Fate of Rocky Mountain News to be announced

It looks like the concept of the InDenverTimes may be in trouble:

http://www.denverpost.com/breakingnews/ci_12205372

 

Rick, I must have missed this quote in the story. Where did you find it?

 

Thanks Rick.

Now that story was published three weeks ago. Hopefully someone will give us more details about what led to the split because if they were doing as well as Steve hinted they were doing in that story, it doesn't make sense that the backers would change direction so drastically. I mean, a total staff of 30 is that big of a financial risk? Wouldn't that have come up earlier in the discussion?

Something doesn't sound right here.

 

Here's the response from INDenverTimes:

http://www.indenvertimes.com/2009/04/23/subscriber-goal-not-met-indt-founders-go-back-to-drawing-board/

 

http://blogs.westword.com/latestword/2009/04/investor_kevin_preblud_only_30.php

They got 3,000, aiming for 50,000.

Sorry to all those involved, but I'm not surprised.

 

Yeah, it's sad, but they were never going to get anywhere close to 50,000. I thought they might get 10,000.

 

Extrapolating that out, 3k subscribers at $5/month, plus ad revenues, minus expenses, you could afford maybe half-a-dozen full-time employees on a bare-bones salary?

 

Ouch! Only 3,000? I had a bad feeling back when this was announced and the number of 50,000 was broached.

So what did Steve Foster mean in the aforementioned quote back on April 1st when he said, "For marketing, the investors felt like it was best not to tell everybody how good we are doing?"

 

Because of how badly they were doing.