The American newspaper industry has recently been shaken by the sale of two of its oldest and most renowned newspapers. Just a week before Jeff Bezos' shock acquisition of The Washington Post, The New York Times Company had announced the sale of The Boston Globe in a less surprising deal.
Perhaps the most worrying thing about those acqusitions was the fact that they revealed how lowly newspapers are valued these days: The New York Times Co. had paid $1.1 billion for The Boston Globe in 1993 and now, 20 years later, got rid of it for a mere $70 million. The Washington Post, which had last been sold in 1933 when it wasn't nearly the newspaper it is today, changed owners for $250 million, which is less than what the NYT Co. had paid for the low-profile weekly Worcester Telegram & Gazette in 1999.
There have been other deals in the past few years as well, which all show the same dramatic devaluation of newspapers in the United States.
The Dramatic Devaluation of American Newspapers
Description
This chart shows the valuation of U.S. newspapers as implied by transactions they were involved in.
