New York Daily News

Very much feeds into why the words of vulture capitalists like tronc are so full of shit.

They want to go all-digitial, as they say. Well, Isola has the biggest brand, the biggest social media audience and a huge platform with ESPN and his radio show.

You’d think a talent like that would be an helpful to an all-digital pivot. Isola will be ok. People will be fighting to hire him. But what about the other 50-plus who got canned?

Oh, and look the other way as Ferro pays himself $15 million on his way out.

Should be criminal. And New York City is worse for it.

 

They don’t want much of a sports section, that’s obvious. They’ll aggregate clicks for Sports and focus on becoming the city’s one-stop shop for social justice.

I hate it. It makes me mad. But they just don’t give a shit about Sports, or desire not to compete in that arena, so they’re out of it.

I think you’ll see a lot of major market papers do it one day.

 

I think every paper on the Tronc chain is under pressure. In the first quarter earnings press release management gave guidance that 2018 EBITDA, excluding the contributions of SoCal, would be 110 million dollars. But first quarter EBITDA was only 22 million, excluding SoCal. While the first quarter is historically a weker quarter because of reduced retailer advertising after Christmas they still need to catch up, especially since advertising revenues dropped significantly at the individual papers.

So I think cuts will continue all over the chain. If Tronc can not find a buyer for the Daily News I see it folding in eighteen months.

And I don't think that a buyer will emerge because of the unions at the Daily News. If you are a rich guy who is willing to burn through some money for the cachet of owning a paper you can start one up on-line and use a lot of cheap young labor and not worry about pension plans, etc. If you want your paper to produce a print edition that can be contracted out.

 

After what happened recently in Annapolis, referring to the NYDN layoffs as a “massacre” makes me queasy.

 

At least it's better than offering a digital subscription for 0 cents a week, which we were doing for nearly 20 years.

 

If the restaurant industry operated like newspapers, they'd be giving away steak dinners so you could glance down at the ads on the placemats.

 

May I have your permission to use that?

 

Don't give the newspaper industry any ideas. Next, they'll want reporters working for tips.

 

Nope. Sorry. No way. Get your own brilliant idea.....

 

I used it on another message board. Is that plagiarizing?

 

Actually a Kindle digital subscription to the NYDN is 99 cents a month.