Le Monde Runs out of Cash

by Jordan Yerman | June 21, 2010 at 12:56 pm

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Le Monde has Two Weeks of Cash, Faces Takeover

After 66 years as a French-language media fixture, Le Monde is running out of cash. By June 28, the staff of Le Monde will have decided what to do about it. Le Monde needs at least $120 million to survive.

As readership declined, the newsroom of Le Monde resisted any sort of online strategy. Another issue is the high cost of printing presses, and the expense and difficulty in laying off printing-press employees.

Should Le Monde get acquired by a foreign interest (see the link below for a more in-depth discussion of that aspect of the issue), Le Monde risks its reputation by becoming a political mouthpiece for... someone else.

Takeover is not a foregone conclusion, though: other possibilities involve Le Monde finding new investors, or getting additional state funding.

Over the last fifteen years, Le Monde’s management proved unable to come up with a cogent strategy. The group tried to expand into the regional press and into the magazine sectors without any coherence behind such moves. The only tangible achievement was the creation of Le Monde Interactif, this against most of an internet-adverse newsroom.