Over the past two years I have been urging my colleagues in Operations to destroy their credit cards and be prepared for the worst. Last night’s News Wars only amplified my fears on the future of print media, especially the newspaper I print daily, the Los Angeles Times.
When the chairman of the New York Times is quoted saying “I really don’t know weather we’ll be printing the Times in five years,” and you produce a hard copy of your local newspaper, you either sit up and pay attention or you play it off and pretend it was not said.
As my co-workers and I chat over coffee and cigarettes, I bring comments like this up, and I’m rebuffed with “Why would people like David Geffen offer two-billion dollars for the Los Angeles Times, if the print side of the newspaper will be history in five years?” My answer is an easy one; newspapers are turning to the Internet for their future.
The publisher of the Los Angeles Times, David Hiller, attempted yesterday to ease the fears of his employees with a memo, which only made my point much clearer.
"If you want a real look at the future of The Times - and have only a limited amount of time - I would spend it with our new Travel section and website which debuted wonderfully on Sunday. I would also check out The Envelope's glorious Oscars coverage, again integrated print and online; and utilize the new MYLatimes feature on our site to get a true gauge of what we are doing to be relevant to our region".
Mr. Hiller makes five points regarding the online edition of the newspaper, and one mention of the hard copy of the newspaper. It’s rather easy to see that the newspapers of the future will focus their efforts to the online editions, or fade away to extinction.
As the Los Angeles Times prepares to trim yet another two inches of the newsprint from the newspaper, talk of taking the newspaper to forty-six inches are already circulating around the pressroom. I wonder how much further we can trim the newspaper down before becoming a tabloid?
The next four weeks will be tense for production employees across the country as the outcome of the Tribune Company sale is revealed.
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6 comments:
Just a thought…….
The web is an unparalleled invention that allows far-flung people to find each other, have conversations, and sometimes, when you're very lucky, form communities. But it's ephemeral: Just try to find that cool website from last year, or even that interesting NY Times story from last week. The web self-mulches at an ever-increasing pace.
Print is part of real life. It's there with you in the cafe, the restaurant, the bathroom. You can lose yourself in a story in print more than you can on a screen.
The internet has freed the printed page from having to be about data. Where do you go to find out what the weather is like in New York? It's hard to imagine a time when people would turn to the printed page for such information, but they did. Now, with an internet brimming with data, newspapers are free to skip the data and focus on what they do best: communicate, entertain, and inspire.
The internet is not going to make newspapers go away - it's going to make them better.
Well-written response. However, such thinking will only hasten the decline in newspapers. If you haven't noticed, the decline is happening at an alarming rate now.
Gaps in your logic. 1) The cool website is not available next year? You mean you can't search for past content on the internet? And, further, do you think a newspaper in printed form from last year is available now in print? Print back issues are a thing of the past. If you want a copy of a story now, they PDF it to you. Oh, they might mail you a printed out computer version.
2) People take print to the cafe, restaurant and bathroom. Ever see young people today with their ipods? Ever see laptops at Starbucks? This will only grow as wireless networks are set up in more locations. It's the old guy like me you still looks for the paper. My kids--and I have been a 7-day subscriber for decades--go electronic.
3) Newspapers do what they do best, communicate, entertain and inspire. Yes, you are correct. Credibility and quality reside with newspapers. For now. But for how long? And will newspapers adapt to the changing interest of readers?
The trends show newspaper circulation will continue to decrease. Talk to a circulator. They are battling to keep losses in the mid-single digits. Home delivery churn is alarming. Single copy sales are plummeting.
Newspapers should not concentrate on the platform, namely print, but on the content. On that point, I think we agree.
Bottom line though, Ed is right.
They said it about Radio....
They said it about TV......
And now they are saying it about the Internet......
Same tune different “niche”....
What’s changed?
Wall Street wanting a obscene 20% (and more) margin and “corporate management” going along with it at all costs! During the “challenge” of Radio and TV, “newspaper” companies knew they had to reinvest their profits back into the paper and wait for “advertisers” to realize where they would get the most “bang for their buck”. While that was happening publishers where improving their content and realigning content geographically to their customers needs, both advertisers and subscribers, not cutting staff and eliminating circulation as a way of achieving 20%, or more, margins.
There was a place for radio, TV and now the Internet! They all do what they do well, but they don’t do what the newspaper does. It may take a while but advertisers and subscribers, as they have in the past, will figure it out and come back to “ink on paper”.
I hope you are right. I've worked in the newspaper business for almost 30 years. I do not know how newspapers specifically reacted to the advent of radio and tv. Don't know the strategies employed. In retrospect, whatever was done, worked.
However, I think the internet is different. Here's why.
1) Radio and tv cannot measure response. Nielson--or whatever they are using now--may provide an indicator on who is watching, but only the internet can measure user interest, such as, click-throughs and actual purchases. Advertisers are now asking newspapers for response metrics to their messages. They are no longer content with cost per/000 metric. This does not bode well for TV, radio and newspapers. Without an actual coupon brought into a store, response rate is difficult to measure.
2)I mentioned in my prior post that circulation has dropped at all major metros across the country. Although circulation declines have been occuring since the mid-70s, the last two years have seen increasing losses. Newspapers are discounting heavily and providing 3-day, 4-day, 5-day, etc. at discounted prices. When you have to discount this heavily to keep subscribers--at all newspapers--there is something wrong with the value proposition. Is it the content? Or the platform?
3) Classified advertising is migrating at an alarming rate to the internet. Employment, real estate and auto--all high margin staples for newspapers--are moving online. What does this have to do with journalism? This high margin business was the backbone of funding for journalism investments of the past. If the rate of decline in classified continues, you can forget about 20% margins. It will threaten profitability itself.
There is good news. Newspapers, albeit a bit late, are addressing the classifed concern through partnerships and leveraged content. However, competitors come out of the woodwork. Barriers to entry are low for this business. Margins are alot lower.
Sorry for the long post. I hope you are right, but 30 years of experience tells me--and I have alot more metircs and data--that you describe an unlikely case.
My background.....
I have 35 years in the business and my father 45 years.
History is a good teacher. Today’s “words of doom” have been used many times before to predict the end of the newspaper business. Yes, things will change, as they have in the past, but “ink on paper” is here to stay.
I think that newspapers including the Times should advertise in a fashion that newspapers offer more indept and more detail since the electronic media (other than internet) don't have much time to report each and every tidbit that a paper could offer. The print on the substrate doesn't fade overnight as images on tv fade to black. The Times should say what Paul Harvey used to say, "and now..., the rest of the story", page 78, Goodday!
Bob Wright
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