In a new post, blogger Alan Mutter notes that Gannett's report last week of another quarterly drop in print advertising revenue points to the unprecedented post-recovery decline in overall industry ad revenues.
"While newspaper sales typically softened during previous national economic slumps," he writes, "they always rebounded when employers stepped up hiring and consumers resumed spending at department stores, began shopping for new cars and started buying houses."
Mutter continues: "The drop in newspaper advertising this time is different, because it started roughly 1½ years before the onset of the recession, accelerated precipitously during the downturn and has continued in spite of a recovery that technically began in June 2009."
"While newspaper sales typically softened during previous national economic slumps," he writes, "they always rebounded when employers stepped up hiring and consumers resumed spending at department stores, began shopping for new cars and started buying houses."
Mutter continues: "The drop in newspaper advertising this time is different, because it started roughly 1½ years before the onset of the recession, accelerated precipitously during the downturn and has continued in spite of a recovery that technically began in June 2009."
And what about the pony wranglers? Read Mutter's full post for the rest of the story.
What is so damn dismal about Mutter's article is the absence of anything that would reverse this decline. Was this industry really just founded on an ephemera and was all our work trying to inform the citizens really worth nothing?
ReplyDelete@6:28 AM:
ReplyDeleteYes.
Mutter says "But no industry ever achieved long-term success by cutting its way to profitability as its sales continually withered."
ReplyDeleteI don't think corporate believes that's true, and I think they are determined to show these self-styled newspaper pundits that you can do that and pocket millions in salaries, too. After all, it has worked so far.
What is so damn dismal about Mutter's article is the absence of anything that would reverse this decline. Was this industry really just founded on an ephemera and was all our work trying to inform the citizens really worth nothing?
ReplyDelete4/28/2011 6:28 AM
The problem that faces specifically newspapers (and not magazines so much - because they have a very specific market)in the print market place is that they failed ultimately to place really ALL of their value in content. Without content you cannot sell ANYTHING. This is something the broadcast companies understand unequivocally, the are always changing their content (TV Shows) and striving constantly to have the number #1 Show (content) their whole business model is built around this entire concept. With higher rated shows so goes higher advertising rates they can charge their customers (think SuperBowl) and giving their product away FREE to their customers (viewers). So where newspapers completely missed this concept was two fold 1) They continued to charge for newspapers even after it was no longer necessary - they were greedy with the idea of getting money for each copy instead of growing the product (giving it away to reach the most customers (readers) possible. 2) They assumed that because they were "newspapers" people would ALWAYS use them for information and that their circulation would always exist and as such became more and more complacent - thus their stories (content) became less and less meaningful and relevant but still though they could still sell advertising based on circulation which was being maintained more by customer's habit than actual love of the product. Again go back to broadcast, imagine if overtime, networks stopped caring about ratings (what people actually think of a show) and just put things on TV that either they liked or of extremely low quality but yet increased advertising rates every year just because they thought their shows were the best. I know, I know you are thinking the shows on TV suck or most do, but the bottom line is what is on TV is directly linked to what viewers watch and what advertisers pay. Newspapers should have been giving away their product 30 or 40 years ago and building enormous readership the advertising would have offset what they ever received by selling individual newspapers and as times changed (which they did) they should have converted more and more to electronic distribution and still giving away their content for free and proportionately reducing the print product. This would have always maintained a very high quality of content (stories) and allowed for a natural evolution of the business. But when you wait too long for anything, it does become truly too late. Gannett, McClatchy, Lee and others days are definitely numbered - it's just a matter of when exactly. And to those of you who might think I am a "newsroom guy" think again, I used to sell advertising and I know nothing, absolutely nothing is more important than content in order to drive revenue and advertising. RIP Newspaper Industry.
10:41 -- You are so right. The other thing Gannett has gone way overboard on is trying to produce content that advertisers will like. That's an idea that works for awhile because the advertiser thinks, "If I like it then other people will as well." But they are business people, and when they notice that they were wrong, they will stop advertising.
ReplyDeleteThe bottom line is you need to produce stories that the general public wants. That means you need to go out of your way to keep your best reporters (Gannett has done its best to shed them) and you need to go out of your way to stand out from the competition (Gannett generally tries to copy other media, particularly TV). Newspaper readership was bound to decline because of all the competition, but Gannett has taken steps to assure that it would not only see declines but that its core audience (people who actually prefer to get their news from papers) will leave as well.
Craig deserves another bonus for this strategy.
As a long term carrier I have seen the newspaper decline, but from where i sit it's beacuse of it's own actions. True, people are looking elsewhere for their news but there are a lot more people who WOULD still buy the paper if it was worth their money. Raising the price AND cutting the content at the same time was assinine. If you want people to pay 75 cents instead of 50, then give them 75 cents worth of product, not 35! Newspapers are so tied to ads that they have lost their identity, their purpose Newspapers have survived telegraph, telephone, radio and TV, and they can survive the internet also...IF they so choose to.
ReplyDeleteNewspapers are so tied to ads that they have lost their identity, their purpose Newspapers have survived telegraph, telephone, radio and TV, and they can survive the internet also...IF they so choose to.
ReplyDelete4/28/2011 11:09 AM
I agree with most of what you say, except for the survival aspect...newspapers reached their plateau in the 1950s and have been on a decline ever since. So to say they have survived other forms of media is not true... they have been slowing dying overtime, just in the past 5 years, they have reached a "terminal life expectancy" and the internet along with the other media which is not going away will kill them off completely. Old technology (i.e. newspapers) is never meant to survive, but business can change and adapt, the newspapers are unique in all the world in that they have done neither.
I agree with 10:41. Content is king, and newspapers are rewarded by readers for original, innovative coverage. Just repeating what happened yesterday is a death sentence because many of our readers have been following these events via the TV, the Internet, and other media before the newspaper arrives. Telling them again what they already know is the wrong way. I don't find anyone who really agrees with this statement, but the inertia in this buisiness is so powerful that if you read our papers, it is clear we are delivering news our readers already know. I don't know why this should be, or how to force changes before it is really too late.
ReplyDeleteConsumers have written off newspapers because they no longer trust them.
ReplyDeleteThey've coddled Obama for years, they write about self-promoting fluff, drop their size in half and double their price.
Too bad cigarette companies never followed the same misguided path - cancer rates would have fallen off the cliff.
11:35 Maybe your are one of those whose future is dependent on newspapers dieing. Maybe you are one who works all day in a cubicle, being told what to write or what to print, etc. I am with the public every day andhear their moans about how they miss what a newspaper should be, used to be, and could be again, if only they chose to.
ReplyDeleteI read online stuff also but I have yet to see the whole story on anything. Also, TV, and online video on a paper site, only present snippets of a story due to time constraints or computer capacity.
Gannett tries vainly to mimic TV news reporting in various papers but I find YouTube videos more informative most times.
Newspapers are dieing, but only because they choose to. That said, there will always be a market for them for as we see, prices and no work equal no money for gadgets/online hook ups. What good will fancy media do if nobody can afford it?
1:08 PM
ReplyDeleteConsumers have written off newspapers because they no longer trust them. They've coddled Obama for years, they write about self-promoting fluff, drop their size in half and double their price.
Too bad cigarette companies never followed the same misguided path - cancer rates would have fallen off the cliff.
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Are you kidding? Have you checked out the price of a pack or carton of cigarettes lately? While cancer is still killing plenty of people, the rates are actually down in the US for most kinds. I personally know people who quit due to the increasing cost and that was years ago. But the long-term cost of poor health, enormous medical expenses and an early death is the ultimate price, of course. http://bit.ly/dmgw71
1:08 PM
ReplyDeleteConsumers have written off newspapers because they no longer trust them. They've coddled Obama for years, they write about self-promoting fluff, drop their size in half and double their price.
Too bad cigarette companies never followed the same misguided path - cancer rates would have fallen off the cliff.
Actually, they have...have you seen the price of a pack or carton cigarettes lately? And fortunately, there are fewer smokers in the USA and cancer rates are down: http://bit.ly/dmgw71
11:35 Maybe your are one of those whose future is dependent on newspapers dieing. Maybe you are one who works all day in a cubicle, being told what to write or what to print, etc. I am with the public every day andhear their moans about how they miss what a newspaper should be, used to be, and could be again, if only they chose to.
ReplyDeleteI read online stuff also but I have yet to see the whole story on anything. Also, TV, and online video on a paper site, only present snippets of a story due to time constraints or computer capacity.
Gannett tries vainly to mimic TV news reporting in various papers but I find YouTube videos more informative most times.
Newspapers are dieing, but only because they choose to. That said, there will always be a market for them for as we see, prices and no work equal no money for gadgets/online hook ups. What good will fancy media do if nobody can afford it?
Wow - could you contradict yourself and be even more more out of touch and incoherent if you tried.........
1) Maybe your are one of those whose future is dependent on newspapers dieing. Maybe you are one who works all day in a cubicle, being told what to write or what to print, etc.
- I'm a stay at home parent nice false assumption.
2)I am with the public every day andhear their moans about how they miss what a newspaper should be, used to be, and could be again, if only they chose to.
- Newspapers are still basicially the same as what they always have been, the problem is that by the time it is printed it is old news.
3) I read online stuff also but I have yet to see the whole story on anything. Also, TV, and online video on a paper site, only present snippets of a story due to time constraints or computer capacity.
- Without exception, I can find an exact duplicate of any article on either the newspapers own website or one that mimics their site.
4) Gannett tries vainly to mimic TV news reporting in various papers but I find YouTube videos more informative most times.
- You just said all you found we're snipets of stories so which is it???
5) Newspapers are dieing, but only because they choose to.
- It's the fact that they are "newspapers" and it is old news in them and a documented fact that overall circulation has been dropping since the late 50s.
6) That said, there will always be a market for them for as we see, prices and no work equal no money for gadgets/online hook ups.
- This is a completely incoherent sentence... prices and no work, what the hell are you talking about did you just have a stroke.
7) What good will fancy media do if nobody can afford it?
- A newspaper subscription costs more proportionately than high speed internet... & fancy media?? Really you think smart phones, laptops and tablets are fancy, they are a staple of everyday life.
I think you really, really need to get a grip on reality, everything you said was not accurate or true.
Gannett (and other newspaper companies) have spent the past decade (it began long before the recession) cutting newshole and especially content. The end result has been to make the newspaper of less and less value to the customers. I know people who subscribed for 20-30 years who finally dropped it because there was "nothing in it anymore." They're right.
ReplyDeleteMaybe a little disjointed but I get so frustrated with people like you. Of course papers are day old news but it is in a paper where one could get the in depth writing of any subject. Not any more. Yes you can find duplicate articles anywhere...that's the problem. papers aren't as in depth like they used to be. And they are gadgets next to a simple newspaper. They are only a staple of life if you can afford them. Prices is the price of everything, from the newspaper to gas to food to mortgage, etc. No work equals no money for any of that, on top of higher prices. You don't understand that and I have the problem? I assume you used to be connected with newspapers in some capacity since you are on here. If not, why would you spend your time here?
ReplyDelete