Content-Type: text/html
Public Ownership and Market Competition Effects on Newspaper Corporations' Financial Performance: A Replication and Challenge
Public Ownership and Market Competition Effects on Newspaper Corporations' Financial Performance: A Replication and Challenge
By Kuang-Kuo Chang, Doctoral Candidate and Geri M. Alumit, Ph.D.-Michigan State University
Submitted to: AEJMC'S Media Management and Economic Division
Contact:
Kuang-Kuo Chang
Michigan State University
301 CAS Bldg.
E. Lansing, MI 48824
W: (517) 432-6186
H: (517) 355-3133
[log in to unmask]
Note: Overhead needed for presentation
Public Ownership and Market Competition Effects on Newspaper Corporations' Financial Performance: A Replication and Challenge
Abstract
This study confirms conclusions made by Blakenburg and Ozanich in 1993 and Lacy, Shaver and St. Cyr in 1996 that the level of public ownership affects newspaper corporations' financial performance. High levels of public ownership increased stock returns. This study however, disagrees with Lacy et al.'s finding that market competition affects newspaper corporations' financial performance. The intensification of mergers, acquisitions and newspaper ownership clustering post-1996 may explain the contrasting results.
Public Ownership and Market Competition Effects on Newspaper Corporations' Financial Performance: A Replication and Challenge
Media economists and public policy makers observe with trepidation the intensified acquisition of U.S. daily newspapers by public corporations. They fear increased negative impacts on news content, news consumers and society. Driving this trend is the publicly-owned newspaper corporation, which is aimed at generating maximal profits to meet market and investor demands. Critics charge that public newspaper companies' financial pursuits sacrifice the public interest and readers' welfare. Newspaper industry scholars find public ownership effects a compelling research subject as newspapers consolidates and competition wanes.
In 1993, Blankenburg and Ozanich[1] found that the degree of public ownership affected the financial performance of news corporations. In an expanded study, Lacy and associates[2] concluded that public ownership and moreover, newspaper competition, influenced how news corporations performed financially.
The initial study done by Blankenburg and Ozanich suggested that the degree of public ownership was positively related to the level of financial and management pressure; for example, the owner of publicly-traded newspapers would feel more financial and managerial pressure than their counterparts at privately-run newspapers. Financial pressures would thereby push publicly-traded newspapers to prioritize profits and downplay journalistic values. Blankenburg and Ozanich developed three basic propositions: (1) "Public companies put more emphasis on profits than private companies;" (2) "Public companies are more attentive than private companies to the equities market; they try not to surprise or disappoint investors;" and (3) "Public companies are more interested in short-term returns than long-term investment."[3] Testing five hypotheses, the authors found that groups with a high level of outside control were more subject to short-term financial aims, and concentrated more on gai
ning a higher return on equity and earning predictability than were groups with a lower degree of outside control. The Blankenburg and Ozanich research employed data from the years 1986 through 1989.
Three years later, Lacy and associates replicated and extended the initial study using data from the years 1990 to 1993. In addition to re-testing the five hypotheses examined by Blankenburg and Ozanich, Lacy and colleagues also added daily newspaper market competition as an independent variable, adopting the financial commitment concept. They also included an extra dependent variable: the expense to revenue ratio of the newspaper segment of corporations. Their findings basically supported Blankenburg and Ozanich's propositions. Lacy and associates asserted that
Public companies have added constituencies--shareholders and financiers--beyond the traditional newspaper constituencies of community, advertisers, readers, and employees. Short term profitability, consistency in return, and earning predictability appear to be perceived by corporate managers as necessary conditions for the survival of newspapers under public ownership... [And] the impact of daily competition on expenditures illustrated by dailies in hundreds of markets during the twentieth century have battled for increased market power."[4]
The present research attempts to replicate the previous two studies, recognizing that mergers, acquisitions, and newspaper ownership clustering have considerably intensified since the 1996 study. As a result, the potential decrease in inside control and competition may have changed the impact of the two previously tested independent variables on the financial performance. By re-examining the potential impact of the two independent variables, it would allow us to revise and better understand the conceptual underpinnings of media economics and related public policies dealing with public ownership, market competition and market performance.
Literature Review
Media economists, including Meyer and Wearden,[5] Bagdikian,[6] Demers and Wackman,[7] and Lacy,[8] investigated Public Newspaper Ownership influence on newspaper performance. Conclusions about newspaper corporations' attitude toward organization profits and newspaper quality contrast across different types of ownership--public vs. private.
For instance, Meyer and Wearden hypothesized that publishers of public-owned newspapers would be more likely than their counterparts of private companies to think and behave similarly to those of market analysts. The hypothesis was not supported.[9] They then argued that publishers of both public and private newspapers were more like newsmen than stock analysts.[10] Their argument was refuted by Lacy and associates, who pointed out that the study excluded executives at the corporate level.[11]
Lacy and colleagues stressed the significance of including the highest level of decision makers in ownership research because the final business plans and financial decisions were made by those people.[12] Inclusion of this level is also necessary to determine potential differences between publicly-owned and privately-owned newspapers, and to obtain a complete picture of a newspaper's operation.[13] For example, Lacy and colleagues questioned the findings by Bagdikian, who failed to distinguish between public and private newspapers, but generalized that newspapers' focus on short-term profits would compromise their willingness and ability to produce a quality newspaper.[14]
Demers and Wackman reported that news editors at publicly-run newspapers were more likely than their counterparts at privately-owned newspapers to rate the profit goal as top priority.[15] Similarly, Demers later also found that editors at chain newspapers were more likely than their colleagues at independent newspapers to rate profit goal as the organization's top priority.[16] However, Lacy and colleagues criticized Demers and Wachman's findings because they found no difference in the attitudes of editors at either public or private newspapers toward the importance of newspaper quality.[17] More importantly, Lacy pointed out that the confusing outcomes about public vs. private ownership resulted from the misunderstanding or lack of knowledge of newspaper operations, specifically inside control.[18] He explained that private companies may behave like public ones if the degree of inside control of the organizations is low, and vice versa.
The increase in newspaper public ownership may have powerful impacts on news content and quality. For instance, Lacy and Fico assessed newspaper quality of chain newspapers based on eight criteria: commitment to locally produced copy, amount of non-advertising produced copy, ratio of non-advertising to advertising space, number of interpretative and in-depth stories, amount of graphics, number of wire services, story length and reporter workload.[19] When the researchers content analyzed 114 chain newspapers, with a stratified sample of various ownership and competition, they found that the difference in chain newspapers, publicly-owned or privately-owned, had no significant impact on newspaper quality.[20] This evidence supported Lacy's argument about the difference between inside vs. outside control, and public vs. private ownership.
The emphasis on local news (localism) as indicators of newspaper quality led to more similar research. Coulson found that journalists in both independent and chain newspapers tended to posses positive views of local news reporting, but that reporters in the former were more likely than in the latter to rate their commitment to local news as excellent. However, he found significant differences between the types of newspapers and quality of editorials.[21]
McCombs formulated two competing hypotheses based on two different concepts or theories--democracy theory vs. sociology of news. The former predicted more diverse media messages as a result of news competition. The latter posited more homogenous content due to the similar values and practices journalists have.[22] McCombs found no significant differences in news products because of "the similarity of their [journalists'] professional values, beliefs and practices."[23]
While McCombs's finding was inconclusive, most researchers sided with Lacy's argument that the greater the competition, the greater the diversity of the news content. For instance, when Johnson and Wanta examined newspaper competition in St. Louis, they found that while news editors shared like news values, they varied considerably in the subjects they chose to feature. The researchers claimed that "to survive, papers must differentiate themselves from their competitors, but at the same time remain substitute for each other by providing similar products."[24]
Communication researchers and public policy makers regard the potential influence of public ownership on editorials as their greatest concern. Matthews examined newspaper ownership and publisher autonomy by surveying publishers at the five largest publicly-owned newspapers and five largest privately-owned newspapers.[25] She found that publishers working for private newspapers were more likely than those working for publicly-run newspapers to have greater autonomy, particularly in areas of deciding the news, hiring staff and implementing changes. Matthews, nonetheless, found no negative correlations between public service and profit maximization goals.[26]
Many researchers looked at the impact of chain and independent newspaper ownership on news quality in terms of editorial independence, message diversity and localism. Those studies are highly related to this current research in that many chain newspapers are publicly-owned, whereas independent newspapers are mostly privately-run. Those findings can at least provide some guidance and understanding about the potential impact of public and private newspapers on news products.
For instance, Wackman and colleagues found relations between newspaper autonomy and presidential campaign endorsements in chain newspapers.[27] They concluded that chain newspapers were very inclined to endorse and become homogenous in their endorsement, and that such political endorsements also enhanced the public support to the endorsed candidates in elections.[28]
Thrift compared independent newspapers' "editorial vigorousness" before and after being purchased by a newspaper chain.[29] He found that the economic activity had a strong influence on the level of editorial vigor in newspapers. After being acquired, the once independent newspapers became inclined to (1) have a smaller proportion of argumentative editorials with topics in controversial context on local matters; (2) have a smaller proportion of argumentative editorials on local matters; and (3) have a smaller proportion of editorials concerning local matters with topics in controversial contexts.[30]
Daily Newspaper Competition, while less examined, has received considerable attention from scholars, notably Litman and Bridges,[31] and Lacy and Simon.[32] For instance, Litman and Bridges's financial commitment concept served as the thread of many studies on newspaper performance. Previous notions, such as relative space of news content and advertising (Bigman),[33] size of news hole and editorial staff and subscription and advertising rates (Grotta),[34] number of subscriptions to news services (Weaver and Mullins),[35] organizational structure and socioeconomic status of editorial staff (Becker, Beam and Russial),[36] contributed to Litman and Bridges's integrative financial commitment theory.
Of the variables, the relative space contributed to news and advertising was treated as most important in that "publishers interested solely in the 'bottom line' can be expected to have less of the non-revenue-producing news space than those more interested in reader service, proportion of space devoted to news content can reflect a publisher's commitment to a high quality product."[37] Other than news space, news staff size also had been found strongly correlated with the quality of newspapers. However, the researchers were disappointed that no significant positive relationship was shown between the percentage of expenditure for newsroom operation and the newspaper quality.[38] Litman and Bridges then used the overall space for news, staff news size and news service subscription, as dependent variables for their measurement.[39]
Lacy further built on this idea by proposing a more complete conceptual model of the financial commitment process, containing four steps. In the 1987 study, Lacy incorporated the key conception of competition intensity, along with the industrial organization model.[40] He outlined four stages as encompassing competition intensity, financial commitment, content quality, audience utility, and market performance. Competition was the threading notion and independent variable for measuring the ultimate market performance. Lacy rationalized the hypothesis for each step: (1) "As intensity of competition increases, the amount of money committed to news content increase;" (2) "As the financial commitment to news increases, content quality, as defined by journalists, increases;" (3) "As the quality of content increases, the author's utility from the content increases;" (4) "As the audience's utility increases, the news organization's performance in the market improves." Lacy acknowle
dged progression through these steps are not necessarily linear; past research had indeed skipped certain steps, such as from competition intensity to content quality (step 2).
Previous Two Studies. Blankenburg and Ozanich in their initial study treated public ownership as a degree of inside control within a continuum.[41] The greater the inside control, the more likely it functioned and remained as a private organization and upheld journalistic values and practices. The researchers measured the inside control with the percent of voting stock held by officers and directors of the company.[42]
They then posed and tested hypotheses. In general, public companies put more emphasis on profits than private companies. In specific, H1: Lower inside control is associated with a higher profit margin; H2: Lower inside control is associated with a higher average cash flow margin; H3: Lower inside control is associated with a higher return on equity. The second set of hypothesis, or H4, was: Lower inside control is associated with higher earning predictability. The third set of hypothesis, or H5, was: Lower inside control is associated with a lower ratio of retained income to common equality. All hypotheses were supported by Pearson correlation tests.[43]
In their replication and expansion, Lacy and colleagues added seven hypotheses, in addition to the original five developed by Blankenburg and Ozanich. Lacy and associates divided the initial H1-- Lower inside control is associated with a higher profit margin--into two hypotheses. They are: Lower inside control is associated with higher operating margins; and lower inside control is associated with a lower ratio of expense to revenue.
The seven new hypotheses derived from the concept of financial commitment and competition. Hypothesis 7 was: Daily competition is associated with lower operating margin. H8: Daily competition is associated with lower cash flow margin. H9: A greater degree of competition was associated with a lower return on equality. H10: The presence of competition is associated with lower earning predictability. H11: There is a relation between competition and average retained income divided by common equity. H12: The percentage of market that has competition would be correlated with a higher ratio of expenses to revenues. All 12, with the exception of three hypotheses, were supported. The three unsupported hypotheses, one original and two new, included: Lower inside control producing lower ratio of retained income to common equity; the opposite kinship was found. Hypothesis 9 and hypothesis 11 were not supported: insignificant correlations existed between competition and average
return on equity (r= -.10), and between competition and average retained income to common equity (r= -.01).[44]
Methods
The present study followed the same methods used by Lacy and associates. Eleven newspaper groups, reported in the Value Line Rating and Reports from 1994 to 1997, were used. Similarly, the groups met previous criteria: The groups were headquartered in the United States, had yearly revenues over $100 million, obtained more than half their incomes from newspapers, and were highly traded.
As in the previous studies, public ownership was conceptualized and operationalized as a continuous variable measured as the percentage of inside control. Newspaper groups with a higher inside control would function more similar to privately-owned companies than those with a lower inside control. Greater inside controls of voting stock would free the company from market pressure to profit maximize. Value Line data provided the percentage of voting stock controlled by managers and initial owners.
The current research uses the five performance variables from the initial two studies. The average operating margin is the percentage of revenue after expenses are deducted, which reflects gross profit. Cash flow is the earnings deducted from depreciation, and average cash-flow margin equals cash flow as a percentage of revenue. Return on equity is earnings per share divided by equity per share. Earning predictability is an index calculated by Value Line to unveil how well a company fulfills the expectation of market analysts. The plowback ratio is the ratio of retained earnings to common equity, which reflects and measures a company's reinvestment in itself. These five dependent variables were measured based on various Value Line Rating and Reports. All figures, except for the earnings predictability and inside ownership, were taken from the December 1998 reports.
Following Lacy and colleagues, competition was measured indirectly. They defined a competitive market as any market that has an additional daily newspaper or has additional daily newspapers with more than five percent of penetration.[45] They assumed that in such markets, a daily newspaper's managers have to take into account the feasibility that a certain percentage of readers in those markets could substitute another paper for their daily. As in Lacy and associates' study, these markets were defined as either the Metropolitan Statistical Area or county, and were identified as competitive or not, via editions of Standard Rate and Data Services Circulation. Similar to Lacy et al's project, the percentage of a group's markets that were identified as competitive was the measure employed for corporate level competition. For instance, Washington Post Co. remained perfectly competitive and received a 100 percent in the competitive index, whereas E.W. Scripps had its competitive index dropped from 94 percent to 39 percent.
Lacy et al. added an extra dependent variable in their study. They pointed out that the initial dependent variable used by Blankenburg and Ozanich had two major problems. One was that no direct measures of expenditures were included, and second, that the measures adopted in the original study was at the corporate level, not solely for newspaper divisions. Therefore, Lacy and associates decided to add a new measure---the average percentage of revenue spent on expense by the newspaper division[46]---without distorting the conceptual basis of Blankenburg and Ozanich's original study. The current research used the same measures of dependent variables conducted by Lacy and colleagues.
To re-test those 12 hypotheses, multiple regression analyses were conducted, as performed by Lacy and colleagues. Similarly, data were checked for possible violations of regression assumptions. No variable exceeded a value of 1 in skewness, and none had a z-score greater than an absolute value of 3, avoiding outliers. No multicollinearity or heteroscedasticity between any independent variables were detected. Moreover, no endogenesity was found between dependent variables. The greatest problem, as addressed by Lacy and associates, probably was the low case-to-independent variable ratio. In their study, the 5.5 (11 to 2) ratio hinted that the adding of more cases could have altered the outcome of the regression. Similarly, the current study posed the problem with a case-to-independent variable ratio of 5.5. The statistical procedures and analyses were kept in mind, as were in Lacy et al.'s study.
Results
The average percentage of inside control for newspaper groups over the years had dropped from 61.5 for years 1987-90, to 60.2 for 1991-93, to 56.9 for 1994-97.
Hypothesis 1 states that lower inside control is associated with a higher profit margin. Table 2 shows support, with a Pearson correlation of -.41 between the two variables.
Hypothesis 2 states lower inside control is associated with a higher average cash flow margin. The hypothesis is also supported, with -.26 correlation (Table 2).
Hypothesis 3 states that lower inside control is associated with a higher return on equality. This hypothesis is supported with a correlation of -.29.
Hypothesis 4 states lower inside control is associated with higher earning predictability. This is supported with a correlation of -.49. Lower inside control is associated with higher operating margins.
Hypothesis 5, similar to Lacy and associates' study, is the only original hypothesis not supported. Rather than finding that the lower inside control produced a lower percentage of retained income to common equity, the opposite correlation was found. When inside control dipped, the ratio of income to common equity hiked; the correlation remained weak, at -.14. A feasible explanation is that the declined advertising revenue, as noticed by Lacy and associates, might have not recovered from the weak economy. Also, the competition for advertising revenue has been even harsher due to the economy and additional competition from the increasingly popular new media, the Internet.
Hypothesis 6, which states lower inside control is associated with a lower ratio of expense to revenue, received the greatest support, with a correlation of .57. A similar finding was reported in Lacy and colleagues' replicated study.
Hypothesis 7 states that higher daily competition is associated with lower operating margins. The results in Table 3 showed support, with a correlation of -.26. But, the degree of support is much weaker than that (-.43) in Lacy et al's study. A likely explanation is that during the period, clustering and mergers of ownership have dominated the market and caused market competition to decrease. The average competition index for the overall newspaper industry dropped from 76 percent in the previous study to 64 percent.
Hypothesis 8, which states daily competition is associated with lower cash flow margin, was not supported with a low correlation of only -.17. This finding is in contrast with Lacy and colleagues' study, which was supported with a -.46 correlation.
Hypothesis 9, which states that daily competition is associated with a lower return on equality, was not supported. Instead of having a negative correlation, a positive relationship (r= .34) was found, which was also different from Lacy and associates' finding with a correlation of -.10.
Hypothesis 10, which states the presence of competition is associated with lower earning predictability, was not supported either, with a low correlation of only -.13. This outcome also differed from that of Lacy and colleagues, who found strong support for their hypothesis, with a correlation of -.49.
Hypothesis 11, which states a negative relationship between competition and average retained income divided by common equity, was not supported either. Instead of having a negative correlation, a strong positive relationship (r= .28) was found. The finding was dramatically different from Lacy et al.'s study in two ways. First, the sign of correlation was in the opposite direction, and second the strength of correlation varied considerably (-.01 in Lacy and colleague's vs. .28 in current study).
Hypothesis 12 was supported. H12 states that the percentage of the market that has competition would be correlated with a higher ratio of expenses to revenues. The level of support (.34) however, is smaller than that (.59) in Lacy and associates' findings.
In addition, the present research also examined the relative and combined contribution of the independent variables, as was examined by Lacy and colleagues. Beta weights offer comparisons as a result of the standardized coefficients. Inside control had the greatest beta weight when the average operating margins, average cash-flow margins, earning predictability, and the average percentage of revenue spent on expense were the dependent variables. More notably, impact levels of inside control and competition on those financial performance dependent variables changed when measured by regression coefficients b. The only highly notable difference in inside control effect was on earning predictability, with b nearly tripled from -.14 to -.37. The shifts in competition effect however, were shown on all performance dependent variables, with changes in b from more than twice (on average operating margin, .06 to .13) to eight times (on average cash-flow margin, -.08 to -.01). Another
pattern found in the regression analysis was that in most cases, the inside control had gained more strength in its impact in terms of both regression coefficients and beta weight. On the other hand, competition did not hold as strong an influence as discovered in Lacy and associates' study.
Discussion and Conclusions
The findings from the present study basically confirmed Blankenburg and Ozanich's initial study and partially confirmed Lacy and colleagues' replicated study. The disagreement between this study and Lacy et al.'s lies primarily in the degree of market competition impact on the financial performance of newspaper corporations. While Lacy and colleagues found strong evidence that supported most of their hypotheses, this project found no supports for the re-tested hypotheses.
The influence of inside control remained as strong as before, even though the average percentage of inside control had dropped from previous years. As claimed by Lacy and associates, the greater degree of outside control would lead to a greater corporate-level managerial need to meet market and investor expectations. Expectations for example, of earnings predictability and increased stock price, which is probably the single most important financial goal. As a result, public companies still consider their financial constituencies a higher priority than their traditional newspaper constituencies of community, and continue to seek the maximal profit sometimes at the cost of readers.
The lessening of the market competition effect may have been caused by several factors. First, the considerable dip in competition intensity may be due to market clustering and mergers. As public corporations strive to merge with or acquire other newspapers, the degree of inter-city and inter-county newspaper competition would have dropped accordingly, as claimed by Lacy and Simon.[47] Relevantly, joint ownership may decide to spare money and decrease its operating margin and cash flow by having the clustered or merged newspapers to share the same facility for newspaper production and operations at lower costs. As a result, newspaper groups may have adopted news operation strategies by reinvesting in itself more. Although we are unsure about how the reinvestment was conducted, it is likely that corporations would consider pulling in more financial resources in other news-related business ventures, such as the Internet.
Moreover, the combined effect of decreased market competition and inside control may also have driven the owners to compete for already shrinking advertising money. In their study, Lacy and colleagues pointed out that advertising revenues plummeted during the recessions in 1991 and 1992. While the U.S. economy has gradually recovered after 1992 and boomed, it remained feasible that newspapers needed some time to regain their advertising income sources. After all, advertising remained the bulk of newspapers' income sources, even though the percentage has steadily decreased over the years because of competition from television and the Internet. Accordingly, the impact of competition on earning predictability has dropped dramatically. In a nutshell, under the increasing economic pressure, newspaper companies might have become aware of the importance of reinvestment and have adopted a new business strategy in order to maintain their competitive advantage, while in a less competi
tive market structure.
While the current study had refuted some of the findings concerning market competition's impact on financial performance, it is important to keep in mind its weaknesses and limitations. For instance, as in the previous two studies, the current project faces the problem of a small sample size: Only 11 cases. Nonetheless, this study seems to have some valuable contributions to existing knowledge of newspaper ownership and financial commitment and performance.
Moreover, factors other than inside control and market competition could also contribute to the financial performance of newspaper groups. The four-step financial commitment model created by Lacy can offer some hints and suggestions for future research. For instance, the ratio of advertising to circulation of the newspaper operation income would be adopted as an additional financial performance dependent variable. The potential problem is that while Lacy listed circulation as an indicator of market performance, he did not include advertising. To do that, researchers also need to solve the nettlesome nature of newspapers as a joint product, which is not an easy task.
In summary, the findings revealed that market structure may have affected newspaper operations' behaviors and financial decisions. It is likely that in a less competitive market, newspaper groups may decide to adjust and re-shape their market strategy to prepare for news challenges in a changing market environment.
[1] References
William B. Blankenburg, and Gary W. Ozanich, "The effects of public ownership on the financial performance of newspaper corporation," Journalism Quarterly 70 (spring 1993): 68-75.
[2] Stephen Lacy, Mary Alice Shaver, and Charles St. Cyr, "The effects of public ownership and newspaper competition on the financial performance of newspaper corporation: A replication and extension," Journalism Quarterly 73 (summer 1996): 332-341.
[3] Blankenburg, and Ozanich, "The effects of public ownership," 68-75.
[4] Lacy et al., ", "The effects of public ownership and newspaper competition on the financial performance," 332-341.
[5] Philip Meyer, and Stanley T. Wearden, "The Effects of Public Ownership on Newspaper Companies: A Preliminary Inquiry," Public Opinion Quarterly 48 (1984): 566-77.
[6] Ben Bagdikian, The Media Monopoly, 3rd ed. (Boston: Beacon Press, 1990); also
Ben Bagdikian, "Conglomeration, Concentration, and the Media," Journal of Communication 30 (Spring, 1980): 59-64.
[7] David, Demers, and Daniel B. Wackman, "Effect of Chain Ownership on Newspaper Management Goals," Newspaper Research Journal 9 (winter 1988): 59-68.
[8] Stephen Lacy, "Effects of Group Ownership on Daily Newspaper Content," Journal of Media Economics 4 (spring 1991): 35-47.
[9] Meyer and Wearden, "The Effects of Public Ownership," 566-77
[10]
Meyer and Wearden, "The Effects of Public Ownership," 566-77.
[11] Lacy et al., "The Effects of Public Ownership and Newspaper Competition," 332-341.
[12] Lacy et al., "The Effects of Public Ownership and Newspaper Competition," 332-341.
[13] Lacy et al., "The Effects of Public Ownership and Newspaper Competition," 332-341.
[14] Lacy et al., "The Effects of Public Ownership and Newspaper Competition," 332-341.
[15] Demers and Wackman, "Effect of Chain Ownership," 59-68.
[16] David Demers, "Effect of Corporate Structure on Autonomy of Top Editors," Journalism Quarterly 70 (autumn 1993): 499-508.
[17] Lacy et al., "The Effects of Public Ownership and Newspaper Competition," 332-341.
[18] Lacy et al., "The Effects of Public Ownership and Newspaper Competition," 332-341.
[19] Stephen Lacy and Frederick Fico, "Newspaper Quality & Ownership: Rating the Groups," Newspaper Research Journal (spring 1990): 41-55.
[20] Lacy and Fico, "Newspaper Quality," 41-55/
[21] David C. Coulson, "Impact of Ownership on Newspaper Quality," 403-410.
[22] Maxwell McCombs, "Effect of Monopoly in Cleveland on Diversity of Newspaper Content," Journalism Quarterly (spring 1987): 740-744 & 792.
[23] McCombs, "Effect of Monopoly," 740.
[24] Thomas Johnson and Wayne Wanta, "Newspaper Competition and Message Diversity in an Urban Market," Mass Communication Review 20 (1993): 45.
[25] Martha N. Matthews, "How Public Ownership Affects Publisher Autonomy," Journalism Quarterly 73 (summer 1996): 342-353.
[26]
Matthews, "How Public Ownership Affects Publisher Autonomy," 342-353.
[27] Matthews, "How Public Ownership," 342-353.
[28] Daniel B. Wackman, Donald M. Gillmor, Cecilie Gaziano and Everette E. Dennis, "Chain Newspaper Autonomy as Reflected in Presidential Campaign Endorsement," Journalism Quarterly (summer 1975): 411-20.
[29] Wackman et al., "Chain Newspaper Autonomy," 411-20.
[30] Ralph R. Thrift Jr., "How Chain Ownership Affects Editorial Vigor of Newspapers," Journalism Quarterly (summer 1977): 327-31.
[31]
Barry Litman, and Janet Bridges, "An Economic Analysis of Daily Newspaper Performance," Newspaper Research Journal 7 (Spring 1986): 9-26.
[32] Stephen Lacy, and Todd Simon, The Economics and Regulations of United States Newspapers (Norwood, NJ: Ables, 1993).
[33] Litman and Bridges, citing Stanley K. Bigman, "Rivals in Conformity: A Study of Two Competing Dailies," Journalism Quarterly (spring 1948): 127-131.
[34] Litman and Bridges, citing Gerald L. Grotta, "Consolidation of Newspaper: What happens to the Consumer?" Journalism Quarterly (summer 1971): 245-50.
[35] Litman and Bridges, citing Weaver and Mullins, "Content and Format Characteristics of Competing Daily Newspapers," Journalism Quarterly (summer 1975): 257-64.
[36] Litman and Bridges, citing Lee Becker, Randy Beam and John Russial, "Correlates of Daily Newspaper Performance in New England," Journalism Quarterly (spring 1978): 100-08.
[37] Litman and Bridges, "An Economic Analysis of Daily Newspaper Performance," 9-26.
[38] Litman and Bridges, "An Economic Analysis of Daily Newspaper Performance," 9-26.
[39] Litman and Bridges, "An Economic Analysis of Daily Newspaper Performance," 9-26
[40]
Stephen Lacy, "The Financial Commitment Approach to News Media Competition," Journal of Media Economics 5 (summer 1992): 5-21.
[41]
Blankenburg and Ozanich, "The effects of public ownership," 68-75.
[42] Blankenburg and Ozanich, "The effects of public ownership," 68-75.
[43] Blankenburg and Ozanich, "The effects of public ownership," 68-75.
[44] Blankenburg and Ozanich, "The effects of public ownership," 68-75.
[45] Lacy et al., "The Effects of Public Ownership and Newspaper Competition," 332-341.
[46] Lacy et al., "The Effects of Public Ownership and Newspaper Competition," 332-341.
[47] Stephen Lacy, and Todd F. Simon, "Intercounty Group Ownership of Daily Newspapers and the Decline of Competition for Readers," Journalism Quarterly 74 (winter 1997): 814-25.