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Wednesday, November 11, 2009

Reed Elsevier not Smitten with Smith

Ian Smith, the newly installed CEO of Reed Elsevier is leaving with immediate effect. Press Gazette reports that the board concluded he was the wrong man from the current economic circumstances. The unspoken implication is that having the one of the worlds great media businesses run by someone who knows how to build houses (he used to be CEO of Taylor Woodrow) may not be the smartest thing to do.

For the poor souls at RBI, where most of the US business is being sold, and some continental europe assets, a new period of uncertainty may begin. With the helm now in the hands of swedish exec from Elsevier, the tolerance for low margin ad based businesses is likely to be low. Elsevier culture has always been about paid content.



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2 Comments:

At 2:56 pm, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Interesting to see a publisher running a publishing company. He will uncover a lot of nonsense!

 
At 5:25 pm, Anonymous Ricky said...

Traffic isn't worth anything though is it. Not unless you are talking about huge volumes to justify ads and business titles are generally not volume businesses. Once you figure out that its pretty obvious the only way forward for more niche titles is paid for. Whether it works is another thing but it has to be about the value you give them.

 

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