Birmingham, Mobile and Huntsville to publish three days a week

[Drip]

So who's next? Harrisburg? The Jersey cluster?

Philly, Baltimore, New York. It's the copy cat syndrome and in this profession, it's the norm.

 

[steveu]

Notice, however, only one chain has tried it. The key words: so far. We'll see how well it works in Alabama and New Orleans.

 

[FileNotFound]

I do think a lot of media companies were waiting for somebody else to do it first.

 

[Mark2010]

Softball? I wonder how many papers do travel with softball.

As for the Alabama thing, I still can't see how anyone is making money on these web-first ideas. OK, so you have a reporter who writes a story, even breaks news. You put it on your website. I read the story on your website, which just gives me one less reason to buy your printed product, thereby decreasing circulation.

So where are you making revenue? Is anyone making substantial revenue on web only advertising? (heck, I never even notice ads on websites.) On pay services? How is this supposed to be working?

The idea is you would pay to read the Website. Ads on a Website cost much less than ads in print, but the production of an actual newspaper (design staff, paper printing costs, a press or outsourcing the actual printing job, etc) costs more than it does to maintain a Website. That stuff was all explained to me by someone.

So, I can assume that this is the economic side: while the actual revenue is lower, the expense is also lower and the idea is the difference in expense from before to now is greater than the difference in revenue from before to now.

I could be wrong but it makes sense to me.

Online revenue cannot support a news operation as we know it on the local level, with the exception of the largest papers in the country. What will happen at most places if they stick around is the Huffington Post model with a couple of paid reporters for investigative work or major beats, but everything else covered by low-paid or unpaid contributors.

Subscriptions and rack sales are supposed to be a break-even proposition to pay for pritinting and distribution. Print ad revenue pays for everthing else. I doubt online ad revenue would approach 15 percent of print ad revenue.

That's what I'm trying to figure in all this. Where's the revenue being generated?

Are they keeping three print editions in hopes of absorbing 80 percent of the ads in those?

Are they expecting tons of advertisers to purchase online ads?

Are they expecting lots of online subscribers to pay for content?

If you kill your primary revenue source, you have to get it from somewhere, eh?

 

[dixiehack]

A pretty thoughtful take on what quality has already been sacrificed, what is to come and why web ad revenue is a scary place to look for salvation.

http://weldbham.com/secondfront/2012/05/29/no-news-is-bad-news-advance-shake-up-leaves-three-alabama-cities-without-daily-papers/

 

[Stitch]

They are killing days when ad revenue is negligible.

 

[Drip]

I think many believe that Gannett was going to be the first one to do this. But you can bet the suits in many organizations are going to be watching. NOLA found out after Katrina, when they didn't have the print product available in many areas, that people enjoyed the on-line version of the news.
On paper, this product model has potential. However, it may be too late to put it in full use.

 

[Mark2010]

How too late?

 

[I Should Coco]

A pretty thoughtful take on what quality has already been sacrificed, what is to come and why web ad revenue is a scary place to look for salvation.

http://weldbham.com/secondfront/2012/05/29/no-news-is-bad-news-advance-shake-up-leaves-three-alabama-cities-without-daily-papers/

That's a strong column, dixie. He describes how online ads generate (a little) money better than I have been able to do when I discuss this issue.

And his underlying concern is the same as mine: the sun is setting on the least popular — but most important — "community" news reporters used to routinely cover.

 

[black dude with pompano]

A pretty thoughtful take on what quality has already been sacrificed, what is to come and why web ad revenue is a scary place to look for salvation.

http://weldbham.com/secondfront/2012/05/29/no-news-is-bad-news-advance-shake-up-leaves-three-alabama-cities-without-daily-papers/

That's a strong column, dixie. He describes how online ads generate (a little) money better than I have been able to do when I discuss this issue.

And his underlying concern is the same as mine: the sun is setting on the least popular — but most important — "community" news reporters used to routinely cover.

You're right, and that's the thing that I think people miss. Many think "hyper-local" will be our savior, when anyone who monitors web traffic knows that's not the case at all.

 

[young-gun11]

With the risk of outing myself to some fellow co-workers who might be on this board -- We got an email this morning from our GM about this whole thing. When I saw the subject, my heart fainted. Luckily, the email was a positive one, stating community journalism is still going strong and we would not be cutting back at all (at least within the next few years..it did hint at a more online presence in 5 years).

 

[Stitch]

Luckily, the email was a positive one, stating community journalism is still going strong and we would not be cutting back at all.

All publishers say this at first.