Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2020/10/24/are-the-tabloids-in-a-death-spiral.html
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Almost would have been appropriate to headline this story with EXCLUSIVE: TABLOIDS BROKE, WEEKS AWAY FROM SHUTTING DOWN!
And thanks for leading this story with actual information.
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Behind American Media Inc is Chatham Asset Management, which continues to glom up newspapers.
They forced AMI to sell off the National Enquirer, end of 2019.
Now, the question is, who’s behind the Chatham Asset Management hedge fund?
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Let’s face it, all the competition from FOX News, OANN and the White House is eating their lunch.
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Yep, this. When the news coming out of such mainstream luminaries as FOX is more bizarre than the fever dream wishes of the Enquirer and others, people have no incentive to keep buying your stuff. But as these rags die, NY Post and others will merely morph into the new versions, riding their wave of “semi-respectability” for a couple of decades until they, too, inevitably fade into grocery store stand fodder.
By the way, my favorite thing to do while standing in grocery store lines is shift the tabloids around so that real magazines or newspapers are covering the crap ones. Small level of protest I realize, but still satisfying.
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Here ya go:
This link has a bit more info than Bloomberg; did a cursory search on a couple of the principals, but not much info to be found. Not for free, anyway.
I hope trust-busting comes back into fashion someday, and that Hedge Funds & Vulture Capitalists are included in the mix.
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Hrm, headed by Anthony Melchiorre, the hotel dude who created Hotel Impossible.
Seems he worked for Trump for a few years. Odd, that.
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Unless you mean that very literally, I don’t much care.
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I doubt there will be a tip-off of whose money is behind it, unless one of the managers has a current or previous connection to a suggestive organization.
I’m guessing it’s some hard right conservative/libertarian money like the Koch and Friends. Newspaper chains are a bad financial investment these days, so it’s probably for ideology.
They own the Postmedia chain in Canada, laughing at Canadian ownership laws by having a bunch of Canadian John and Jane Doe bobbleheads with non-voting shares. They’ve been imposing a central editorial policy that’s definitely American conservative. Since they own so much of the conservative media in Canada, cracking down on them would be a very political act.
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In brighter news, the Weekly World News made their kickstarter goal.
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I was vaguely aware of Hotel Impossible & wiki’d it for details.
Never heard of the man, otherwise. Or any of the other principals.
Yeah, that’s what I was looking for. Admittedly, I didn’t look too far or deep, but nothing obvious was apparent. What’s strange is the lack of information about them on the website. It’s like this is the only job they ever had…
I don’t doubt that.
It might also be so they can write off the losses for tax purposes.
Strange how they are able to find those loopholes. It’s almost like they were put there on purpose.
Shades of ClearChannel Radio!
Sure it would.
Perhaps it could be framed in terms of returning control to local concerns, etc.
It’s sad (but not surprising) to hear that Media Consolidation by RWNJs is a concern in Canada.
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Hm.
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They’ve been braindead for ages, letting them go would be a kindness.
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Also include anything owned or run by Murdock, The Daily Mail, The Sun, The Daily Express, and any other crappy Red Top rags that scrape the bottom of the journalistic barrel to feed the prurient interests of your average mouth-breathing bottom feeder!
And breathe…
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The motherfing NY Post.
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The only time I see or hear of tabloids is when BB uses their stories to create content on their site, so yeah, hopefully gone soon so better web content is created.
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I’ve long been hoping that millenials and other young 'uns will kill off all the soap operas and tabloids. The world would be a much better place without them.
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I don’t know what function the tabloids serve–Fox has taken over their territory.
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Birdcage liner is always in demand.
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