Wanna bet?

(this is a restored post; comments lost)

In a comment on Ryan Sholin’s blog, Howard Owens said that when the economy comes back (God, Fannie Mae, and OPEC willing) so will newspaper revenue. I agree. But I was just thinking that I fear this may lull some companies into thinking they don’t have to change. (And for the record, Howard and Ryan’s company Gatehouse, whose stock is suffering right now, is nonetheless making lots of changes thanks to the efforts of those two guys.) So I decided to challenge Howard and all of you to a wager, which I just put up on Hubdub. Do you think a daily American newspaper (circulation 50K+) will fold this year?

qmwztlxb1

(For those seeing this as it starts, the line starts at 75 percent likelihood because that’s what I said. I’m now eager to see the predictive wisdom of the crowd: you.)

[Full disclosure: I am an adviser to Hubdub and I work with companies that do business with Gatehouse.]