Search results matching tag 'The Christian Science Monitor'

Crunch week for US newspapers

255762 — Fri, 16 Jan 2009 09:34:00 GMT

The year is only two weeks old, but it is already carnage out there in the US newspaper industry as two more papers face closure and Gannett takes unheard of steps to ward off more job cuts.

It beggars belief that so much bad news could come in a week, but the industry has managed it without any difficulty whatsoever. The week started off with speculation about the very existence of the New York Times - as commentators asked could the Old Grey Lady go under? It seems like a distant possibility, but as the clouds of doom continue to coalesce it is maybe not so far fetched as first imagined.

Yesterday, was the deadline for bids on the The Rocky Mountain News. If there are no sufficient bids then that paper, with 230 staff could close, or go online only. It is the second time this week that the prospect of a daily US newspaper going online only has been raised.

On Monday, Hearst Corporation said that a digital-only future is one option being examined as it weighs up the future of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer newspaper. Those two papers could find themselves following in the footsteps of the Christian Science Monitor, which said in October it was to scrap the daily print issue of its newspaper and focus on running its website.

An online only future for a newspaper sounds stark, but really is it so bad? Well the immediate answer on one level is yes as many thousands would lose their jobs and a way of life - of print - would come to an end. Newspapers are about more than producing and publishing content. And it is a sad loss when any major newspaper disappears.

The bad news has not ended there this week. Also yesterday the Star Tribune of Minneapolis, another daily, filed for bankruptcy protection after the paper's owners failed to win a series of concessions on wages with unions. That paper is owned by private equity firm Avista Capital. Pity any newspaper firm owned by private equity. It doesn't bode well for the paper of record for the Twin Cities.

The story of the the Star Tribune of Minneapolis seems to echo on a smaller scale the immense financial problems of Los Angeles Times-owner Tribune, which filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in December after real estate magnate Sam Zell bought it in an $8.2bn buy-out last year.

If these busy busy two weeks are anything to go by it is going to be a very bumpy ride this year as witnessed further yesterday by USA Today owner Gannett's unprecedented decision to force thousands of its staff to take unpaid leave. Gannett has said this will affect most of its 31,000 staff.

Gannett says the move is keep more job cuts at bay, but this is a firm that has cut around 6,000 jobs in the last two years. It cut 3,500 jobs in 2007 alone way before things got bad.

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So long Exchange & Mart

255762 — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 12:37:00 GMT

Exchange & Mart had a very small print circulation with barely 20,000 and falling, but its closure in print and move to online only publication is a story that is set to be repeated over and over this year. Quite how much is anyone's guess.

With its position as a classified title the closure of Exchange & Mart in print is perhaps less of a surprise than many similar closures. The decline of the classified ad market that hit specialist titles like Exchange & Mart, as well as regional and national newspapers alike. It has spared no one and is only going to get worse. Eighty jobs are under threat at the auto classified title which adds to the hundreds already lost and under threat in the regional press within the last few months at titles like the Northern Echo where staff are considering strike action as they are elsewhere at titles like the Yorkshire Post.

The problem with some of these closures and cuts is that some like Exchange & Mart appear to be the only option. There is very little future in the print classified market. Regional newspapers generally, however, appear in some places to be put to the sword, which is probably why one independent local newspaper group, the Wigan Courier, has called online advertising a “digital fad” that will pass and there is “still no substitute” for a colourful local newspaper ad. More likely it is just a cheeky grab for publicity.

Managing director Mark Ashley told Press Gazette: “The Courier is bucking the current trend for regional newspapers, which has seen a year of contraction, circulation losses, job cuts and cutbacks.

“We believe that readers and advertisers want a mass distribution, colourful, effective newspaper that focuses on all the good things about our local Wigan community, and that the current obsession with internet advertising and Facebook will gradually go the way of all the digital fads over the last few years."

That said the signs of change in magazine and newspaper publishing are evident in all markets. We've all seen it. At the end of last year Ziff Davis Media closed the print edition of its once flagship title, PCMag, after 26 years and will publish the magazine online only.

That followed on a larger scale the news that the Christian Science Monitor was to close down and going online only and CosmoGirl while the Sporting News and US News & World Report cut their print frequency and put more focus on the web.

In the B2B sector, there are a number of examples, but close to hand at Haymarket, which owns Brand Republic, Marketing Direct and Promotions & Incentives have gone online only. They will not be the last in the B2B sector either, which has also been hit hard by the decline of the ad market.

And the truth as we have already witnessed is that online is no safe haven. The truth that has revealed itself is that the expected hand in hand growth of revenues and traffic has not happened. Traffic for many sites big and small has soared, but the revenue is not growing at anything like the same rate.

The web posted annual growth of 29.5% in 2007 and 20% in 2008 digital ad spend in 2009 is expected just 2.1%, according to Enders Analysis forecasts.

This is why this week you have had ITV writing down the value of Friends Reunited, concluding that the site is worth less than the £175m it bought it for.

ITV like a lot of media companies look unlikely to hit online revenue targets the projections for which were based on much higher growth rates than we are now living with.

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The end of print for The Independent?

255762 — Wed, 26 Nov 2008 15:26:00 GMT

It happened recently in the US, but could it happen here? Roy Greenslade writes today about his kill or cure plan for the Independent -- kill off the print version and carry on as a digital paper.

As the Independent prepares for a round of 90 editorial job cuts he argues in his Evening Standard column today that Independent News & Media must bite the bullet and stop spending a small fortune every year (around £12m) publishing the Independent as a newspaper.

He suggests the radical plan for the paper's survival in the week that Roger Alton, editor of The Independent, said he feels a "terrible personal failure" for the newspaper's struggling performance but has ruled out a sale in the immediate future.

The personal failure is not his alone. Well before he arrived after his high achieving stint at the Observer the Independent was listing like a ship in a breakers yard. Sales of the paper fell 16.29% year on year in October to an average circulation of just 201,019 copies.

The paper has been in decline for some time and increasing the cover price to £1 in this market seems like madness. It certainly struck Alton as such. He saw fit to attack it in a Sky News interview earlier this week.

What lies ahead, says Greenslade, is a "real chance to lead the digital revolution towards its next, inevitable phase", which is slowly winding its way towards us and claiming victims as it goes.

Just look at the Christian Science Monitor in the US as an example. That venerable paper, that once sold as much as the Independent, is preparing to cease publication and go online only (with a weekly magazine in support).

And look to Rupert Murdoch's recent comments on The Future of Newspapers where he said "that newspapers will reach new heights in the 21st century" but that these would be digital ones.

He said the real business of newspaper owners "isn't printing on dead trees" and that newspapers themselves are not the medium, but rather the qualities that good newspaper businesses embody -- great journalism and judgment.

Back to the Independent, Greenslade makes a solid argument and it is one that everyone knows well by now. Closing a failing paper (or a magazine for that matter) will "save trees, save ink, production and distribution costs. There is marketing as well, of course, and in doing it, as Greenslade says, "the paper will take a giant step into the digital age".

It is that first step that is the hardest as it will be Sir Tony O'Reilly admitting defeat. He clearly holds the paper quite dear. It has been said before that it is his calling card. British national newspapers are a generally impressive affair and much admired. He would lose that, but he too must face up to reality. To the new reality even.

As part of that new reality is the esteem in which some news and blog sites are now held in. Look at the recent US Presidential. It was in a large part a digital election and proved a bonanza for respected political websites such as The Huffington Post, Slate and The Page.

So yes there is much merit in what he suggests. The only fly in the digital ointment is the same fly that exits in the printed world. The Independent is bottom of the pile and that is even more true in the digitally world.

In the recent electronic ABCs The Independent.co.uk reported a rise in unique users, climbing 5% to 8.4m. The Guardian, market leader here, increased its users by 7.4% month on month to a record of almost 26m.

The Guardian soars online, but revenues are still elusive and becoming more so in times like these. What would that mean for an electronic only Independent? One imagines that the digital product would have less staff than the paper one (although this assumption may be incorrect). It would still struggle in the face of its rivals far behind the Guardian and fourth placed Times Online for that matter that recorded 20.5m uniques.

We also have no clear idea what would happen to the Independent's site online should it lose its number one promotional tool -- the newspaper itself.

What impact would the loss of the paper product have on those 8.5m uniques? Big question and no answer close to hand. IN&M have apparently looked at this scenario and ruled it out because of the huge loss of ad revenues and estimated the gap between print revenue and online-only revenue would be as large as £30m a year after all the cost savings.

But as the paper continues to lose ad revenue offline and readers the gap is not going to stay that way. There will be additional online revenues as well to squeeze that gap closer.

It would be a leap in the dark, but my feeling as well is that sooner rather than later we will know the answer to that question as some takes a leap into the unknown. Will the Independent last another year? It has to be worth a bet.

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Ziff Davis closes PCMag and goes online only

255762 — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 14:43:00 GMT

PaidContent is reporting that Ziff Davis is the latest in a line of publishers to close a magazine, in this case PCMag, and go online only. It's an accelerating trend.

The site says that Ziff Davis, which recently came out of Chapter 11 bankruptcy, will focus on growing PCMag's online network of sites, which is led by PCmag.com and also includes ExtremeTech, Gearlog, Appscout, Smart Device Central, Cranky Geeks, and PCMagCast.

PCMag will not be the last with a number of publishers considering similar moves. It's a bold move, but a sad one in that it ends a 26 year run for the magazine as a printed title. PCMag launched in the early 80s during the dawn of the PC.

It isn't just magazines, of course, it is newspapers as well with Christian Science Monitor closing down and going online only.

Like the CSM, which at one time sold 200,000 copies, PCMag at one stage was publishing 400 pages an issue and going as high as the 600-page marks.

Some might say it has gone from that to nothing, but the other way to look at it is that it is publishing many hundreds more web pages each week with acres of content and community.

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Positive story about the future of newspapers

255762 — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 16:28:00 GMT

Rupert Murdoch has been putting the doomsayers of the newspaper industry in their place. The future he says is still bright, but it is in case you were in any doubt by now definitely online.

In a speech he has knocked the doomsayers who are predicting the internet will kill off newspapers. He calls them "misguided cynics". The title of the speech ("The Future of Newspapers: Moving Beyond Dead Trees") told you all you needed to know about his thinking (and those of his advisers) about the future of newspapers. He was reminding newspaper journalists almost that they often think too literally about where they are published and that simply because they're no longer "in print (on the printed page)" this does not signal the end - far from it this is only the beginning.

"Too many journalists seem to take a perverse pleasure in ruminating on their pending demise," Murdoch said, "Unlike the doom and gloomers, I believe that newspapers will reach new heights in the 21st century. Readers want what they've always wanted: a source they can trust. That has always been the role of great newspapers in the past. And that role will make newspapers great in the future."

Murdoch has always bet on newspapers, but he has also bet big online and that's what he is still doing so in this speech, which says there are opportunities online as web traffic rises and circulations continue a steady fall as the slow shift of power from the the printed page to online continues. His words also underscored the areas that digital publishers need to focus on if they want to get it right and realise these opportunities.

The march in that direction is irrefutable and quiet unstoppable. That's the obvious bit. Just look at the Christian Science Monitor as an example of this (although really, I sincerely believe that if they had changed the name of that paper a few years ago it would not be ceasing publication) as it goes online only (with a weekly magazine in support).

The challenge/opportunity that Murdoch talks about is how newspapers crack the conundrum of making cash out of their ever mightier online operations as more and more people choose this way to consume the 21st versions of newspapers.

He said the real business of newspaper owners "isn't printing on dead trees". Newspapers themselves are not the medium, but rather the qualities that good newspaper businesses embody: giving readers great journalism and great judgment – words they trust, which is why we all turn to our favoured media brands online when we want the answer to some question of the day. That's clearly where the future growth lies in the most trusted news, best communities, bloggers and other content.

"If papers provide readers with news they can trust, we'll see gains in circulation — on our web pages, through our RSS feeds, in emails delivering customised news and advertising, to mobile phones. In this coming century, the form of delivery may change, but the potential audience for our content will multiply many times over.

"The newspaper, or a very close electronic cousin, will always be around," he said. "It may not be thrown on your front doorstep the way it is today. But the thud it makes as it lands will continue to echo around society and the world."

The point about the qualities of newspaper businesses and how those qualities can be applied to where ever newspaper words appear is really the heart of the debate about the future of newspapers beyond those trees.

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