By Daniel Guss
The last two members of my
family to read the print edition of the LA Times, the largest newspaper west of
wherever, were born when Calvin Coolidge was POTUS 30 and FDR was POTUS 32.
Within five years, I say that only the Times’ Sunday edition will be in print,
and that it will stop printing that within another five years. It’s headed to
all-digital in due time.
But last month, the Times’ dirty little secret was
exposed: it has failed miserably to get – and keep – digital subscribers, while
the New York Times has 2.7 million, the Washington Post has 1.7 million and the
Wall Street Journal has 1.5 million digital subscribers.
By comparison, the LA
Times has a paltry 170,000 digital subscribers, reflecting a net gain of just
13,000 in the first half of 2019 after cancelations are cranked in, known in
the industry as its churn rate. The paper had hoped to reach 300,000 and it is
galaxies away from the five million digital subscriber goal of its owner of one
year, Dr. Patrick Soon-Shiong.
A fascinating new report from the Harvard-based
Nieman Lab addresses the LA Times’ failure.
Also last month, CNN filed this
story on how Times executive editor Norm Pearlstine addressed the issue in a
reportedly hostile all-hands meeting. (You know you’re in big trouble when CNN,
which hemorrhages viewers, reports on the Times’ hemorrhaging digital
subscribers.)
While the Times staffers seem to think its digital-subscriber
woes are due to poor execution on its business side, what they are blind to is
this: people do not trust the LA Times to report honestly.
I reached out to
Times spokesperson Hillary Manning to see whether they did any studies to
determine why people aren’t sticking around as paying digital customers. She
didn’t reply, which you can reasonably take to mean that the Times either
doesn’t know why digital subscribers are leaving or they know but are too
embarrassed to admit that it has a severe credibility problem with readers.
Then again, why would anyone pay for news when all the major cable outlets –
and aggregators like Google, Drudge, Breitbart and others -- give away the
content for free? In fact, Google’s updated Chrome browser now makes it easier
than ever to sidestep the Times’ pay wall.
The LA Times has long gotten away
with endorsing politicians who have failed us. It champions them. It makes
excuses for their failures. And then promotes their family members to be their
replacements. Take a look at its fawning coverage of California Governor Gavin
Newsom, Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti, LA City Council president Herb Wesson,
LA County Supervisor Mark Ridley-Thomas and most recently, LA City
Councilmember Nury Martinez.
Last month, a huge blaze in the Sepulveda Basin
wiped out a massive homeless camp that Martinez
has long ignored, both in terms of babies being born there, prostitution and
drug use, not to mention the extreme danger to people – and to animals – living
there.
Instead of holding Martinez’ feet to the proverbial fire, the Times
instead fawns over Martinez as the presumed next LA City Council president,
because it is more focused on helping to make history with Martinez as the
first Latina in that role rather than reporting her colossal failures in
office.
That right there is just one example of why people simply don’t trust
the LA Times.
And tangentially, why do we know the sexual (and other)
preferences of some of the Times reporters? When did that become a thing, and
how has their doing this interfered with their ability to report honestly and
without biases or perceived biases?
This is why people don’t fork over their
spare change and stay as subscribers. As they say in the biz, churn, baby,
churn.
Lastly, as this column first pointed out, the rumored $500 million that
Dr. Patrick SoonShiong shelled out last year for the Times and an assortment of
smaller papers was overvalued by hundreds of millions of dollars. By
comparison, in 1993, the New York Times bought the highly accomplished Boston
Globe for $1.1 billion. But 20 years later, the Times dumped the Globe for just
$70 million to the owner of the Boston Red Sox. That’s a nearly 97% loss on a
quality asset. Unless things change drastically at the Times, including
establishing public trust, Dr. SoonShiong is setting himself up for a similar
massive financial loss.
(Daniel Guss, MBA, is a member of the Los Angeles Press
Club. His opinions are his own and do not necessarily reflect the views of
CityWatch.) Prepped for CityWatch by Linda Abrams.
- CityWatchLA
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