February 2013

New York Times Co. is formally exploring a sale of the Boston Globe, its only remaining business outside the core New York Times media brand.

The publisher is working with Evercore Partners as an adviser for a sale. The company intends to focus its strategy and investment on the Times brand. The Times newspaper now makes more money from readers than advertisers, helped by its online subscription program, which now has more than 640,000 paying customers. The Times made $781 million in circulation sales last year, leaving out an extra week, an 11 percent increase over the previous year. That compares with a 7.4 percent decline in ad revenue to $700 million for the same period. The Boston Globe, by contrast, still relies primarily on ad dollars. The Globe, which also owns regional newspaper Worcester Telegram & Gazette, reported a 7.8 percent drop in ad revenue last year minus the extra week to $183 million. That compares with a 1.7 percent decline in circulation sales to $155.1 million in the same period. The newspaper’s online subscription program has about 28,000 paying subscribers, 8 percent more than it did at the end of September. Times Co. tried to sell the Globe as recently as 2009 to bidders including an investor group led by Stephen Taylor, a member of the family that sold the Globe to Times Co. in 1993 for $1.1 billion, according to a person with direct knowledge of the previous sale process.

The Supreme Court heard arguments about whether Virginia may permit only its own citizens to make requests under the state’s freedom of information act.

The justices appeared to differ about whether such a restriction was sensible, but they seemed largely united that it did not run afoul of the Constitution. The case, McBurney v. Young, No. 12-17, was brought by Roger Hurlbert, a California man who collects property records for commercial clients, and Mark McBurney, a Rhode Island man who once lived in Virginia and who sought information concerning child support payments. They sued when Virginia refused to comply with their requests under the law. Virginia appears to be one of only three states that discriminate against requests for information from noncitizens. Its law contains an exception for representatives of newspapers and magazines with circulation in Virginia and of radio and television stations that broadcast there. It does not address Internet publications.

Over the last year, elite American universities have raced to stake out a place in the new world of free online courses — and now, universities around the globe are following suit.

This week, the two largest ventures providing what are known as MOOCs — massive open online courses — are announcing new partnerships with leading universities in Canada, Mexico, Europe, China, Singapore, Japan and Australia, and signing additional American universities. Coursera, founded by two Stanford University computer professors, is adding 29 universities — including École Polytechnique in France, the National University of Singapore, the Chinese University of Hong Kong and National Autonomous University of Mexico — to its current 33 partners. Meanwhile, edX, a nonprofit venture started by Harvard and M.I.T., is doubling its university partners to 12, adding Rice University, the Australian National University, Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands, École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne in Switzerland and, in Canada, McGill and the University of Toronto.

The Federal Communications Commission took the first steps to unleash significant additional spectrum to accelerate the growth and expansion of new Wi-Fi technology that can offer faster speeds of one gigabit per second or more, increase overall capacity, and reduce congestion at Wi-Fi hot spots.

The FCC proposed to make up to 195 megahertz of additional spectrum in the 5 GHz band (a 35% increase) available to unlicensed wireless devices. It also proposed to create a more flexible regulatory environment, and to streamline existing rules and equipment authorization procedures for devices throughout this band. The proposed modifications would provide access to additional contiguous spectrum with consistent technical requirements, allowing unlicensed devices to use wider bandwidth channels, leading to faster speeds. Importantly, the initiation of this proceeding also carries out the course of action prescribed by the Middle Class Tax Relief and Jobs Creation Act of 2012 for expanding spectrum for unlicensed use.