In a major step for new CEO Rich Zannino, Dow Jones today announced an extensive reorganization.
For the first time, Dow Jones will organize itself around markets, rather than its distribution channels (print, electronic and community newspapers).
- Gordon Crovitz will lead the new Consumer Media Group including the WSJ, Barron's, MarketWatch and SmartMoney.
- Current Factiva CEO Clare Hart will run the Enterprise Media Group, consisting of DJ Newswires, Dow Jones Indexes, the Factiva and Stoxx joint ventures and Dow Jones Financial Information Services.
- John Wilcox will lead the Community Media Group, consisting of the daily and weekly Ottaway community newspapers.
Changing the focus from channel and manufacturing process to customers and markets is one that is long overdue. But it's a shift that will not happen easily. Large content companies like Dow Jones have too many sacred cows and it will be interesting to see whether they have the political will to adapt to the needs of their markets, even if it means killing or transforming some of their traditional products.
It will also be interesting to see how Clare Hart, after leading a fairly nimble and forward-looking organization, can adapt in her return to Dow Jones. One of the key things that has made Factiva a success is the fact that it was, in essence, built from scratch. Dow Jones, with legacy infrastructure, legacy products and too much legacy thinking will be a tougher business to turn around. I wish Clare and her team much luck and look forward to seeing their imprint in the months and years to come.
Update: Staci at PaidContent provides some insights on the organizational reporting structure beyond the three new Group heads. Todd Larsen, formerly head of Dow Jones Consumer Electronic Publishing, will be COO of the Consumer Group. She also points out that under this new structure, the larger Consumer Media Group does not have the profitability that the electronic publishing group provided. In fact, in a memo from Gordon Crovitz to his staff, he points out that "In 2005, if this group had existed as a publicly reporting division of Dow Jones, we would have had revenues of just over $1 billion, but would have had an operating loss of $2.5 million".
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