Singleton, CEO of Denver-based MediaNews, is partners with Gannett in the troubled Detroit Newspaper Partnership, which publishes Gannett's Free Press and Singleton's Detroit News. The companies also are co-investors in the Texas-New Mexico Newspapers Partnership."I have no doubt that The Mercury News's revenue base will perform better when things turn around than almost any newspaper in the country," Singleton told The New York Times in a rare interview for a story today; he seldom speaks to the press.
But plenty of us are doubtful, given that classifieds category killer Craigslist started here. I've called the Bay Area the canary in the newspaper industry's coal mine, and so does blogger and newspaper analyst Ken Doctor. "That was recognized a long time ago by a lot of people," Doctor told the NYT. "The impact of the Internet has been heavier here and earlier here than anywhere else in the country."
Classifieds: $90 million loss
Indeed, at the peak of the dot-com boom, the Mercury News had more than $100 million a year in help-wanted classified ads, the NYT says. This year, executives say, the figure will be around $10 million.
The timing of this story is curious, given how rarely Singleton speaks publicly. It reads like he summoned beat reporter Richard Perez-Pena to San Jose to counter recent negative press, showing MediaNews is facing a growing financial crisis. Only last week, Moodys Investors Service warned that MediaNews was likely to default on its debt. Plus, Perez-Pena included Singleton in a roundup of companies that had over-invested in newspapers just as prices peaked.
Related: Singleton asked unions at his Denver Post and at the city's joint operating agency to reopen labor contracts immediately, saying he needs to cut spending by $20 million.
Origins: 'Pay no attention to . . . "
The headline on this post reflects the famous line from 1939's Wizard of Oz, where the wizard is unmasked as a fake.
Earlier: Our far-flung correspondents -- A letter from Oz
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[Image: today's front page, Newseum]
Agree 100 percent with this. I think the Scripps announcement about selling or folding the Rocky Mountain News is part of the effort to put pressure on Singleton to realize his position is fatal. He would love to win in Denver, but he cannot afford to do so because he cannot get any more loans. He can't run Denver by himself. Hearst has no more money to give him, and if I am hearing correctly, is about to make a big announcement of its own. The BANG operation in the San Francisco area has been an utter disaster, and shows GCI what happens when you strip news operations down to below a sustainable level. Unfortunately, I believe GCI has taken the wrong lesson from Billy Dean's experience, and has looked only at the cost-savings, not the consequences of radical consolidation and downsizing. Billy Dean is clearly going under, and GCI is going to follow after him if they continue on the path of expanding this Detroit experiment to the rest of their papers. Which is what I expect next year.
ReplyDeleteNot surprised that Singleton endorsed Bush twice. He has the same mentality. Believe me, not your lying eyes. MediaNews will be the next to declare bankruptcy, likely sometime in 2009.
ReplyDeleteAnonymous 11:20. What are you hearing about Hearst? I know they have floated the same home delivery plan in San Francisco that Detroit is considering.
2:13 What I hear about Hearst is that they are having real money trouble. You may soon hear about another shuttering of a major Washington bureau. As for SF, they have been holding on while developing this Kindle-like electronic newspaper in Palo Alto. But the last I heard is that it costs $930 to buy one, and they can't figure out why people will spend flat-screen-TV prices for a newspaper reader you would keep besides the refigerator, and pay Verizon for wireless connections so you can update it. They are said to be losing oodles in SF, although I am not there. Perhaps Jim can tell us what the SF paper looks like these days.
ReplyDelete3:41 PM - Kindle devices run around 300-400. I don't knwo about you, but I would not want my "paper" on one of those. Too small.
ReplyDeleteResearch before you go. Shoot the common things, but also shoot the less known things that the local area is pushing.
ReplyDelete