NOLA Times-Pic dropping its printed product back to 3x/week, reportedly cutting newsroom staff by 1/3.
― Trey Imaginary Songz (WmC), Thursday, 24 May 2012 15:59 (1 year ago) Permalink
http://mediadecoder.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/05/24/new-orleans-times-picayune-to-cut-staff-and-cease-daily-newspape/?hp
That's sad
― curmudgeon, Thursday, 24 May 2012 17:10 (1 year ago) Permalink
Advance also said Thursday that three major daily newspapers that it owns in Alabama will switch to publishing three days a week as part of a new focus on online news: The Birmingham News, The Huntsville Times and the Press-Register of Mobile.
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5g-VEJIvNQKJKPe6Pz4fWFot76Iyw?docId=ecc3151fb82e44dd98446f33dd4258c7
― curmudgeon, Thursday, 24 May 2012 18:40 (1 year ago) Permalink
Meanwhile, Warren Buffett is buying newspapers:
Buffett is adding to Berkshire’s newspaper holdings with the $142 million deal announced May 17 for Media General Inc. (MEG) publications including the Richmond Times-Dispatch of Virginia. The billionaire, who bought the Buffalo News in 1977 and said in 2009 that newspapers have the potential for unending losses, is now betting that papers with a community focus can profit as they change their models.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-05-24/buffett-says-free-news-unsustainable-may-add-more-papers.html
― o. nate, Thursday, 24 May 2012 20:57 (1 year ago) Permalink
I think he's right that there's still a void to fill in terms of local/community information, and probably a way to make money off this, but I'm not clear on how he thinks existing newspapers are going to fill that void without going bankrupt.
― this guy's a gangsta? his real name's mittens. (Hurting 2), Thursday, 24 May 2012 21:15 (1 year ago) Permalink
Yeah, I'm not sure if he knows either.
...Buffett wrote in a letter to editors and publishers of Berkshire’s daily newspapers. "We want your best thinking as we work out the blend of digital and print that will attract both the audience and the revenue we need."
― o. nate, Thursday, 24 May 2012 21:19 (1 year ago) Permalink
I thought AOL's "Patch" was a perhaps good idea that was ATROCIOUSLY executed. But something like that could work maybe, a sort of national network of local news sites, taking advantage of certain scalable aspects while keeping the content completely local and locally reported.
― this guy's a gangsta? his real name's mittens. (Hurting 2), Thursday, 24 May 2012 21:28 (1 year ago) Permalink
patch may be good in theory except for the part where huffpo hired a bunch of 23 year olds right out of college to run the sites and expected them to turn a profit immediately
― fapper don (J0rdan S.), Thursday, 24 May 2012 21:53 (1 year ago) Permalink
I think a lot of Brooklyn and Queens neighborhoods would support more extensive and better quality local coverage, just for example. The big dailies mostly stick to the *trendy* angles on brooklyn and all but ignore queens. No great source for real local news. The Brooklyn Paper seems spotty. Highly literate and interested populace, big city.
― this guy's a gangsta? his real name's mittens. (Hurting 2), Thursday, 24 May 2012 21:56 (1 year ago) Permalink
patch is terrible in theory too, because the economics just don't work. there's no way to make it add up.
well, it could plausibly work in major cities, everything after that, forget it.
― stet, Thursday, 24 May 2012 23:51 (1 year ago) Permalink
― piscesx, Friday, 25 May 2012 01:28 (1 year ago) Permalink
http://www.poynter.org/latest-news/mediawire/175122/will-new-orleanians-follow-the-times-picayune-online-after-it-cuts-back-on-print/
analysis--uh maybe
― curmudgeon, Friday, 25 May 2012 11:35 (1 year ago) Permalink
Dead newspapers, dead Middle American democracy
http://www.salon.com/2012/06/11/dead_newspapers_kill_democracy_dead/singleton/
― World Congress of Itch (Dr Morbius), Monday, 11 June 2012 17:47 (11 months ago) Permalink
http://www.nola.com/business/index.ssf/2012/06/times-picayune_employees_to_le.html#incart_river
They just canned a bunch of the staff
― curmudgeon, Wednesday, 13 June 2012 04:00 (11 months ago) Permalink
http://dinersjournal.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/06/12/brett-anderson-new-orleans-food-writer-is-laid-off/
― curmudgeon, Wednesday, 13 June 2012 04:11 (11 months ago) Permalink
times-picayune pretended the BP oil spill didn't happen until the national media picked it up. seriously. there was a tiny story on the rig explosion and then nothing for like two weeks. in a town/state utterly subject to the sordid whims of energy companies. weird huh.
i know i should be all wringing my hands on the decline of professional journalism or something but if the t-p is an example of modern american newspaperdom just let the whole thing die.
― adam, Wednesday, 13 June 2012 20:32 (11 months ago) Permalink
Yeah, AEI link, but:
The blue line in the chart above displays total annual print newspaper advertising revenue (for the categories national, retail and classified) based on actual annual data from 1950 to 2011, and estimated annual revenue for 2012 using quarterly data through the second quarter of this year, from the Newspaper Association of America (NAA). The advertising revenues have been adjusted for inflation, and appear in the chart as millions of constant 2012 dollars. Estimated print advertising revenues of $19.0 billion in 2012 will be the lowest annual amount spent on print newspaper advertising since the NAA started tracking ad revenue in 1950.
― Ned Raggett, Monday, 10 September 2012 19:59 (8 months ago) Permalink
Oof.
― Chewshabadoo, Tuesday, 11 September 2012 00:32 (8 months ago) Permalink
Surprising that they were doing so well in 1999.
― get you ass to mahs (abanana), Tuesday, 11 September 2012 01:52 (8 months ago) Permalink
2005 as the start of the steep decline sounds right.
― a regina spektor is haunting europe (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Tuesday, 11 September 2012 01:55 (8 months ago) Permalink
1999 was right before things really hit an infrastructure tipping point in terms of the Net as high speed delivery, IIRC.
― Ned Raggett, Tuesday, 11 September 2012 01:59 (8 months ago) Permalink
I've mentioned this on other threads, but an indispensible site for following industry triage/amputation/death/autopsy: http://jimromenesko.com/
― Irwin Dante's Towering Inferno (WmC), Tuesday, 11 September 2012 01:59 (8 months ago) Permalink
Innovative approach from the Irish newspaper industry: demand money from people who link to your content.
http://www.mcgarrsolicitors.ie/2012/12/30/2012-the-year-irish-newspapers-tried-to-destroy-the-web/
― the definite listicle (seandalai), Thursday, 3 January 2013 11:22 (4 months ago) Permalink
"We're probably not going to lose a lot, but we aren't going to make much either."
― REBEL YELL FOR HUGS (Austerity Ponies), Thursday, 10 January 2013 17:21 (4 months ago) Permalink