Comments on: The Winner’s Curse: Why Media Companies Really Underperform

By: Greg

Greg — Sat, 22 Jan 2011 21:15:06 +0000

Ava,

Sorry never read or heard of your book. Certainly not a bestseller here in Kiev.

As for credit, you’ll notice at the bottom that I did give credit to the Mathew 25 fund, which did actually assist me with my post and am careful to be scrupulous about linking to sources (as you can see throughout the site). The difference between operating losses and write-offs isn’t really that complicated and, I would submit, we’re probably not the only ones who noticed the problem.

So sorry, I would give credit if any was due, but there isn’t. I’m sure, however, that your book is a fine publication and I wish you luck with it.

- Greg

By: Ava Seave

Ava Seave — Sat, 22 Jan 2011 20:50:56 +0000

Hi Greg —
I agree with a lot of what your saying, mainly because it seems that many of the ideas come from a book I published with two co-authors last year: The Curse of the Mogul: What’s Wrong With the World’s Leading Media Companies. Here’s more information about the book in case any of the readers want to read the original. http://quantummedia.com/Links_Reviews/The_Curse_of_The_Mogul.
Lucky for you, it is coming out in paperback in just a few weeks. The authors are academics, so we love our ideas to be discussed, but a little credit might be in order. Regards,
Ava Seave

By: Greg

Greg — Sun, 10 Oct 2010 10:25:05 +0000

Pulkit,

I think you’re absolutely right and many traditional media companies are doing a wonderful job in digital. I even wrote about some here: http://www.digitaltonto.com/2010/4-unlikely-digital-heroes/

I think the big difference is that when companies focus on acquiring digital skills rather digital businesses they tend to do quite well. However, when they dream up some big strategy the tend to overpay and fail.

- Greg

By: Pulkit

Pulkit — Sun, 10 Oct 2010 09:42:29 +0000

Greg,

A really intriguing analysis. The approach is wonderful, I however believe that some part of businesses of traditional media have actually moved on into the new age internet media. Although a big chunk of business revenues continue to be received from traditional media sources, we cannot discount their foray into to modern media sources. Would be wonderful if you could research into what part of these businesses come from new age acquisitions of non traditional media.

Pulkit

By: Greg

Greg — Sun, 10 Oct 2010 04:52:23 +0000

Good point, Dana!

Thanks.

- Greg

By: dana weissenberg

dana weissenberg — Sat, 09 Oct 2010 22:42:41 +0000

regarding “the missing link” , let’s also consider that traditional media continues to have extremely large margins depsite the decline in traditional media consumption and usage and “new” media (not so new any more by the way) operates on very slim margins as they continue to be held to unreasonable expectations. i would love to see any form of traditional media step-up and share the cost per acquistion-they’re rarely held to this expectation.

thanks for sharing the article.

By: Greg

Greg — Sun, 05 Sep 2010 17:29:32 +0000

Falk,

The sector data came from the Matthew 25 fund. The rest of the data came from the individual companies’ annual SEC filings. 2008 and 2009 data were used because those were the crises years in which net earnings were negative.

Glad you like the post.

- Greg

By: Falk

Falk — Sun, 05 Sep 2010 15:44:25 +0000

Greg,

I am impressed by your approach. But could you be a bit more specific about the sources of your data. Why did you only choose 2009 and 2008 for comparison. And why did you not provide the Total revenues of the compared companies to give the reader an Idea of what size companies you are talking about. Maybe you can provide some more information. Apart from that very interesting research.

Falk

By: Greg

Greg — Wed, 25 Aug 2010 16:09:32 +0000

Thx:-)

By: Matt

Matt — Wed, 25 Aug 2010 16:07:49 +0000

This is great