I'm not sure, given the 2009 business environment, that the announcement could have come any other way, but here it is:
"This move will allow us to strengthen investment in our core businesses - those parts of our portfolio that have the greatest potential for growth - and ensure our long-term success. We remain committed to building our trade show group and affiliated brands. These assets continue to be a key part of The Nielsen Company's overall portfolio and we strongly believe they are positioned to grow as the economy recovers. In addition, we'll continue to assess the strategic fit of our remaining portfolio ..." and blah, blah ...
That is not about a bank divesting a health club. It is the jettisoning of a journalism institution: Editor & Publisher magazine. Neilsen sold Adweek, Brandweek, Mediaweek, The Clio Awards, Backstage, Billboard, Film Journal International and The Hollywood Reporter to something called e5 Global Media Holdings, LLC, but closed E&P and Kirkus Reviews.
It's a bitter pill for the newsie industry, but this stuff is happening so frequently and so devastatingly (look at the New York Times newsroom just since yesterday) that when some of us say "stick a fork in newspapers, they're dead" it has something of a hollow sound. Sure they are, BUT WHAT'S NEXT? WHO'S GONNA FILL THE GAP?
We'll get to that soon enough. Right now let's just take a few minutes to mourn the passing of E&P, a very good industry publication that deserves a better obit than it got.
OMG! When I was working with the newspaper industry, E&P was my bible. I read it faithfully and occasionally contributed to it. In 1992 I spoke at a conference on personalizing online newspapers to meet an individual reader's needs. I was shot down in flames. "No one will ever want personalized news."
ReplyDeleteI do like my e-papers personalized, but I hate to lose the serendipitousness of browsing and spying something I would NEVER search for.
Alas. What will fill the void????