8 posts and columns on operating costs

As Predicted, a Not-Terrible Quarter for the New York Times: Print Ads Shrink Less, and the Web Actually Grows

in Media on February 10, 2010 at 5:55 am PT

A nice Q4 for the New York Times, at least by newspaper standards: Revenue shrank, but not as badly as in the past, and operating costs continued to come down. But that pay wall is still going up.

New Way to Flit from Store to Store

in The Mossberg Solution on February 2, 2010 at 6:16 pm PT

As the home base for a Web search, Flit.com makes online shopping feel more like a day at the mall.
flit

Dell Polishes Off Polish Ops

in News on December 3, 2009 at 7:07 am PT

Dell is unloading another PC factory. The company is selling off its two-year-old computer manufacturing plant in Lodz, Poland, to Foxconn, the world’s largest contract electronics manufacturer, for an undisclosed sum.
dellguy1

AOL: We Need to Fire 2,500 “Volunteers”

in Media on November 19, 2009 at 5:08 am PT

AOL, which has already told investors it will spend up to $200 million firing a good chunk of its staff, has now told employees. The company is looking for “up to 2,500 volunteers,” CEO Tim Armstrong told his staff today. That’s a third of AOL’s payroll.
tim_armstrong_lg

Sirius Breaks Even

in News on November 5, 2009 at 5:12 am PT

Sirius XM Radio’s financial position is improving. Sadly, the same cannot be said for its subscribership. Reporting earnings this morning, the company broke even in its third quarter. Good news, but it was tempered with a bit of bad. Because Sirius’s subscriber growth is slowing.
sirius-150x150

A Mixed Bag From the New York Times: Q2 Costs Got Better, Ads Got Worse, and Web Dollars Disappeared

in Media on July 23, 2009 at 6:00 am PT

We saw a mini-rally in newspaper shares yesterday, based on the notion that the worst may be over for the industry. But the New York Times’s Q2 results are pretty inconclusive: The publisher was able to take a big chunk out of costs, but revenue kept plunging, and Web ads dropped by more than 15 percent. The paper did say, though, that things got less bad as the quarter progressed, and that they’ll get slightly less bad next quarter, too.

CBS Interactive/CNET Re-Org: The Complete Memo

in Media on December 11, 2008 at 4:37 pm PT

CBS paid $1.8 billion for CNET last summer, and today it is dealing with the consequences: A re-org and layoffs. CBS execs won’t release a total for the number of people fired, so news will be coming out in piecemeal fashion for some time. In the meantime, here’s CBS Interactive’s new corporate structure, detailed in an internal memo distributed late today.

Adobe Announces Crash® CS4 Professional

in News on December 3, 2008 at 2:56 pm PT

Well, no wonder Adobe won’t have an exhibition booth at Macworld Conference & Expo 2009–the company seems to be sacking employees who might have otherwise staffed it.… Citing the standard litany of economic tribulations, Adobe Wednesday reduced its fourth-quarter outlook and said it will cut 600 jobs around the world–about eight percent of its workforce.