicle in city's new acclaimed homeless program. "Tough love" is what the Chron needs, he tells an approving crowd.

4. The San Francisco Bay Guardian's report that Chron editor Phil Bronstein has been sighted panhandling in the Mission, to help balance the newsroom budget, proves unfounded. But it finds a long run on the long tail of the web.

5. NAA updates its own 2008 prediction of ".5% negative growth" in fine print at the bottom of press release saying that U.S. newspapers now have expanded their reach to 112% of American population.

6. After a year in which video broke out and we learned about render and abandon rates, pre-rolls and post-rolls, the ad industry introduces "love handles," new ad spaces that ride side-saddle around rolling video.

7. "Yahoo 1.66" is the new code-name for the next step in the process for Yahoo Consortium members, as progress is promised in "getting the platform right."

8. Google Longevity launches in stealth mode, offering the promise of Eternal Beta for all Google registrants, a kind of digital Ponce de Leon status.

9. The newspaper industry finds a new outsourcing partner. Saying that its old-line delivery is just too expensive a cost center, the new Yahoopalooza Consortium teams up with Amazon, using its Prime delivery service to reach U.S. households. "They were going there more often than us anyhow, so we're piggybacking on their service."

10. And, oh yes, a tenth. Newspaper companies will reallocate their higher education grant giving, away from journalism schools and to newly formed programs focused on "financial engineering."

Comments

[Dave Mastio]

Nice.