The Cable Gamer thinks that Fox Business News is pretty cool, but TCG also thinks that we ain't seen nothin' yet--and neither haveThe New York Times or CNBC!
That is, Rupert Murdoch is going to dramatically modernize and upgrade The Wall Street Journal--which Murdoch's News Corporation purchased earlier this year--making it more of a threat to the NYT. And then some day relatively soon, FBN is going to crack open even more latent value in the WSJ. And when that FBN + WSJ synergy comes, look out!
Specifically, look out, NYT and CNBC! The WSJ, turbocharged by FBN--and the likes of super-newsmen/showmen Murdoch and Roger Ailes--will blow the Times away in newspapering, and CNBC in television-ing (or whatever news-delivery is called five or ten years hence). That's TCG's prediction, based on watching these various media properties over the past 10 years or so. I mean, look at how little value CNBC got out of its existing relationship with the Journal. Even now, it was Fox News, not CNBC, that had the brains to turn the legendary Journal editoral page into a TV show, the "Journal Editorial Report."
So now the Times' sun is setting; the era in which it could set much of the national agenda--in a liberal-left direction, of course--is coming to an end.
And I am not the only one who sees it this way: Here's a hot headline in the latest The New York Observer: "Murdoch To Times: I Will Bury You! Keller Bristles." Now perhaps ace NYO reporter Michael Calderone doesn't quite like that header, since it's so inflammatory, but it's certainly accurate.
("Keller," btw, refers to Bill Keller, the managing editor of the Times, who reports to the Times' heir-CEO, Arthur Sulzberger Jr., a Certified Upper Class Twit--nobody cares what "Pinch" Sulzberger thinks, except to make fun of him.)
Calderone speculates on what Murdoch and the WSJ--and down the road, WSJ/FBN might do to the NYT, which makes the Observer-man's piece compelling read, as we all look ahead to the Converged Future, when all media are found on one screen.
And as a helpful data point, or data points, we might consider this chart above, showing that Murdoch's News Corp. stock (the red line) is up more than 125 percent in the last five years, while NYT stock (the blue line) is down more than 58 percent in the same period.
Pretty cool, huh? It's from Google Finance, and if TCG can figure out how to do it, anyone can!
So the Times is toast. But TCG can't help but think: If Google ever decided to get into the Cable Game--that would be something.
