Search results matching tag 'Boston Globe'

Sad but true: buy one newspaper title and get another free

255762 — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 14:31:00 GMT

There is something a little sad and dispiriting about this. It is being reported that whoever buys the Boston Globe will get another New England newspaper thrown in for free. In this case the Worcester Telegram & Gazette.

It is almost like some newspapers are doing so badly that media owners are willing to give them away as opposed to simply closing them down, which can be more costly depending on labour deals.

It could be taken as an indication of how keen the New York Times Company is to offload the Boston Globe, I mean why else would it also be willing to throw in the Worcester Telegram & Gazette?

The bundling of the Worcester Telegram & Gazette with the Boston Globe comes according to a letter sent to possible bidders by Goldman Sachs, which is handling the sale of the loss making paper. The letter was (funnily enough) seen by New York Times reporters. This always makes me laugh particularly when the story includes (as this one does) the line that the New York Times Co had no comment to make.

"The confidential letter from the company’s investment bankers at Goldman Sachs, which was obtained by a Times reporter, says the company will focus on getting the highest price and “on the certainty and speed with which bidders can sign a definitive agreement and complete an acquisition.” It sets a July 8 deadline for initial, nonbinding bids, after which the company would choose which potential buyers would participate in a second round and would be allowed to submit binding offers," the New York Times reported.

On Paidcontent, which blogged the story, it also had that an internal New York Times Co memo sent out earlier this week, revenues at the New England Media Group (which includes the Globe, Boston.com, the Telegram & Gazette and its website) were revealed to have declined from $700m in 2004 to $524m last year. The Boston Globe itself is set to lose $85m this year alone.

There are three bidders in the running for the paper including Jack Connors, co-founder of Hill Holiday.

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Boston Globe fate hangs in the balance

255762 — Tue, 05 May 2009 11:33:00 GMT

The fate of the Boston Globe is hanging in the balance this week as the New York Times Company moves towards a deal with unions, but one with journalists is so far out of reach.

According to a report in the Washington Post, the New York Times Company has backed off from threats to close the paper temporarily at least. It has reached agreement with six of the seven unions that operate at the Globe, but crucially not with the union representing journalists, the Newspaper Guild, which represents 600 editorial staff.

The remaining $10m of cuts the New York Times Co wants to see have to come from the Newspaper Guild, which said it has offered a proposal that has met management's demands. But the New York Times Company says the Guild hasn't come gone far enough.

But even if they do agree the $20m cuts its nowhere near the $85m that the paper is going to lose this year.

There are a number of sticking points. While both have proposed ways of cutting $10m in pay and benefits the Newspaper Guild and the New York Times Company have gone about it in different ways. The Guild has proposed pay cuts of 3.5% as well as longer working hours and reductions in benefits. The New York Times Company wants pay cuts of 23%. There is a lot of distance between those two figures.

That said, that isn't even the main stick point. This is the fact that the union is demanding that the lifetime job guarantee is retained. I can see why they want this. Once that is lifted it is likely the New York Times Company could use it as a way to cut jobs. In particular it would get rid of expensive long serving staff. It is what happens.

But what do you do? The New York Times Co has the Guild over a barrel as the US newspaper industry goes down the pan faster than you can say, I don't know, pan? And with the Boston Globe set to lose $85m (to recap) in 2009 there is no way it can not continue with those kinds of losses for long as pretty soon you will end up with no newspaper and no jobs at all. Period.

It's sad in so many ways as people will lose their jobs, and we're all concerned for the future, but some jobs have to be better than no jobs?

There's loads of coverage around on this here at the Washington Post with more at the New York Times and not forgetting the Boston's Globe's comprehensive coverage of its own troubles.

While down market rival the Boston Herald reports that if talks do fail and the New York Times decides to sell or close the paper, it might not get that much for the asset it paid $1.1bn back in 1993.

Also worth a look is the Wall Street Journal's useful map and table tracking trials and tribulations of the US newspaper industry.

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Fall in US newspaper sales is accelerating

255762 — Tue, 28 Apr 2009 10:16:00 GMT

The economy and swine flu is bad enough, but while big stories fill the front pages of US newspapers, new figures show that the rate of decline in print circulation has accelerated since last autumn.

According to a report in the New York Times, figures out on Monday show a more than 7% drop compared with the previous year.

The industry knows where these people are going as well, but it doesn't help. They aren't going away, they are going to the web. As circulation falls accelerated, newspaper website traffic increased 10.5% in the first quarter, but revenue gains have come nowhere near matching that increased audience.

The only paper out of the top 25 in the US to post a circulation increase was The Wall Street Journal, but that rose only by 0.6%, according to the US Audit Bureau of Circulations.

Many of the falls are double digit at newspapers whose future is in doubt like the San Francisco Chronicle (down 15.72%), Houston Chronicle (down 13.96%) and The Boston Globe (down 13.68%).

Top 25 US newspapers by paid average weekday circulation

Title                                                       March 09        +/-

USA TODAY                                         2,113,725    -7.46%
WALL STREET JOURNAL                   2,082,189    +0.61%
NEW YORK TIMES                              1,039,031    -3.55%
LOS ANGELES TIMES                           723,181    -6.55%
WASHINGTON POST                             665,383    -1.16%
NEW YORK DAILY NEWS                      602,857    -14.26%
NEW YORK POST                                  558,140    -20.55%
CHICAGO TRIBUNE                               501,203    -7.47%
HOUSTON CHRONICLE                        425,138   -13.96%
ARIZONA REPUBLIC                              389,701   -5.72%
DENVER POST                                       371,728     N/A*
NEWSDAY                                               368,194    -3.01%
DALLAS MORNING NEWS                     331,907    -9.88%
MINNEAPOLIS STAR-TRIBUNE             320,076    -0.71%
CHICAGO SUN-TIMES                           312,141    -0.04%
SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE             312,118    -15.72%
BOSTON GLOBE                                    302,638    -13.68%
CLEVELAND PLAIN DEALER                291,630    -11.70%
DETROIT FREE PRESS                         290,730    -5.90%
PHILADELPHIA INQUIRER                     288,298   -13.72%
NEWARK STAR-LEDGER                       287,082   -16.82%
ST. PETERSBURG TIMES                      283,093   -10.42%
OREGONIAN                                           268,512   -11.76%
ATLANTA JOURNAL CONSTITUTION    261,828    -19.91%
SAN DIEGO UNION-TRIBUNE               261,253     -9.53%

Elsewhere, the New York Times has some personal stories from the heart of the downturn and how some reporters are being hit.

One is that of Todd Smith, a reporter from the St Louis surburbs who was covering a city hall story for the Suburban Journals when a man with a gun and a grudge stormed the building and fatally shot six people, before being killed by the police. Smith was short through the hands, but survived. In April he was laid off.

"I thought my job [as the online editor] was pretty safe," he said. "And yeah, I thought getting shot for the company might be looked at as something important, but I guess not."

There is a happier story from Arizona. Paul Giblin and Patti Epler, former journalists at The East Valley Tribune outside Phoenix, were laid off earlier this year and with a few colleagues started The Arizona Guardian, a news site supported by subscriptions and advertising.

Since then, Giblin and Gabrielson have won a string of awards for their project at The Tribune, including, last Monday, a Pulitzer Prize.

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New York Times quiet on charging for content

255762 — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 11:28:00 GMT

The New York Times addressed the "chatter" about paid content, but said nothing concrete, indicating that it is struggling to work out a route forward on how to charge consumers for content.

As the New York Times reported a 27% slide in advertising revenues and a $74m loss (with more to come in quarter two) it said it was exploring alternative business models for its website, but display was still the undisputed (if not as gold plated as expected) king when it comes to making money in online publishing.

Janet Robinson, chief executive of the New York Times not only did not indicate which way the newspaper group might jump, but she also reminded reporters that the New York Times had tried twice before to charge. Was she trying to remind the industry that there were salient lessons to be learnt from those experiences and not to expect too much in the future?

"Twice, in the NYT's history, we experimented with charging for online content, first in 1996 and in 2006 with Times Select. We recently looked at the business models of more than 30 different online organizations to examine what was the most effective in generating online revenues.

"What we have learned is that the advertising model we have used at the NYTimes.com has generated more revenue the vast majority of other organisations, including some that are much larger. Our goal is to add substantial new revenue from our users, without materially affecting our leading display advertising business.

"As the ad marketplace, particularly in print, changes, we continue to explore different payment models and other approaches to generate revenues from our online content. We believe the rate of the decline in Q2 will be the same as the previous quarter."

Rumours are spinning about the future of the Boston Globe, which the New York Times Company has placed on the chopping block.

Two things here: Firstly, the Boston Herald reported that Boston Red Sox principal owner, John Henry, has indicated his willingness to buy the Boston Globe as part of a deal to buy The New York Times Co.'s stake in the Fenway Park ball club.

Sources told the paper, that if Henry bought the NY Times' 17.75% stake in the Sox, he'd also take the Globe off their hands.

The second, Boston Globe management yesterday rejected a proposal by the newspaper's largest union to publicly negotiate concessions sought to save the money-losing newspaper, according to union and Globe officials.

The Guild is prepared "to offer significant labour cost savings," its chief, Daniel Totten said. The union represents more than 600 editorial, advertising, and business office staff. The New York Times Co has given the paper 30 days to agree to $20m in cuts. That clock is fast running down.

Tales of US newspaper gloom: Phoenix, Detroit and Boston

255762 — Thu, 09 Apr 2009 07:45:00 GMT

A few more interesting bits out of the Newspaper Association of America with stories about how badly several newspapers are faring after implementing major changes.

I blogged yesterday about what Google CEO Eric Schmidt told executives in San Diego, but Fortune has a story today about how three newspapers that have undergone tough format changes are doing: not well.

The first was a presentation from the East Valley Tribune, which publishes near Phoenix in Arizona. In January it went from a seven-day paid newspaper to a four times a week free paper with an expanded web presence.

In doing so it cut 40% of its staff when it made the switch, but that wasn't enough and a few weeks ago the East Valley Tribune's owner Freedom Communications asked staff to take five days of unpaid leave.

The Arizona Republic has dubbed these new style unpaid vacations "Fur-cations".

The Fortune piece also gave a few more details on how the two Detroit newspapers are doing following their recent switch from seven day a week home delivery to three.

The Detroit Free Press and Detroit News, run under a joint operating agreement between Gannett and Medianews, are now delivered only three days a week and according to Dave Hunke, the CEO of the Detroit Media Partnership, around 85% of the papers' advertising revenue is now generated on those three delivered days.

The future looks grim when you look at the state of Motor City. Hunke listed skyrocketing unemployment, foreclosures and a market where 47% of adults are functionally illiterate as the challenges the titles faced. "We send more children to prison than to college. So we've got quite a problem on our hands."

As for the changes to the way the papers operate it is, Hunke said, too early to tell.

In New York and Boston, there are reports today of how badly the $20m cuts the New York Times Company wants the Boston Globe to make have gone down. Staff at the Boston paper feel pretty much like they are being thrown to the wolves.

As if the rivalry between the New York Yankees and the Boston Red Sox's wasn't enough (best not to mention that New York media firm also owns a slice of the Sox and Fenway Park). It is the New York Times today that carries a story about the "mix of resignation and anger" that staff on the Boston Globe have expressed after hearing yesterday that of the pay and benefit cuts and the lost job security that The New York Times Company wants them to accept as the price of keeping the money-losing Globe in business.

The Times said that members of the Boston Newspaper Guild understood the need for cuts, but were shocked at how much the company was asking.

“The company’s demands are outrageous,” said Daniel Totten, the union’s president. “We’re willing to consider some concessions but not the draconian amount they put forth.”

Another report in Fortune with the headline "New York vs Boston: this time it's personal" puts into perspective how importantly the city sees the Boston Globe.

"The Globe helped build our city," Boston Mayor Thomas Menino told Fortune. "The Globe holds people accountable on the issues, and that's important. You might not like it sometimes. Sometimes we don't agree. But they ask tough questions and back it up with data, real data. That's what's important. They're out there doing their work. It would be a real travesty if they weren't around."

The sad truth is for the grand Boston paper that it lost $50m last year and is set to lose a whopping $85m this year.

“They want us to accept those figures without offering any observation of the books,” said Julie Dalton, a copy editor. “People feel like The Times is willing to throw us overboard.”

Blog posts of the newspaper crises

Also online

Read Brand Republic's full coverage of how the downturn is hitting the US newspaper industry

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