I've now heard from two readers scrambling against a Monday deadline to redesign their papers. Today, in an e-mail, a third reader says: "Cuts won't be limited to personnel. Publishers and editors are being encouraged to rebook the paper to dramatically reduce newshole. Among the sections on the chopping block are Lifestyle and Voices sections, along with national sports. In some cases, four-section papers will be cut to three or two sections. There's lots of rethinking going on, but the bottom line is the reader will get less. Imagine an entire paper in a mid-sized market with 24 pages or less. And, since it takes less manpower to produce 24 pages vs. (say) 48 pages, people will be lost, too. Look for lots of universal desks to spring up, with editors handling pages for multiple sections."
How are you preparing for the 10% cut? Post replies in the comments section, below. E-mail gannettblog[at]gmail[dot-com]; see Tipsters Anonymous Policy in the green sidebar, upper right.
This is typical death spiral decisions. Revenues down, so cut the newspaper and its staff, which brings in less revenue and readers rebel by cancelling their subscriptions. These papers are already too thin and useless to their readers. Radical decisions like scrapping ad-lite Monday papers only contribute to the idea newspapers are no longer a winning product. Why would an advertiser want to put an ad in a losing product? I am so sick of this bottom line attitude.
ReplyDeleteIf the Lifestyle section goes away, does that mean the people that work in that department are on the chopping blocks?
ReplyDeleteReduce the size/value of the paper and increase the price. Hmmmmm could this spell doom for the newspaper industry.
ReplyDeleteYes. Why on earth would you pay more and get less.
What a joke.
I'm still waiting for the freeze exec salaries and reduce big guy/girl bonuses that would help.
ReplyDeleteFurther proof that the papers cannot remain viable enterprises as long as they have to remit a high percentage of their profits as homage payments to King Dubow.
ReplyDeleteIf the Lifestyle section is eliminated or slimmed down, yes, then the staff is eliminated or slimmed down. This layoff is not on seniority, but left to the publishers to pick who goes and who stays. Remember we are information centers now, and the old divisions have been broken down. So Lifestyle reporters should bone up on their days of covering local night police and county board meetings.
ReplyDeleteI can tell you that if our Lifestyles section goes, that will be the end of our paper. Readers know the front page hard news is predictably about the murder the of the day, but the Lifestyles section has been a staple for years, and if it goes or is diminished, you can expect subscriptions to tank.
ReplyDeleteThe people in charge seem to have no idea how important it is because they are not in the demographic that reads it, but the demographic that reads it accounts for most readers.
Cutting print content and raising subscription rates while continuing to give it away online for free, without even trying to tie it into a subscription model like the WSJ and others is ridiculous.
ReplyDeleteDubow may have a high buyout price, but it may be worth it to get his "headwinds" the hell out of this industry.
Please do not cut the Life Style of our local papers. That is the only touch we have with the everyday life of the everday citizens. That is the first section I pick up. I know the other is going to be politics and shoot-em-outs. Life style section gives us a little input into what our neighbors or doing and accomplishing. And our reporters for those sections are outstanding.
ReplyDeleteThink about this. The paper size is mostly determined by the number advertising inches sold. So you'll either have very high advertising ratio's (which dilute their effectivenes,) or the company is going to reduce local sales presure (which is very expensive to maintain.) Local ad dollars come at heavily discounted rates and typically take the most production time to produce.
ReplyDeleteAnon 6:33 p.m….you’re kidding right? If high ad ratios dilute effectiveness, then why do so many well-done shoppers offer great results, let alone newspaper classifieds?
ReplyDeleteLook, advertising for many, is news too and as such, papers can up the ratios a bit without killing results and they can better edit stories to provide the room (though, poses issues too). Bad ad design and weak offers and calls to action is more the issue.
In regard to backing off local ads, are you crazy? That’s one of Gannett’s great weaknesses. It doesn’t have enough to replace ever shrinking national revenues, etc. Of course producing them takes more, but the real problem is that a few suits from McLean designed costlier plans to get more of them. Raising rates for less distribution and a shrinking newshole makes it even more difficult with that group of ad buyers.
And, regarding discounted rates for local ads, you might try looking at it from the other way around as the big guys have been paying way too much for years. Why, because newspapers could get away with it. That world is fast changing, in part due to the internet, and in part due to newspaper’s own greed.
I think that Gannett, once again, is out of touch with its readers if they are thinking of killing lifestyles sections. That is the section primarily read by women, who are the people who actually spend money shopping for food, clothing, etc., and who actually look at the advertisements in papers.
ReplyDeleteKilling the lifestyles sections sounds like another "genius" plan for Gannett. It's just another in a long line of bad decisions made by people who are bent on killing this company, so I wouldn't doubt that it happens.
If it does, you better hire someone who can handle all the calls you're going to get about subscription cancellations.
I agree. The features section at our paper is about the only thing worth reading.
ReplyDeleteI don't think it's a matter of killing the section, but to get the reduction in news hole necessary at my paper (we're going to cut up to 30 news pages a week), Features is going to take the brunt of the hit, if only because there are more pages coming out of that department in a normal week.
ReplyDeleteLocal is pretty thin, as is the A section, which also includes a couple of Business pages. If you're dropping a couple dozen pages a week, you've got to start somewhere. I'm sure Sports will also see some decline.
Our readers are already complaining that there isn't anything in the paper to read anymore, so I think cutting the news hole is going to be detrimental.
ReplyDeleteI have thought for a while that there are a lot of things that we should get rid of so that we could focus more on putting original local content in the paper - the national news for instance that everyone reads on the Internet - but cutting the lifestyles sections does not sound like a good idea considering the fact that women account for the majority of readership and people love "people" stories.
Insanity. Like the person above said, our community is already complaining there isn't anything to the paper anymore. A further reduction combined with higher prices. We'll be lucky to survive another year.
ReplyDeletei love how all the lifestyles editors/reporters queue up to defend their turf.
ReplyDeleteour section has been 90% wire and 10% useless local for the past few years.
it'll probably escape cuts only because the paper values women readers more than men. i bet sports pages take the biggest hit here.
I don't work for a lifestyles section, but I will say that it is very important to our product and would be tragic to the paper as a hole if it disappears.
ReplyDeleteSo let's see. Sell less...make the product smaller and with less content...at a higher price...to do what exactly? My Jr. High boy laughed at that one. "If you give people less of a reason to buy the paper, won't you sell less papers" he asks. On top of that I hear some papers are slicing and dicing single copy in an effort to push people to home delivery. All that happens is less sales. Single copy comes from home delivery turn over...NOT the other way around. If this company really does want to close shop I wish they would and get it over with. I'd rather go out bankrupt than keep stessing/wondering how long I'll make money and if it will be enough.
ReplyDeleteHere's something that Gannett might consider "innovative." It's not, though. It was a simple expectation when I worked years for a different company.
ReplyDeleteYou CAN blend snippets of peoples' lives and community color in each and every story---even the crime ones, courts and seemingly ugliest stories. It can be done. Lifestyles can scream out through the entire paper rather than just in a Gannett-defined "Lifestyles" section.
But it takes time, talent and a willingness to go beyond stenography. It takes the ability to synthesis information, develop real sources and write for the reader rather than the source.
I failed miserably at Gannett because I just could not let myself take the giant leap from reporter to stenographer.
Here's the point: Gannett (or at least where I worked) needs a changed focus to true local local reporting before any print or online change will work. Chopping sections and rearranging things just won't cut it this time.
Deck chairs again
ReplyDeleteIF YOU WANT TO RETAIN YOUR FEMALE READERS OF YOUR PAPER, DO NOT DO AWAY WITH THE LIFE STYLE SECTION!!!!!Remember we are the people who usually look for the adds, compare adds and shop! Life style is our section!!!If you consider who spends the most money, who purchases your paper the most, etc., then you will reconsider doing away with the Life Style section. Maybe ask your reporters for more stories on the local level. Don't import so many from AP or other papers and cover our community affairs. Try it, but think many, many times about doing away with Life Style in all the local papers especially in the South.
ReplyDeleteA paper with no features section is a paper with no soul. Many people buy features because it's the only part of the paper with any creativity. Without features, people will read crime online and cancel their subscriptions.
ReplyDeleteIDEA: Trim down on the week end section which quotes all the tv programs and the entertainment ideas. We can seek that out anyway. Do not cut out the Life Style section. When it is combined with another section I feel like something is missing. This is the one element of your paper that you should keep. (See other readers post). This is the "Female" section of the paper as many have stated. If you value this gender's input into your paper, then you will make the decision to keep this section and maybe add some new features to it. Why not combine it and the week end section (the magazine)? No one I know reads that anyway. It gets thrown away.Save the paper and labor in that department but save The Life Style. Thank you.
ReplyDeleteLifestyles section, important for women readers? PUleeeessse.. Have you talked to any women lately? You might be surprised what we read.
ReplyDeleteMOst lifestyle pages contain mostly wire reports of hollywood gossip or food recipes. As for local content, for years these sections have been full of reporters who don't do local, but rewrite USAToday copy, or "localize" wire features.
I'm not saying there isn't content that they should report on for the women in the audience, but if you check most sites seem to mirror their content after the holidays, tv season, and awards cycle-- Emmys, Oscars, etc.. for their inspiration. THis is just one of the sections that needs to be re-engineered.
The whole paper needs to be re-engineered. Who's working on that new newspaper model? Anyone?
ReplyDeleteI am one individual who thinks that having a separate lifestyle section is kind of silly. As advertising has declined, a lot of lifestyle sections have been turned into ghost towns with mostly wire copy. Yeah, they are designed pretty well, but what is that saying about putting lipstick on a pig ...
ReplyDeleteThe bottomline is that readers don't really care if we have a special section for features-related content. They just want to see it somewhere in the paper. Why is it necessary to maintain this old school system of silos by having separate sections? I think readers, advertisers and journalists would be better served if newspaper people didn't have to muck up so many pages with useless wire content.
Useless, outdated wire content is the problem here. If we are going to more forward as a 21st century media source, then we must accept the fact that a lot of wire coverage is outdated by the time it hits the streets.
I think Gannett needs to ban all news that isn't local from its local editions and insert USA Today in every paper. Readers would get more, National advertising revenues would likely increase (USAT), which would leave the thinner local papers left to focus on local sales and content. It may not be a perfect solution, but it would likely give newspapers at least a couple more years of survival.
7:02: Love that idea. I work at a small paper, but I am passing it up the chain. May get no where - but it is worth a shot. We only have minimal space for nation/world news now because we've been cutting newshole for well over a year now.
ReplyDeleteAnd, Life has to be the first to go. The really good, meaningful stories can go throughout the paper. You can still have a section a couple days a week, I just don't think it's needed everyday. Especially - at least at our paper - where it is too often fluff, wire columns and reader submitted photos.
Why not just include the human dimension in all news stories? Junk sections. Readers care more about a good read than how the story is labeled on a page.
ReplyDeleteI don't believe all the "do away with this and that". Shouldn't you be focusing on doing what you do better? Maybe they ought to do away with newspaper school if all it's spewing out is (most of) your attitudes. People still want newspapers, regardless of all of your prevailing thinking. more would still buy more if they got what they wanted/needed in them like they used to. Maybe someone should look into why all the rest of the world for the most part, is selling more and more papers while north America (us!) tanks.
ReplyDelete5:52 am, I have the answers to why American print tanks:
ReplyDelete1. Companies like Gannett taking them over.
2. The dumbing of America.
Nuff said.
What about the TV book? Any locations toying with the idea of doing away with TV skeds to ease the gutting of other content?
ReplyDeleteHere in the heart of Ohio I reveived information that in light of our downhill industry, our Monday edition will no longer be.
ReplyDeleteC'mon, 6:34 p.m.: Which paper?
ReplyDeletereceived
ReplyDeleteLast time around, they offered some of those laid off the option of an open position. My question is; If they were to offer a lower pay position and I refused it, would that negate my getting severance and unemployment?
ReplyDeleteI would think that you would have the option to take the open position and if you didn't then your severance etc., would still be in effect. But with the way things are going around here, you can't count on anything.
ReplyDelete