[A roll of newsprint on a press]
I've been given a reason to revisit Chief Operating Officer Gracia Martore's presentation to Wall Street analysts during last month's third-quarter conference call. The following remark by Martore now stands out (emphasis added):
"We expect fourth-quarter newsprint usage prices will be higher than a year ago, but consumption is expected to be lower once again."
How skinny is your paper compared to a year ago? Please post your replies in the comments section, below. To e-mail confidentially, write jimhopkins[at]gmail[dot-com]; see Tipsters Anonymous Policy in the rail, upper right.
Our paper gets smaller each month. Our news hole budget is suppose to be going up in January! The paper looks like a shopper! I constantly hear complaints from the public about our paper. Just another nail in our coffin.
ReplyDelete- Gannett's Lowest Paid Worker
Gracia won't be satisfied until all Gannett papers are the same size as USA Weekend. Let's just hope the quality of the content won't be similar.
ReplyDeleteI also wondered about that Gracia quote that Jim cites from the analysts' conference. I thought it meant they are considering shutting down some newspapers. We are already skinny now, and using lighter weight paper. I don't see how we could possibly get skinnier unless we all go tabloid.
ReplyDeleteWhere does this business nonsense come from? Make an inferior product, raise the price, lose customers. The answer is to make an even more inferior product? Then wonder why people aren't buying it?
ReplyDeleteIf this is what's being taught in business college these days, maybe those colleges will be the next to go down the drain!
Undoubtedly there will be papers closing in 2011. Rumoured layoffs and the cost for the new CCI system clearly points to sites closing doors.
ReplyDeleteI agree. It doesn't make sense to me why publishers are degrading the product, charging more and then wondering why circulation is falling. Circulation and revenue drops are not all due to the recession or free news on the web. Publishers, particularly within Gannett, are shedding staff at a record rate, thinking they can maintain their newspapers with fewer employees. Well, they are absolutely wrong. Their philosophy is counter intuitive and the data is proving them wrong. If this trend isn't reversed, Gannett and USA Today will be in serious trouble within five years. It takes consumers awhile to catch on, but readers are finally seeing that higher prices for lower-grade newspapers is the new norm.
ReplyDeleteThe "big three" in Detroit had to learn the hard way that cutting corners on quality didn't sell more cars. It just pissed off consumers, who turned to foreign brands. Now that U.S. car-makers have improved quality, people are buying Fords and GMs again. Yes, automakers did shed jobs during the start of the recession, but they are rehiring now and making better products. When will newspaper publishers do the same?
It looks to me like Gannett has already tossed in the towel. The posts about Hunke's BS personna are disturbing. If true, how the heck did he ever get where he is?
ReplyDeleteI know the answer. I see it everyday. Management incompetence is covered up time and time again. If anything goes wrong, it's always the peon at the bottom of the totem pole who's to blame.
Well, the proverbial chickens have come home to roost. Management's incompetence is simply too obvious to hide.
Cutting 5,000 to 10,000 people? Is this the plan Dubow and Martore have embraced?
The local Gannett paper around here - Westchester - is simply no longer worth the sales price. So what to do? Oh yeah, let's cut the staff back even more. And let's focus those cuts on the front-line editors, reporters, and photographers.
What hurts is that there may still be some suits in the Crystal Palace who believe The Journal News competes with NYC dailies. The JN never made it to the starting gate in that race.
Maybe the plan is to become a shopper chain. That could be a lucrative business. Gannett already has such publications, including one in Delaware.
It is all about the money, isn't it?
I really think the death of newspapers has become a self-fulfilling prophecy. It's these cuts and poor business decisions that are killing the newspapers. Not the Internet, not youngin's. It's the newspapers doing it to themselves.
ReplyDeleteNewsprint is like oil - the less you use the more it costs.
ReplyDeleteGive fewer reasons
ReplyDeleteto pick up a newspaper.
Down, down, down we go.
How come no one considers saving on the ink? If we didn't publish, think of the savings on buying ink and even paper. Wow, I think I just became a newspaper consultant.
ReplyDelete