7/7/08

Not fud, just enlightening

Also an insight into why print newspapers are dying. Their corporate profits just can't keep up.
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2 comments:

Beacongal said...

Don't get me started. I'm playing catchup, having been on the road. But a couple of observations: Supermarkets have squeaked by on profit margins of 1% for years. Newspapers enjoyed 28% or so. They've now been reduced to a paltry 12% and they're crying bloody murder and laying off staff. These numbers are rough approximations.
On another front, if you go the way of Scripps and spin off your high-profile online assets into a separate company, you leave all your expenses (the journalists who produce the content for both the Web and the paper) with the mother ship, the newspaper.
Profits of the online enterprise look great because the overhead isn't being charged to your account.
Anyone who wants to save newspapers should take a page from the EARLY history of William Randolph Hearst: Become an advocate for the reader. (In later days, it will be admitted that Hearst papers became advocates for Marion Davies and Hitler, but that's another story.)
How about a local paper starting a column that does nothing but help people prevent their homes from being foreclosed on?
How about a Heloise for debt?
A School Mom column written by a local activist mother who's trying to turn the schools around?
The possibilities to get involved in the community and help readers are endless, but the publishers are more concerned about the ads than the readers.
And, of course, they've got Wall Street or some private-equity outfit to please. Hence, the relentless focus on margins.

July 8, 2008 at 10:33 AM
Gastropoda said...

I've been reciting the same percentages for years while the Tribune company kept squeezing the stone trying to extract 28 percent blood.

And I hate to say it, but the Wall Street Journal is already doing some of what you advise. Pretty scary when their readers need to learn how to borrow from their 401Ks etc. Meanwhile, my hometown paper has apparently shut down its police bureau. Metro is all fluff all the time, and the core readership is here. Go figger.

July 8, 2008 at 11:07 AM

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