Apparently Repoz at Baseball Think Factory found his way here and linked up my recent Newsday post. It has sparked an interesting discussion over there and I urge you to check it out.
First off, as commenter NaOH pointed out both there and here, I probably missed a big aspect of the reasoning behind the decision. He writes:
Cablevision owns Newsday. Cablevision, for now, also owns the Knicks and Rangers, but they will be spinning off that portion of the business. Cablevision’s core assets are tied to television and cable: Rainbow Media Holdings, digital cable service, providing Internet service, and VOIP. This move is about using Newsday as another value-added component to Cablevision’s range of core offerings. Why? Because Verizon FIOS is steadily chipping away at their customer base.
That seems pretty likely, when I think about it. Still, I wonder a) how much value access to Newsday adds to a television or cable subscription and b) how long Newsday could possibly last if its parent company is making moves that will stave off online readership.
I have a “From the Wikipedia” post I’m hoping to do later today and I don’t want to harp on this since it’s not really about sports, but I find the whole subject massively interesting. I suppose I should, since I work in online journalism.
A man I firmly believe should be in the Baseball Hall of Fame, Sean Forman — the creator of baseball-reference.com — provided a pretty interesting business model for newspapers in the BBTF thread. He’s one of very few people that I’m willing to admit are likely way, way smarter than me, so it’s probably worth reading what he has to say.
Anyway, whatever the reason, the main point of said Newsday post stands: I won’t be able to read Davidoff or Best or Lennon anymore, and that’s a shame.
Tedquarters 
I’m no expert in the newspaper or media business but Sean Foreman’s business model he proposes there seems a bit backwards to me.
I just dont see how the papers would benefit financially from this type of arrangement. He is basically suggesting spinning these groups off to essentialy become independent contractors, who they could them outsource the content too.
This type of outsourcing works in business when you can find someone outside who can produce the product cheaper or more efficiently, usually becuase these ‘suppliers’ provide goods to many buyers.
But in the case of newspaper content, these ‘suppliers’ or the writters, would likely end up only being contracted to one paper. They cant sell the same stories to both the Post and the Daily News can they?
Under Formans theory all you would be doing is creating additional overhead. You’d not only have to pay the independent departments (who are really only writting for your paper anyway) enough to cover not only thier salaries, but enough for them to support the additional overhead they themselves would have to take on in becoming and independent business. Despite what hes suggesting, they could not share things like HR, and Benefits, and Payroll.
FiOS is chipping way at Cablevision’s customer base because they have better equipment, better reliability and MUCH better customer service. (And better bundled Internet service, come to think of it.) Not because Cablevision doesn’t have enough “value added” content. If they’re worried about the shrinking size of their customer base, they should focus on the things that are actually alienating their customers, because minor stuff like this isn’t going to actually help retain them.
I moved into an area with Cablevision 2 years ago, and I have been more than happy with the service. I have friends that have Verizon and its the same thing, they dont offer anything more than Cablevision does.
Verizon FIOS offers far more diversified TV programming than Cablevision – not even close. Cablevision needs to expand and modernize their offerings as well as technology. They’ve made small improvements via the addition of widgets, but must do far more.
Both companies however are the usual corporate greedy. I prefer neither company both of which have pros and cons and are slaves to the almighty dollar.