New Life for Newspapers?

May 21st, 2012 by Bob Bly

Many people believe  newspapers are an antiquated, soon-to-be-dead medium.

But if so, why did Warren Buffett — arguably the world’s savviest investor — just buy 63 newspapers for $142 million?

“Berkshire Hathaway doesn’t fool around,” said analyst Edward Atorino. “I don’t think Berkshire Hathaway does anything where they’re going to lose money.”

“We may buy more newspapers,” said Buffett. “I think the economics work out OK.”

 

Share

This entry was posted on Monday, May 21st, 2012 at 11:57 am and is filed under General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

6 responses about “New Life for Newspapers?”

  1. Kerry Stackpole said:

    Interestingly enough, newspapers are one of the most trusted sources for news and information, Nielsen’s Trust in Advertising study says 73% of people in the US and 63% of those globally “trust completely” or “trust somewhat” newspapers over other mediums of communication. This guy Buffett might be on to something.

  2. Gary Grimes said:

    As a journalist turned marketing writer for a contrarian forecasting company, perhaps my perspective is unique. I’ve learned in this industry that often the best investment is the one no one else is willing to make. After all, there’s little downside risk to a market that’s already considered dead. So if I’m investing in newspapers, I’m interested more in the demand for news than I am in the demand for paper.

  3. Bob Bly said:

    Gary: your theory seems credible and I must admit I never thought of it that way. Your contrarian training serves you well.

  4. Bill Cornish said:

    Bob:
    You might want to check the links on your page about Buffett buying the newspapers.

    I tried to connect to 3 of them, but found:
    Chris Marlow’s blog – not found
    DM Wrecks : Tales of Direct Marketing Gone Wrong – not found
    Brian Clark’s Blog – found it, but the link is to the landing page for his course and WordPress add-ons, which strikes me as not the swiftest marketing.

    I don’t know how many of the rest of your links are good, but just thought I’d let you know.

  5. diamond jewellery india said:

    My programmer is trying to convince me to move to .net from PHP.
    I have always disliked the idea because of the costs. But he’s tryiong none the less. I’ve been using Movable-type on a variety of websites for about a
    year and am anxious about switching to another platform.
    I have heard fantastic things about blogengine.net. Is there a way
    I can import all my wordpress posts into it?
    Any help would be greatly appreciated!

  6. automated stock trading syste said:

    Great article. If I might also add. Penny stocks are extremely volatile.
    This means the price of these stocks is changing on a constant basis.
    Therefore, if you plan on investing in penny stocks, it is important that you set
    up an exit plan, and when the time comes to exit, ensure
    you stick to this plan.

Leave a Reply