Comments on: As Newspapers Die in America, They Burgeon in Other Countries http://www.businesspundit.com/newspapers-die-in-america/ Entrepreneurship, Startup Companies and Business Philosophy Mon, 23 Nov 2009 02:54:25 -0600 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.5 hourly 1 By: Alejandro http://www.businesspundit.com/newspapers-die-in-america/comment-page-1/#comment-7625 Alejandro Mon, 28 Jul 2008 21:13:02 +0000 http://www.businesspundit.com/newspapers-die-in-america/#comment-7625 Over the last years several new newspapers have been launched in Buenos Aires (Perfil, Crítica, Sur, El Argentino) but I don't see it as a great industry to be in. Most of those sell only a few thousand papers daily. Perfil and Sur are weekend-only, El Argentino is a free paper (which doesn't abide by the same rules as the paid dailies). Furthermore, Sur and El Argentino are actually closer to propaganda than journalism (they're financed by a shady media group which regularly favors the Kirchner family). Meanwhile, the large Buenos Aires dailies are selling less. Clarín sold around 380,000 daily papers on average weekdays last year, which hadn't happened in decades. And we're talking about a paper published by an enormous media conglomerate including top-rated radios and TV stations (both air and cable) in a city with a population of 9 million, which also gets national distribution. La Nación, Clarín's closest competitor, sells just around 150,000. I don't see those numbers as a fertile market. Maybe smaller provincial towns with less internet connections might be a better place for newspapers, but Buenos Aires isn't much different from large first world cities. Over the last years several new newspapers have been launched in Buenos Aires (Perfil, Crítica, Sur, El Argentino) but I don’t see it as a great industry to be in. Most of those sell only a few thousand papers daily. Perfil and Sur are weekend-only, El Argentino is a free paper (which doesn’t abide by the same rules as the paid dailies). Furthermore, Sur and El Argentino are actually closer to propaganda than journalism (they’re financed by a shady media group which regularly favors the Kirchner family).

Meanwhile, the large Buenos Aires dailies are selling less. Clarín sold around 380,000 daily papers on average weekdays last year, which hadn’t happened in decades. And we’re talking about a paper published by an enormous media conglomerate including top-rated radios and TV stations (both air and cable) in a city with a population of 9 million, which also gets national distribution. La Nación, Clarín’s closest competitor, sells just around 150,000. I don’t see those numbers as a fertile market. Maybe smaller provincial towns with less internet connections might be a better place for newspapers, but Buenos Aires isn’t much different from large first world cities.

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