Hedge Funds are the answer to CP's profitability woes

News Item: Canadian Press gets new owners

The Canadian Press Wire Service has had a hard time making money over the years. With government relief in hand regarding a balooning pension deficit, CP now has three new owners, including The Globe and Mail and The Toronto Star.

Although it was a collective for decades, CP is now a “for profit” venture. But where to turn when the economics of coverning the news are so dubious?

The obvious advice to solve these profit woes is to get into the market press release business. One of the great rackets on Bay Street isn’t being a Mining M&A investment banker, it’s publishing the press releases about mining M&A deals…and everything else required of TSX-listed public companies. Dividend announcements, distributions to unitholders, quarterly financial statements, material news, charitable activities, etc.

Whatever the topic, if you want to put out a newswire, it’s going to cost you a minimum of $850. There are definite costs associated with maintaining a database of fax numbers for the newsrooms across Canada, but I doubt the gross margins of the TSX-approved newswire agencies dip much below 70%. Alas, CP is already in that game via Marketwire.

Where else can the new owners turn to make a buck?

In exchange for a promise to never again run a story that doesn’t give a Blogger his due for breaking the news first, here is some free advice for the new owners of Canadian Press: tell the hedge fund industry about your “Media Forecasting” service.

What a great way to get a jump on trades. Know what is going to hit the newswire and print media’s home pages before it actually does!

Now that “Expert Networks” are being crimminalized across Asia and the U.S. (see prior post “What will become of channel checks?” Nov 23-10), hedge fund managers and the risk-arb desks of banks and brokers will be looking for something new to give them a trading edge. Here are the details of CP’s Command News service, according to CP’s website:

Your organization will be in tomorrow’s news. Need to see the story in advance?

Command News gives you news alerts to developing stories as they happen and before they may hit the headlines. It is the only real-time service for monitoring media stories on the wire from The Canadian Press, Canada’s national news agency trusted by print and broadcast media since 1917.

How can media forecasting benefit me and complement traditional media monitoring?

Our clients rely on this advance notice and news alert service to give them more time to plan their public relations strategy and prepare their spokespeople for interviews, which means being able to proactively call the media to:

Respond to negative stories before a crisis may develop.

Identify and correct misinformation before it may be widely published or broadcast to the public.

Offer relevant comments on developing stories before missing an opportunity to “get into the news” and gain more coverage.

Media forecasting is effortless with Command News and can easily be added to your current media monitoring efforts. Through a password-protected website, you can search and view Canadian Press stories at the same time they are being seen by more than 600 daily papers, radio and TV stations. News alerts with stories mentioning your search terms can also be emailed to you, alerting you to news affecting your organization, competitors and industry.

Although the service appears tailored for the flacks of big companies and government agencies, which hedge fund manager wouldn’t want to “see the story in advance”?

Wasn’t that the benefit of the Expert Networks? Now that those are apparently illegal, perhaps CP’s Command Service is worth a try. All of your Hedge Fund compatriots are tracking Bloomberg, Reuters and CP. Don’t you want to know about business stories “before they may hit the headlines”?

MRM