State of the Newspaper Industry

Part of a post from the Republic thread:

This ties into the State of the Industry thread but it wouldn't be the worst thing in the world to become more niche, whether its sports, features, etc. It's not like the market for sports news has gotten smaller, why don't you seem more publications starting up like the Baltimore Pressbox with companion websites? Most people have disdain for their local paper because of their political leanings (left or right) so why not just completely eliminate that from the equation? Then you're not immediately cutting your audience in half. Granted your potential audience is smaller but also easier for advertisers to identify and target. Plus do your blogs, video, audio, chats, etc. online.

If you can't make money with that model then I don't see where there's any future in the print market for a standard newspaper's sports section. Eventually it will be ESPN and SI and a local papers covering HS sports. Kill me.

Here's the Pressbox website BTW: pressboxonline.com. And no I'm not Stan White nor do I work for them.

 

I dont really like what you say, but I cant really argue it either. I would think that smaller universities(Tulsa, Rice, New Mexico State, UAB, North Texas, Tulane, all I-AAs and smaller) would still be covered locally while the national outlets probably take care of the Big Boys (ACC, PAC 10, Big 12, SEC, Big Ten, and Notre Dame).

It's not like SI or ESPN are going to devote much time or coverage to schools like those.

 

You've left out a third possibility that I favor:

Changing demographics. That's really somewhere at the intersection of new technology and evolving social forces.

Newspapers have made the mistake of owning the diner on the side of town opposite from where the big interstate is being built. Or in living in the town that's two counties over from where the railroad is going to run.

 

I'm not sure I agree HH. I mean changing demographics is far more complex than you make it. If there was an easy answer, don't you think newspaper publishers would be embracing it?? The fact is newspapers can't re-invent themselves. A newspaper is what it is --- a paper full of news. If people want one they will buy it. If they don't they won't but a newspaper can't suddenly become a cellphone with Internet service or a laptop with blogs and videos and podcasts.

Newspapers are not embracing the new media or electronic changes because newspapers are not that type of service. Your argument suggests that newspapers kill themselves off and change to a new media format because of changing demographics.

It's sort of like the 8-track tape, the casette tape or the VCR. All of these products lost their market stronghold to advances that brought the same product/service cheaper and better in quality. Newspapers are caught in the same type of crunch. A VCR cannot suddenly play DVDs and a newspaper cannot suddenly become something it isn't ... although it does appear to be evolving into a dinosaur.

 

The changing demographics is an interesting point, because every single poll of newspaper readership is showing that the average of newspaper readers is getting older all the time. But despite that, newspapers are constantly trying to appeal to a younger audience, thus alienating those older readers. Of course once that generation dies off we're basically screwed, but that might certainly have something to do with losing those readers.

I guess it's a matter of if circulation is dropping because readers are getting older and dying or is it shrinking because more and more younger readers aren't subscribing?

 

Fair point, Huck. But here's another way of looking at it: A "newspaper" is just a brand, the Miami Herald, say, or the Des Moines Register. Its core competency is gathering and explaining the news and other things people want to know in Miami or Des Moines, and it is the most authoritative source in town for that sort of information and analysis. The medium doesn't really matter. People will still want to know that information, and someone will make money giving it to them.
If newspapers can preserve their brand and transition into profitable purveyors of that valuable information and analysis (and more, given the lack space limitation) in an online world, they can conceivably do quite well. Well-run companies in other industries make similar transitions all the time. Look at IBM. They used to make computers, for chrissake.

 

I agree STLIrish fully with your point. I guess my question is, though, what exactly are we? Are we a brand for distributing news now that is searching for an alternative means or are we still a newspaper? I thought we were newspapers but it does appear we are headed in all kinds of different directions.

 

I understand newspapers want to keep margins where they are at, but if revenues continue to decline, sure you still have a profitable business but I'm pretty sure Wall Street also like to see revenues increase year to year. It seems to me that the ongoing cuts don't have a long-term objective but are merely meant to bail out on-rushing water from a leaky ship. Execs need to start working on fixing the hole.
Using radio as a model, perhaps will see the big newspaper chains "syndicate" web pages (National news, lifestyle and sports) with room for local operations to slip in local news, weather and sports using a staff of no more that 15. Reader-submitted items would make up the balance of the local presence.

 

Reader/user-submitted "journalism" is not going to work.

Our core strengths are a) our ability to find/report the news; b) our ability to separate the news (a.k.a. news judgment).

Untrained private citizens will never be able to do those tasks as well as experienced, objective, professional journalists. Untrained (unpaid) private citizens -- some of whom (educators, historians, researchers, etc.) surely could learn to find and report the news as well as journalists -- have little incentive to separate the news.

Making critical judgments about news value is where user-submitted journalism will always fail. Unfortunately, many news organizations are failing to make smart critical judgments about news value in the rush to feed the beast that is the 24-hour news cycle, too ...

 

I'm with you Buck, why do you think they're calling it "content" now? I'm just saying reader-submitted fotos of kids sports teams, pets wearing sunglasses, and knitting clubs along with club news and Little League write-ups are what we'll be seeing a lot more of in 10 years. I'm not saying anyone will read it.

 

It's not the economy. It's more the Internet. Newspapers don't make money on sales of the paper/readership. That pays for paper and newsprint. As we know, advertising pays our salaries and our bennies, etc., and as readership goes down - ie, people transfer to the Internet - advertisers quit wanting to pay so much for newspaper ads because they argue that those ads aren't getting the same reach they once did. And yet newspapers are raising those ad rates or trying to find creative ways to sell newspaper ads (ie, tiny strip ads at bottom of the sports cover, etc). The key, I think, is somehow getting advertisers to realize the potential reach by advertising in both print and at the paper's Web site. Ads will work the same on the Web as they do in print - readers will only read/click ads if they want, or they'll ignore them just as they do in newspapers.

Is the economy also affecting ad sales? To a degree, but it depends more on the region you are in, too.

And on those profit margins: this is from March of 2006 (andthis year it was reported that one media conglomerate had a higher profit margin than ExxonMobil). http://www.commondreams.org/views06/0322-28.htm:

Over the last 25 years, the average profit margin for corporate America has been 8.3 percent. But last year the 13 largest newspaper chains turned an average profit margin of 20 percent. The most profitable, such as McClatchy and Gannett, turned a profit margin of 30 percent; Knight-Ridder, 19 percent.

 

Very good points, thanks for the link. Damn we work for a bunch of Fat Cats.