the death of fairfax, page-17

Death is over-exaggerated IMHO. There's only 3 news outlets in the entire country and for people who are sick of News Limited's editorial interference, that leaves only ABC and Fairfax. ABC's journalism is top class - but its coverage of topical issues is woeful and they don't seem to pursue the story with the passion that Fairfax's journos do. So that really leaves only Fairfax as the only viable source of news for many Australians.

With the paywall going up, even at $1 a day, assuming they get 1 in 10 Australians to subscribe (and with the only alternatives being Murdoch news and ABC news, this shouldn't be too hard) that's an extra $800m a year revenue. When they eventually get rid of the printing presses and paper copies, this revenue stream will be very high quality, very high profit margin.

When they go fully digital I believe it will be much easier as well to capture new markets. For example, to date they haven't been able to enter the Queensland market, where there's really only 2 papers - Courier Mail and Sunday Mail - which are both owned by Murdoch. If Fairfax establishes itself digitally, it won't be hard to break into the QLD market - and IMHO there's a huge pent up demand for an alternative to News Limited news here.

Another bonus will come when they eventually find a way to display ads in an effective way in digital editions. If they succeed in doing so, it will be another big source of revenue.

Then they have other misc. assets which are very valuable in their own right, e.g. Domain, their radio stations.

Lots of unrecognized potential at today's share price - excellent opportunity to buy IMHO.