Business Success

Many journalists pursuing new online initiatives are learning that good intentions are not enough for providing news.The latest group to do so is former Rocky Mountain News reporters who started rockymountainindependent.com this past summer using a membership payment and advertising model. The effort collapsed Oct. 4 with them telling readers, “We put everything into producing content and supporting our independent partners, but we can no longer afford to produce enough content to justify the membership.”There...

As publishers move more and more content to the Internet, mobile services, and e-readers, these digital activities change the structures and processes of underlying business operations. Many publishers, however, pay insufficient attention to the implications of these changes and thus miss out on many benefits possible with digital operations.This occurs because publishers become focused on issues of content delivery and uncritically accept the fundamental elements of the processes involving platforms...

This is not trick question and it is being increasingly asked as public broadcasters grow larger, offer multiple channels, move into cross-media operations, and increasingly commercialize their operations.The Federal Communications Commission will have to consider that question shortly when it considers the effort of WGBH Education Foundation—operator of WGBH-TV, the highly successful Boston-based public service broadcaster—to purchase the commercial radio station WCRB-FM.WGBH is the top ranked...