Subject: Re: New Century Network From: outings@netcom.com (Steve Outing) Date: Wed, 19 Apr 1995 15:33:25 -0700

Sender: owner-online-news@marketplace.com
Precedence: bulk
Status: RO
X-Status: A

On 4/19/95, Chris J. Walther, SDA/SGN, Berne wrote:
>According to wire reports of today, eight of the largest newspaper
>companies in the U.S. have announced a joint venture called
>New Century Network which shall help to drive the industry
>into broader use of on-line services and other forms of electronic
>publishing.
>
>Well, as I am sitting on the other side of the big pond, I
>would just appreciate an e-mail address where I can request
>more details regarding this initiative. Can anybodyy help?
>
You can find the press release by using InfoSeek -- http://www.infoseek.com
-- and searching under "Wire services." Or try DowVision --
http://dowvision.wais.net/

Here's an excerpt:

>
>--(BUSINESS WIRE)--April 19, 1995--Eight of the nation's largest newspaper
>companies announced today that they are forming a new company to create a
>national network of local online newspaper services.
>
>The new company, New Century Network, will be operated as a joint venture
>by Advance Publications, Inc., Cox Newspapers, Inc., Gannett Co., Inc.,
>The Hearst Corporation, Knight-Ridder, Inc., The Times Mirror Co., Tribune
>Company and The Washington Post Co.
>
>The objective of the new company will be to support local newspapers in
>helping them provide local online services to their communities.
>
>"The NCN network of local online communities will be unique in giving
>customers unprecedented access to the interactive news and information
>services of newspapers across the U.S.," said Charles T. Brumback,
>chairman and chief executive officer of Tribune Company, speaking on
>behalf of the partners.
>
[snip]

The announcement is rather vague and I'd love to know more. Is this another
(larger) version of PAFET? Why isn't PAFET involved? Is this a research and
standards group or a real company that will be creating a national network?
Will it promote one platform? (I would think this is not good news for the
online services that are trying to do deals with newspapers.) The principals
seem to have done a good job of keeping this quiet until the announcement.

FYI, I hear New Century will give a presentation on Sunday to NAA conference
attendees.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Steve Outing                                  Planetary News, Inc.
outings@netcom.com                            El Cerrito, California
owner-online-newspapers@marketplace.com       voice: 510-236-2119
owner-online-news@marketplace.com             fax: 510-236-2118
       http://marketplace.com/e-papers.list.www/e-papers.outing.html
--------Author: 1995 Online Newspaper Report; 800-488-4345 to order--------



From owner-online-news@marketplace.com Thu Apr 20 16:36:59 1995
Received: from marketplace.com by cnj.digex.net with SMTP id AA00683
  (5.67b8/IDA-1.5 for ); Thu, 20 Apr 1995 16:36:56 -0400
Received: (from majordom@localhost) by marketplace.com (8.6.12/8.6.12) id LAA27739 for online-news-outgoing; Thu, 20 Apr 1995 11:18:47 -0600
Received: from clark.net (root@clark.net [168.143.0.7]) by marketplace.com (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id LAA27727 for ; Thu, 20 Apr 1995 11:18:40 -0600
Received: from jvz-ppp.clark.net (jvz-ppp.clark.net [168.143.0.222]) by clark.net (8.6.12/8.6.5) with SMTP id NAA13904 for ; Thu, 20 Apr 1995 13:20:10 -0400