Newspaper overtaken by cable/internet?

[JaJae]

I think we're starting to see a change in the way America receives its news. We're starting to see internet and cable news ratings increase and newspaper profits decrease. Some newspapers are taking the hit harder than others, namely the NY Times.

New York Times Company Posts Loss
By RICHARD PÉREZ-PEÑA

The New York Times Company, the parent of The New York Times, posted a $335,000 loss in the first quarter — one of the worst periods the company and the newspaper industry have seen — falling far short of both analysts’ expectations and its $23.9 million profit in the quarter a year earlier.

New York Times Company Posts Loss - New York Times

They took a $335k loss the first quarter of this year. In comparison to their cash flow it doesn't seem to be too much for a single quarter. It's sustainable, but they need to do something about the trend. Obviously they're not sweating for cash at this point considering 4Q last year they gave Moveon.org a $100k+ discount to smear Petraeus. They're still willing to take heavy losses to uphold their bias, but I wonder how much longer they'll be able to sustain themselves with the direction they've been headed.

Across the board though newspaper profits are down.

The poor showing stemmed from The Times Company’s core news media group, which includes The Times, The Boston Globe and The International Herald Tribune, as well as several regional newspapers.

Excluding the $18.3 million charge, depreciation and amortization, the unit reported an operating profit of $68.5 million for the quarter, down from $99.4 million in the period a year earlier.

I think this is a direct result of the blogosphere and success of liberally slanted cable shows such as Keith Olbermann. As more people begin to use the internet for their news and turn on cable to get their dose of current events this trend will only get worse for newspapers. By and large there have been many more sources of news popping up than the newspapers. The extra competition is going to have to make them change their business model if they want to be successful in the world of the new media.

It'll be interesting to see how things progress and if newspapers can keep up with the times (no pun intended).

[Thorgrim]

The media continues to sink to new lows...starting especially in 1992 when Clinton-gossip became "acceptable" to talk about...and the rise of the internet

The "liberal media" as it were, was a place you could actually go for trustworthy news...now it's a free for all profits-tabloid atmosphere

cable news will become one big bill oreally show, and the internet will become one big drudge site

networks and newspapers will fall apart possibly, and then what do we have?

Objective and trustworthy news we saw just a little while ago with Tom Brokaw on NBC Nightly News, will cease to exist

really, yet another sad day for America

I imagine those of a serious intellect will have to rely on the BBC/PBS (i think PBS only gets about 10% of its revenue from the government) and other state funded news outlets to get any sort of serious news coverage that isn't about alien abductions and conspiracy theories

[A_C_E]

Ignoring whatever Thorgrim is whining about, I will agree with your view, JaJae. Part of the problem is that in our on-the-go culture, there just isn't time during the day to stop and read the newspaper during the week. On the weekends (Sundays, mostly), sure, most of us can make some tea and read the paper over breakfast. But during the week, it's just so much easier to log on to The New York Times - Breaking News, World News & Multimedia or Business Financial News, Business News Online & Personal Finance News at WSJ.com - WSJ.com and have instant access to whatever news we want.

Part of the success of internet news media is the organizational genius of a web page. NY Times can list the top stories from every single section of the newspaper, post links to blogs and video, and have opinion polls and op-eds all on one screen, with full articles just a click away. It's so much more efficient than flipping through the paper for half an hour looking for the stories you want, that it would seem to make paper news virtually obsolete.

24-hour news stations are the same way. I can flip on MSNBC anytime all day and get stock quotes, breaking news updates, political news, etc., all at the push of a button. Why read yesterday's news when you can have today's coming live on your TV screen? Just doesn't make any sense to me.

I think the solution is for traditional major media outlets to diversify their holdings. NY Times should do some hardcore advertising on their web page, maybe expand into some TV media, pioneer streaming news broadcasts on the web, have subscription-only service to some sections of the site as if it were a hard copy. Those are just the first steps; who knows what the future might hold?

Honestly, tomorrow morning pick up your local copy of the Wall Street Journal and read the cover page. Then log on to wsj.com and look at the organizational masterpiece that is the front page of the site. There's just no comparison--so why would anyone choose the hard paper anymore?

[kombayn]

^HAHAHA! Thank you for the WSJ.com link, I found this...

Campaign Hook-Ups - WSJ.com

And then this...

What's Different This Passover? No Margarine - WSJ.com

Poor, poor, Jews. What will they do without margarine?! (NOTE: If it is a big deal, I don't know any better because I'm not Jewish.)

[JaJae]

Well now NY Times is cutting some of their staff. 100 Employees have to go. If they didn't give discounts to left wing groups to smear conservatives I wonder how many people could have kept their jobs this year.

April 25, 2008 -- THE New York Times' news room is bracing for a bloodbath in the next 10 days.

The word from inside is that approximately 50 unionized journalists have accepted the buyout proposal, and only another 20 non-union editorial employees have gotten on board.

That means the ax could fall on as many as 30 editorial people in the company's first-ever mass firing of journalists in its 156-year history.

Executive Editor William Keller had said originally that he was looking to cut 100 people from the Times staff in response to the dismal newspaper advertising environment.

But then a week ago Assistant Managing Editor William Schmidt issued a memo saying it was almost certain that the company would be forced to make involuntary cuts, and he urged more volunteers to come forward.

The plea apparently fell on deaf ears.

With just 70 people stepping forward for buyouts, it is very likely that 30 newsroom staffers will be forced out in coming days.

"We're bracing for it," said one insider with some knowledge of the developments. "There's a lot of anxiety."

[WickedLou9]

I'm not entirely suprised by this. Our society has been moving in that direction, away from printed physical media to electronic formats for some time now. When was the last time you looked up something in the phone book?? For some reason they still drop that stupid compendium off in front of my house once a year but it just goes into a closet untill I get tired of looking at it and eventually ends up in the recycling pile. With the speed of electronic media we can know about some big event right after it happens rather than waiting till the next morning to read about it in the paper.
I welcome the change.

[kinggovernor]

Creative destruction at its best

[Scrum]

Originally Posted by JaJae

Well now NY Times is cutting some of their staff. 100 Employees have to go. If they didn't give discounts to left wing groups to smear conservatives I wonder how many people could have kept their jobs this year.

3 if they were each making $33K a year.

[Phantom]

I think there's two separate issues:

The decline of print in favor of cable news - bad IMO. This has decreased the quality of news we get.

The decline of print in favor of internet news sites - not so bad IMO. At least for the Washington Post, the major articles are the same on the internet as they are in print. I prefer to boot up the comp rather than mess with trees, go outside to get the paper etc.

[WickedLou9]

Originally Posted by JaJae

Well now NY Times is cutting some of their staff. 100 Employees have to go. If they didn't give discounts to left wing groups to smear conservatives I wonder how many people could have kept their jobs this year.

Blah. That's nonsense. Or if the CEO cut his salary by the same amount, or if they sold more advertising, or if they increased subscription fees, or if they sold more papers or if they had better reporting or perhaps if not for the discount they would not have sold the ad spot... or .... or.... Trying to attribute the loss in jobs to a single business event like giving a discount to a customer is dishonest.

[TankRizzo]

Originally Posted by Phantom

I think there's two separate issues:

The decline of print in favor of cable news - bad IMO. This has decreased the quality of news we get.

The decline of print in favor of internet news sites - not so bad IMO. At least for the Washington Post, the major articles are the same on the internet as they are in print. I prefer to boot up the comp rather than mess with trees, go outside to get the paper etc.

Yeah, I don't think this is so much people going to cable news but it's more that it's far more convenient and a lot less conspicuous if you're reading it on the internet at work than having a paper unfolded and your feet up on your desk. It's just a shift to online. Sadly, we're going to have to find new things to line bird cages with now.

[JaJae]

Originally Posted by WickedLou9

Blah. That's nonsense. Or if the CEO cut his salary by the same amount, or if they sold more advertising, or if they increased subscription fees, or if they sold more papers or if they had better reporting or perhaps if not for the discount they would not have sold the ad spot... or .... or.... Trying to attribute the loss in jobs to a single business event like giving a discount to a customer is dishonest.

I didn't blame it all on a "single" business event. The issues you raised are business decisions they had the ability to enact, but declined. Giving discounts to promote bias is not only unethical for a print "Paper of Record", but also violates their own company policies.

[Linzyhop]

The Boston Globe sold the most newspapers its ever sold in its history the day after the Sox won the world series back in '04.

[WickedLou9]

Originally Posted by JaJae

I didn't blame it all on a "single" business event. The issues you raised are business decisions they had the ability to enact, but declined. Giving discounts to promote bias is not only unethical for a print "Paper of Record", but also violates their own company policies.

Had nothing to do with layoffs.

[JaJae]

Originally Posted by WickedLou9

Had nothing to do with layoffs.

Their lack of advertising revenue had to do with the layoffs.

Executive Editor William Keller had said originally that he was looking to cut 100 people from the Times staff in response to the dismal newspaper advertising environment.

They posted a loss of $335k quarter. The quarter before they waived over $100k in advertising revenue to smear conservatives in just one instance. It was a rather large percentage of their advertising losses. If you worked for the paper and they got rid of you because of poor advertising turnout, yet they're giving away huge percentages of their losses to keep up their political biases, would you be upset?

[TankRizzo]

Originally Posted by Linzyhop

The Boston Globe sold the most newspapers its ever sold in its history the day after the Sox won the world series back in '04.

You win your first title in 86 years and people are going to want a memento.

[WickedLou9]

Originally Posted by JaJae

Their lack of advertising revenue had to do with the layoffs.


They posted a loss of $335k quarter. The quarter before they waived over $100k in advertising revenue to smear conservatives in just one instance. It was a rather large percentage of their advertising losses. If you worked for the paper and they got rid of you because of poor advertising turnout, yet they're giving away huge percentages of their losses to keep up their political biases, would you be upset?

That's nothing but speculation on your part. I don't think it's worth talking about. Maybe they offered discounts to encourage people to advertise? Perhaps without the discount there would have been even less advertising. It's all speculation and your attempt to turn it into something partisan is pretty flimsy.

[JaJae]

Originally Posted by WickedLou9

That's nothing but speculation on your part. I don't think it's worth talking about. Maybe they offered discounts to encourage people to advertise? Perhaps without the discount there would have been even less advertising. It's all speculation and your attempt to turn it into something partisan is pretty flimsy.

How is it not partisan? They ran the ad at the most prominent spot of their paper for a huge discount the morning moveon.org needed it to run. Have you heard of any other organization or company getting such a deal? Normally if you get a discount on ad pricing you're subject to have it run whenever the paper wants or wherever the paper wants to put it. Moveon.org got prime real estate for next to nothing. Moveon.org had plenty of money to pay the full rate, but the NY Times didn't make them. When asked why they received the rate they did the NY Times wouldn't answer and just quoted the normal rate.

When was the last time a conservative group got such a deal in the NY Times? Do you think if Rush Limbaugh wanted a full page ad to smear Hillary Clinton right before a congressional hearing he would have received front and center placement for a fraction of the cost? Of course not. In fact, they most likely wouldn't have even ran it. Is it really speculation when it's so obvious?

[David Octavius]

Ja,

Your initial post fails to make a connection between the liberal flight from newspapers to Cable and the Internet.

As a person who works for an Online Ad Agency I can tell you that it has to do with the ability of the internet to form "tribes" of people who share similar interests and beliefs. Moreover the internet has better targeting abilities than other marketing channels to segment the audience to lifestyles and even income - what advertiser wouldn't want to be part of that? Lastly the internet is much more accountable than other channels - you can quickly see the results of your campaign to judge its success.

Not to mention that the internet audience is HUGE and advertisers would be dumb not to utilize it as part of their marketing mix.

Also of note - Internet advertising is about to surpass RADIO advertising spend.

All of this is not about the "liberals", just simply that advertisers are adjusting their budgets based on campaign needs, internet advertising grows by leaps and bounds every year, some other marketing channel is bound to get hit.