AOL Picking Up Journalists Shed By Conventional Media

Hugh Pickens writes "David Weir writes on Bnet that the thousands of journalists being let go from newspapers, magazines, and television networks have increasingly been showing up on AOL's payroll — over 1,500 in the last eighteen months — a number AOL expects to double or even triple over the coming year. 'Over time, talent is a fixed cost,' says Marty Moe, Senior Vice-President of AOL Media. 'You can syndicate it, distribute it as you scale. Furthermore, we are already the largest branded content company in the US, with an audience of 75 million domestic uniques. At our size, we can leverage the cost of our publishing and content management systems along with the talent and make the whole thing do-able on an advertising model.' Weir writes that AOL's turnaround started three years ago via the acquisition of Weblogs, Inc., and its set of branded verticals, including Engadget in technology, Autoblog covering the auto industry, and Joystiq covering gaming."

Comments

The Big Media-of-Media Shift

[chazd1]

I think this is pretty big news.

It seems just like when Virgin Atlanic airlines took advantage of complacent and poorly managed (at the top) Pan Am Airlines and cherry picted talent. Look who is around now. I think we may finally be seeing the shift in media from print to web for newspapers. It is a big ship and it takes time. Industries reinvent themselves, sometimes as other companies.