Buffett sees tough times for newspaper industry

OMAHA, Neb. >> Investment guru Warren Buffett predicted hard times for the newspaper industry yesterday, a day after holding his company's annual shareholders meeting.

The Internet is scooping newspapers -- not only on news, but in cheap accessibility, said Buffett, chairman of one of Wall Street's top success stories, Berkshire Hathaway Inc.

The company owns the Buffalo News, a daily newspaper in Buffalo, N.Y.

While Buffett still reads newspapers, he more often turns to his computer for news these days, he said, and suspects others do, too.

Often he can get the New York Times' or the Boston Globe's morning newspaper stories the night before on the newspapers' Web sites -- for free, he said.

More dire than subscription costs for print newspapers is the Internet's siphoning of advertising dollars, said Buffett and Charlie Munger, Buffett's investment partner and vice president of Berkshire.

Even as Buffett touted the efficiency of the Internet, he held firm to his stance that he cannot invest in the technology stocks that blossomed from it. Buffett is known for investing only in companies he understands.

AOL Time Warner, NTL discuss marketing deal

LONDON >> AOL Time Warner has approached NTL, Britain's largest provider of cable television, about forming a distribution alliance, people close to the companies said yesterday.

The companies are discussing a marketing agreement that would give AOL Time Warner access to NTL's networks and permit it to share revenue from broadband customers in exchange for its content. But AOL Time Warner would not invest in NTL, these people said.

A combination would unite AOL Time Warner's Internet, cable, music, movie, television and book publishing content with NTL's 8.5 million cable subscribers. The cable company reaches 20 million households throughout Britain, Germany, France, Switzerland and Sweden.

NTL, which has offices in New York and London, declined to comment; a spokesman from AOL Time Warner was not available for comment.