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Originally Posted by AnemicOak
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You wouldn't expect them to be. Eye-rolling and hand-wringing was predictable.
(What with the holiday season coming up and the way their buzz-driven cash cow front list is "performing".)
They pushed Borders into liquidation thinking it would fortify B&N and provide the "balance" they sought between B&M sales and online (Amazon). More recently they've used Agency part deux to try to shift readers to print.
For all their efforts to fortify print the result of their efforts is that half the Borders share migrated to Amazon right away and the other half, along with a third of B&N's, has followed over the past five years. B&N's current share is roughly where Borders was when the BPHs decided it wasn't worth propping up.
Obviously they can't afford to push B&N over the cliff like they did with Borders so their options are limited. Other than the randy penguin nobody else has the money or will needed to buy out Riggio. At least not until B&N is literally at death's door and at that point it might not even be worth propping up.
No matter what they do or don't do the core problem remains: a chain of 600 giant book warehouses is not a viable proposition in today's retail environment. At this point it is not impossible that newstands and airport kiosks are moving more of the "right kind" of books (frontlist) than B&N.
This is one more problem the BPHs can't afford right now.
But it does give them a scapegoat for their next quarterly financials...
Edit:
The PW note ends with:
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Looking to the future, another insider said he hoped B&N's next CEO will be better suited to the company and "will have book experience," as opposed to just "general retailing" experience.
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And who has more "book experience" than Riggio?
They still don't get it: "book experience" thinking is what's killing B&N.
"Stock it and they will come" doesn't work. They need to go to the readers instead of hoping they come in.