Newspapers eye extreme cuts as crisis grows

Fearing that newspaper sales may fall as deeply next year as the record plunge in prospect for 2008, publishers are preparing contingency plans for cutting costs in previously unimaginable ways.In the best of cases, publishers will continue aggressively nipping and tucking at staffing, benefits, newshole, and the footprint of their circulation areas. In the worst cases, some newspapers will be

Newspaper sales fell almost $2B in one quarter

Newspaper advertising sales dived by a record 18.1% in the third quarter in a historic, across-the-board rout paced by a nearly 31% plunge in classified revenues.Eking out $8.9 billion in print sales in the three months ended in September, the industry shed a bit less than $2 billion in revenues from the same period in the prior year, according to statistics published quietly on the afternoon

Newspaper sales fall in historic rout

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Buyout Sex, the other severance benefit

Who knew layoffs could be a turn on?Mary F. Pols, a movie critic who accepted one of the scores of buyouts at the Contra Costa Times, made the best of a traumatic situation by having an affair with a fellow scribe at the California paper, she revealed in Modern Love, the most consistently delectable feature in the Sunday New York Times.“Buyout Sex,” as Mary (left) dubbed it, affords a journalist

One exec’s savvy take on the news biz

A nationally prominent investor offered a number of penetrating observations the other day about what ails the newspaper business. His rundown is worth a quick read.:: A monopoly mindset: “The newspaper business basically grew up as a monopoly, and like every other monopoly, it built processes and approaches that reflected its monopoly status.”:: Order taking vs. effective ad sales: “You need a

Out of kilter: Stock slide hits NYT activists

A chill wind may be blowing up the kilt these days of Scott Galloway, the colorful investment strategist who persuaded a giant private equity fund that he could show the New York Times a better way to run a newspaper company.A onetime Internet entrepreneur who earned an extra 1.5 minutes of fame a couple of years ago when he modeled a kilt at a New York charity gala, Scott is the guy who

Why feds won’t bail out newspapers

If a federal bailout for General Motors might be good for America, how about one for newspapers, too? Ain’t gonna happen. Here’s why:Like the Big Three domestic automakers, most newspapers are suffering from weak customer demand, falling sales, suffocating fixed operating costs and shrinking profitability that together are eating into their financial reserves. But the similarities end

It’s time to bust up Yahoo

With Yahoo’s disparate components worth more than the whole and its stock near a nine-year low, this would be a great time for a smart investor to buy the company and break it up.If Yahoo were sold off in pieces, it would mark the end of the first new media company that tried to act like an old one. And its fate would serve as a lesson to any old media company that still thinks a

Newspaper profits swoon, more cuts likely

Relentless expense reductions at America’s newspapers this year have failed to stay ahead of falling sales and uncontrollable fixed costs, eviscerating the industry’s profitability and suggesting that more drastic cuts may lie ahead.The average profitability of newspapers tumbled 18½ times faster than sales fell in the third quarter of this year, according to an analysis of a dozen companies that

Motown's meltdown, redux

With the idea of a multibillion-dollar bailout for the auto industry front and center in the news, here is a an encore presentation of a post originally produced two years ago. It is relevant not only to the auto industry but the media business, too. The hubris that led to the humiliation of the American auto industry was painfully evident 30 years ago, when I took a brief spin on the beat for

It’s time to rip the lid off

The mad rush among consumers to buy the historic editions proclaiming the Obama presidency is at once a validation of the power of newspapers and a reminder of what ails them.It is a welcome confirmation, because it shows people still value a newspaper as perhaps the most authoritative and tangible artifact of a memorable event. Last week’s papers are likely to be preserved more carefully over

How one paper solved its 'Monday problem'

The Lawrence (KS) Journal-World solved the problem of weak advertising on Monday by creating a themed edition for women that generated some $340,000 in revenues at launch from mostly new accounts.In the following guest article, Al Bonner, the general manager of the 20k-circulation daily, tells how the paper sold almost all the ad positions for a year within a matter of weeks.By Al Bonner Like

Campaign ’08: MSM’s last hurrah

The 2008 presidential election likely will go down in history as the last hurrah for the mainstream media when it comes to its influence over national politics.The once pre-eminent authority of newspapers and broadcast networks in national campaigns will be diminished sharply in the future by three major and seemingly unstoppable trends::: Shrinking audiences and decaying advertising revenues