Man Of La Merger Says...Merge More!

QuixoticMaybe

ButNeitherTheDonNorCervantesVille

Mr. Conrad Black, the man who once controlled 59 of 105 of Canada's daily newspapers, writing under the headline 'How the Postmedia-Nordstar merger can save journalism' in the National Post, leads with the following:

"It was announced this week that advanced negotiations are underway for an effective merger between Nordstar Capital, the publisher of the Toronto Star and the Metroland suburban newspapers, and Postmedia, which publishes this newspaper as well as the Sun newspapers and the principal English-language daily newspapers in Montreal, Ottawa, Calgary, Edmonton and Vancouver. This is not surprising, as both companies have been losing money, which is a process that even our governments in all their profligacy will eventually discover cannot continue indefinitely. The commercial advantage of such an arrangement would be to merge the business aspects of the two companies, while maintaining editorial separation: the savings would be considerable, at no cost to editorial quality..."

Leaving aside the gratuitous comment about 'our governments' for the moment*, anyone who reads the Vancouver Sun and the Province with any regularity, and has any historical memory of Lotuslandian newspapers past whatsoever, would very likely beg to differ that such mergers have 'no cost to editorial quality' not to mention all the jobs lost to the considerable 'savings'.

Mr. Black goes on to explain, in his view at least, how things got this way:

"...Both groups have had a rocky recent financial history and an uneven editorial performance..."

Gosh.

Given that statement, and all the explanatory fodder that follows it, the inattentive reader might assume that the real problem driving all this loss of big media profitability is financial history and editorial performance and not, say, the de-monetization of massive legacy newspaper chains that were built to rely on economies of scale that have been dismantled, piece-by-profitable-piece, by the machinations of de-regulated digital disruption.

Well.

It turns out that good Mr. Black, does mention the internet when it comes to providing a rationale for why he and his 'associates' got out of the 'Postmedia' side of the nouveau mega-merger side of the equation  back at the turn of the century:

"...Postmedia, a company whose principal assets were assembled by my associates and myself, including the National Post, which Ken Whyte and I founded in 1998, became entangled in the financial difficulties of the succeeding owners, after we made the strategic decision to depart the business after carefully considering the implications of the internet..."

Gosh.

That was some strategic decision, that decision to divest himself of all those merged newspaper assets way back in the year 2000 after carefully considering the 'implications of the internet'.

But here's the thing.

It's not like all those the 'implications of the internet' have lessened in the ensuing twenty-three years, right?

So, given that all that, how can Mr. Black expect one more massive newspaper chain merger to save anything at all in the year 2023?

The key, says Mr. Black, is to 'increase their quality':

"...The way to operate newspapers now is not to keep reducing quality by cutting costs, in a race to the bottom against declining revenues, but to increase their quality, which can be done relatively cheaply as it is a distressed industry and there are many talented journalists who are underemployed or doing work that they don’t enjoy. If the quality of the product rises, cover prices can be raised and more of the revenue base can be contributed by the proceeds of newspaper sales..."

Hmmmm...

Once again, I refer the reader back to Mr. Black's initial comments regarding how mergers result in cost-cutting savings while maintaining editorial separation and all that did to 'increase the quality' of the two daily newspapers currently produced by Postmedia in Vancouver.

As a counter-point, it is my opinion that the one, and perhaps only, time that Mr. Black himself significantly increased the quality of newspapers in this country was not due to any merger that reduced competition. Instead, it occurred when Mr. Black and his 'associates' themselves increased competition when they started, wait for it...

...The National Post.

Heckfire (and I can't believe I'm actually going to type this)...

On this one I actually agree with Barbara Kay.

OK?

_____

*'Our governments' according to the Lord of Crossharbour?...Yes, that's right!...In case you missed it,  the good Lord Black is once again, as of this very spring, a Canadian citizen.


.