My FT column this week is on the New York Times:

Over the years, the Ochs-Sulzberger family has made a habit of buying high and selling low.

Under its control, the New York Times Company squandered $2bn by buying back its shares at high prices, saddling itself with debt it is struggling to service. It sold its former headquarters in Times Square cheaply and moved to a shiny new one worth $500m that it has had to put in hock to raise $225m (€165m, £148m).

Meanwhile, it is trying to shed its stake in the Boston Red Sox baseball team while battling to save The Boston Globe, a prize possession that is expected to lose $85m this year. If it were as bad at journalism as balancing its books, it would not win many Pulitzer Prizes.

The man who gets most of the blame is Arthur Sulzberger Junior, the daffy fourth-generation family member who is publisher of the paper and chairs the company. But there is no evidence that another Sulzberger, Ochs (or Cohen, Dryfoos or Golden) would outperform him.

Now, two astute wheeler-dealers – Carlos Slim, the Mexican media mogul and David Geffen, founder of Asylum Records and Hollywood big shot – have their eyes on The New York Times. They sense that the world’s leading general interest newspaper could soon be on the block.

You can read the rest of the column here and comment below.

May 13, 2009 8:59pm in Media | Comment