The New Orleans Times-Picayune May Reduce Frequency of Publication -- NY Times

All she did was save them a couple week's salary. Good luck to her.

 

NYTimes:

 

Is the Times-Picayune considering going back to seven-day-a-week delivery? http://www.bestofneworleans.com/blogofneworleans/archives/2013/06/19/times-picayune-to-launch-its-tabloid-product-tp-street-on-monday

I apologize if this has been posted somewhere else.

 

I can't believe they'd do that in New Orleans after pulling back in Cleveland and now Oregon too.

 

Believe it.

 

Bumping back to the top: Anyone seen a copy of the new TP Street? Tell us what you think if you have.

 

Bumping this thread. Anybody want to discuss the ongoing Advocate/Nola.com (nay, Times-Picayune) newspaper war?

It's got to be the most interesting development in the industry right now. Should I start a new thread? Should I give Cliff's?

 

Here are the basics:

Since cutting its publication days and a lot of its old staff, Nola has added more "special" publications on various days of the week and is inching back towards being a daily. After cutting a lot of older staff, it's come back and hired a lot more. Some of it is younger staff, but some of it is more expensive, big-name staff, particularly in sports.

Meanwhile, a rich New Orleanian named John Georges offered to buy the Picayune to save daily publication. Advance turned him down. So he turned around and bought the Baton Rouge Advocate, which (as is mentioned earlier in this thread) was already trying to fill the daily gap in the New Orleans market.

Since Georges bought the Advocate, it has raided the Picayune for staff, both existing staff and some of the folks who were cut. This has ramped up the newspaper war a bit. BUT, a couple of weeks ago the Advocate also offered buy-outs to all newsroom personnel who have been there 15 years or longer, I'm told (edit to add: sports is exempt from the buyouts). The feeling is that this isn't a cut to minimize losses, but serves two purposes: 1. To shift the culture of the newsroom away from the old Advocate mindset and 2. to get rid of bloat so they can hire positions they think are needed to compete with Nola.com without the payroll getting out of hand.

Meanwhile, Nola.com keeps expanding. It opened a nice, new bureau (not sure if that's what they call it) about a block from the state capitol in Baton Rouge. It keeps adding Baton Rouge positions. And it's paying people. As I mentioned in the ESPN NFL thread, Nola held on to its three big guns on the Saints beat when ESPN came calling, which is remarkable. I'm guessing it means all three are making at least $75k, maybe more, to have turned down ESPN.

I bring that up to make this point: They didn't just cut the old staff and hire cheaper, younger staff. Yes, in many cases that's exactly what they did. But they also used a lot of those savings to spend money on areas they think they can get their bread buttered.

It's an interesting war because both sides are tinkering with the model, like everybody else in the business. But because of the competition, both sides are spending. The feeling is Georges doesn't care if he does anything more than break even financially. This is personal to him.

 

I present the scenario to make this point: There hasn't been much true paper-vs.-paper competition in the industry in years and, to me, that made the industry ill-equipped to deal with the change in model. It simply was not used to competing any more.

Here, you have two papers (nay, websites that also do print editions) trying to beat one another. To me, they are in a better position to innovate than most of the rest of the industry for that very reason.

 

You have to wonder if the same thing will happen in Cleveland. I haven't heard much feedback on the new PD, but Akron isn't too far away and word is they aggressively went after those Cleveland customers that wanted seven days a week.