Newspapers Trim Newsprint Usage So Newsprint Producers Cut Production And In This Classic Case of Supply And Demand It Looks Like Price Increases Up To 30% May Stick this Year
Usually when advertising takes a downturn newspaper suppliers are understanding and hold their price line, they may even reduce pricing a bit. So now that newspapers are going through one of the worst advertising cutbacks ever, what do the newsprint producers do? Why, naturally, they’re piling on big price increases backed by a drop in supply leaving publishers squirming between a rock and a hard place.

Here’s Our Weekly Look At How Newspapers Are Adapting To New Business Models: Is it Really Necessary For Journalists To Have An Office To Work Out Of?

Publishers continue to show initiative in coming up with ideas on how to adopt new business models to the running of their print business. For instance, the publisher of The Record in Hackensack, New Jersey is vacating the newspaper’s main building and as far as journalists are concerned, “I really view this change as ‘moving out to the field.’” He envisages mobile journalists working full-time out of the office.

Reporter To Tribune Publisher Sam Zell: “How Is The Ad Market Going To Hold Up This Year?” Zell: “What Ad Market?”

“What ad market?” just about sums it up on both sides of the Atlantic. And with all the downsizing in the editorial news hole the way forward seems to be “What can we afford to publish every day?” It’s just getting tougher than ever to get out “The Daily Miracle” as publisher Terry Egger of The Cleveland Plain Dealer called it in a letter to subscribers Sunday explaining why their paper was changing so much this week.

Here’s More Examples Of What ‘New Business Plans’ Are Doing to Newspapers
The popular line from newspaper publishers these days is that employees must come to terms with 'new business plans' necessary for print’s survival. So, in what is fast becoming practically a weekly ftm feature we highlight below what publishers have been up to recently.

Can Redesigns Save Newspapers?

The Orlando Sentinel has gone and done it, The Chicago Tribune is to start doing it experimentally on Saturdays, and even the staid Wall Street Journal is at it. It’s almost as if they are taking their one-word cue from the US Presidential election – change.

Dissect The Gannett May Trading Report And You’ See It’s Not Only Newspapers Doing Terribly, So Is Broadcast, And Then Look At The NYT’s Print Advertising Revenues Down 13.2%; How Long Can This Go On?

Gannett’s May trading report, including performance thus far this year, makes for really dismal reading for not only is the largest US newspaper group experiencing the terrible downturn in print advertising, but even its broadcast properties are doing worse than last year, and this from arguably the tightest run media group there is.

In Fit To Print

The 'D' Word – Default – Is Being Pointed At Some US Newspaper Groups As Print Advertising Revenues Tank, And Even That 10% Employee Cull At McClatchy May Not Be Near Enough - June 18, 2008
A Standard & Poors (S&P) analyst has really put the cat among the pigeons by naming four US newspaper groups he thinks could be in danger of defaulting on their debt, and there are others out there he didn’t mention that are already on the edge.

McClatchy Activates Its New Print Business Model – Chops Headcount By 10% After A 15.4% Advertising Revenue Decline Through May, And Other Publishers Won’t Be Far Behind - June 17, 2008
There have been all sorts of signs in the past couple of months that the print advertising outlook is getting bleaker, not better, and McClatchy now confirms it by ordering a 10% workforce slash throughout its 30 daily newspapers. The Miami Herald, for instance is cutting 250 full-time employees – 17% of its employees – and the Charlotte Observer is eliminating 123 positions – 11.5% of its staff. In all about 1400 jobs will be gone.

A News Weekly and A Sports Weekly Are Switching To Biweekly – Beginning Of A Trend For News Magazines? - June 12, 2008
Life for a news or sports weekly magazine is really tough these days. By the time you hit the newsstand most of the publication is basically history of the week before and circulation declines at most such magazines indicate the world has moved on. So why not give up the print ghost of telling people what they already know and instead concentrate on the future, on the kind of full length in-depth news and sports articles that a weekly schedule doesn’t permit?

Is Tribune’s Plan to Make Its Newspapers 50-50 Editorial/Advertising Zell’s First Step In Closing Them Down? - June 11, 2008
Sam Zell seems to take great delight in shaking up the newspaper industry so when he announced that Tribune newspapers would reduce their news hole to a 50-50 split between editorial and advertising (instead of the normal 60-40) that really got some pretty astute print analysts declaring the end is near.

With Newspaper Publishers Harping That New Print Business Models Are The Name Of The Game Here’s What They’re Doing - June 10, 2008
The theme of many publishers at last week’s World Association of Newspapers (WAN) meeting is that new business models for print are necessary and staff had better see the light or else, so as publishers talk the talk here’s what they’ve been up to in the past 10 days:

Should Newspapers Give Up On The Young? - June 4, 2008
It’s pretty well understood that not too many young people pay to read newspapers these days and that most attempts by paid-for newspapers to woo the young to print have failed, so newspaper executives Tuesday discussed whether trying to get the young back to print is really worth all the effort. And the general feeling seemed to be to give up the lost cause.

If Newspapers Are To Remain The DNA of Our Democracies Then There Is No Choice But To Integrate Print And Digital Newsrooms With Print As The Core - June 4, 2008

There Is Still A Great Future For Print Newspapers Says The President Of The World Association of Newspapers – Well, He Would Say That, Wouldn’t He! - June 4, 2008
One place the naysayers of newspaper profitability are not welcome this week is Gothenburg, Sweden, where some 1800 senior media executives from around the world have gathered to glory in their industry. The basic message, as told by Gavin O’Reilly, President of the World Association of Newspapers (WAN), is that newspapers are not being reinvented, they are simply going through evolution.

Hard To Believe Just A Couple Of Years Ago Dean Singleton Said Newspaper Financial Woes Were Just 'Cyclical' Now He Says Newspapers Need A New Print Model - June 3, 2008
“Lean Dean” Singleton has switched from his theory a couple of years back that US newspaper financial woes were cyclical and everything would get back to normal once the economy picked up. No longer, his theme these days is “Newspapers are not a dying business; they are a changing business,” and he told media executives Monday at an international media meeting that it is time to move to a print model that matches the times.

China and Japan Power Total World Newspaper Circulation Higher, But For The US and The EU The Paid-For Circulation Is Down - June 2, 2008
World newspaper circulation rose by 18 million last year, but when you consider there was a gain of 18.4 million copies in China and India alone it gives a clear picture that paid-for circulation is not doing so well, especially in the US and the EU, according to figures from the annual World Press Trends study released by the World Association of Newspapers (WAN).

Want To Know What Really Is Going On In A US Newspaper Then Ask Its Public Editor –Assuming The Paper Still Funds That Position - May 29, 2008
Public editor columns are a gem because, for those newspapers still holding onto public editors, they really get into the nitty-gritty of what makes their newspaper run. Thus a fascinating column by Ted Vaden of the News & Observer (Raleigh, North Carolina) -- “The N&O is no longer the state newspaper that it once was” – and one in The Chicago Tribune on how journalists there can’t wait for the Cubs to be sold.

Smaller, Local Newspapers Are Now Also Feeling Real Pain From Near $4 Gas - May 28, 2008
Small, local newspapers have until now been the exception to the newspaper doom and gloom story as larger newspapers saw sinking classified revenues and advertisers turning their spend increasingly to the Internet, with bottom lines consequently ravaged. Small local newspapers, however, relying on very local display advertising had managed to weather the storm. Until now. Near $4 a gallon gas is now taking its toll even there.

Al Neuharth Reminds Everyone That Newspaper Margins Are Better Than Most Businesses, But Take A Look At What Print Is Having To Do - May 27, 2008
USA Today founder Al Neuharth reminds everyone in his column that the newspaper business is still a good business – “Sure, the slumping economy has made times a little tough for them, but most still have profit margins well above most other businesses,” but it’s worth taking a look at what those businesses are up to these days to maintain those margins.

The Economic Reality that Free Newspapers Are Not Free To Produce Finally Takes Roost As Metro International Accepts Minority Partners For Two Of Its Successful Nordic Papers - May 23, 2008
The strategy was simple – if you want to attract the young reader then publish a free newspaper catering to their specific needs and wants, and if someone else in your market has the same idea then just throw more and more money at it. Now after millions of whatever currency you care to name has been lost on such ventures, a wiser business model is gaining some traction -- consolidation.

Now Murdoch Finally Has THE Team He Wanted At The WSJ - May 21, 2008
It really shouldn’t have come as any big surprise that Wall Street Journal (WSJ) publisher Robert Thomson lasted just five months in the job as publisher. After all, that wasn’t the job Rupert Murdoch wanted for him – he wanted Thomson as editor. And now he is.

For Newspapers The Main Problem Is Revenue, Not Readership, But If You Want To Improve Readership Here’s Some Tips From A Radio Expert - May 21, 2008
McClatchy has reduced the value of its 49.9% holdings in the Seattle Times from $102.2 million at the end of 2006 to just $12.06 million today, yet this is a newspaper that since the year 2000 has seen its circulation actually increase – indeed in the last two audit reports it ranked second and fifth in circulation growth among the top 50 US newspapers. So how come it has just culled 125 staff, including 34 editorial, and its valuation has sunk so low? Answer: the readers are still there but the classifieds aren’t.

And Now The Other Shoe Drops - May 21, 2008
There was great joy when Hearst announced last month it was investing some $60 million in new printing presses for the Albany Times Union that will allow the newspaper to go color on every page when installation is completed by late 2011. But now the other shoe has dropped – the newspaper wants to drop a full 6% of its workforce.

Why Aren’t Aggressive Buyers Out There Buying Small Market Newspapers When Prices Have Dropped So Much? - May 14, 2008
There are newspaper bargains a plenty out there in the small market arena but major groups are still sitting on their hands. How come?

If You were The Former Editor Of The Times Of London And Now You were Publisher Of The Wall Street Journal Wouldn’t It Make Sense To You To Bring Closer Co-Operation Between Two Such Prestigious Brands? - May 9, 2008

It’s going on just five months since Rupert Murdoch got his hands on Dow Jones and he placed his trusted lieutenants in charge, but already there’s an inkling of how various Murdoch newspapers around the world are going to really start scratching one another’s back for the group’s greater good.

China And India Are The World’s Two Fastest Growing Print Newspaper Nations So Is It Any Surprise Their Newsprint Per Tonne Cost Has Soared? - May 2, 2008
China and India usually come at the top of most print newspaper circulation growth surveys but profitability, that may now be a different matter. The culprit -- newsprint pricing that has soared through the roof in both countries, accounting for more than 50% of the cost of producing their newspapers. In India it has gotten so bad that the government has stepped in to help a little by reducing the already low tariff for imported newsprint down to 3% from 5%.

Government Entities Want To Switch From High Cost Legal Notice Advertising In Paid-For Newspapers And Transfer That Spend To Free Newspapers And The Web For Much Lower Cost - May 1, 2008
General circulation newspapers have depended on legally mandated government advertising as a large revenue flow based on laws in many cases going back more than 100 years, but those newspapers are beginning to experience another Craigslist-type horror – laws are being changed to now include free papers and the Web into the mix and that means much more low-priced competition.

News Corp Has Said Its Wall Street Journal Would “Crush” The Financial Times, But The Pink One Has Its Own Game Plan And It’s On A Roll - April 30, 2008
Hardly a day goes by that the UK’s Financial Times isn’t making some sort of expansion announcement. It began publishing a Gulf edition Tuesday, it has says it will launch a Chinese-language magazine aimed at China’s growing business elite, it has relaunched its very successful Saturday edition, and, oh yes, besides its global circulation rising it has just won the prestigious UK Newspaper Of The Year Award.

US Newspaper Online Readership Gains Fail To Offset Print’s Declines - April 29, 2008
Two damning reports within days of one another tell the story of the US newspaper business – official circulation numbers shows print’s rate of decline is increasing (dailies down 3.6%, Sundays down 4.6%) and new research says the integrated print and online newspaper audience is losing market share.

End of The Line For The Capital Times Broadsheet - April 28, 2008
Can a daily broadsheet newspaper transform itself into two 48-page weekly tabloids -- one concentrating on news and opinion weekly and the other emphasizing entertainment and culture, and transform its web site to be the daily carrier of news?

Is It Such A Crime For Advertising And Editorial To Work Together? Let’s Remove The Stigma And Rename the Newsroom The Content Room - April 24, 2008
Sam Zell may be new to the newspaper business but in his attempt to shake up the culture at Tribune he often asks editorial employees what they had done that day to earn their keep? Not exactly a question journalists appreciate. But Zell’s point is quite simple, “I want to make enough money to afford you.”

It’s A Long Hard Slog To Make Free Newspapers Profitable - April 23, 2008
Publishing a free newspaper does not come cheap as Rupert Murdoch’s News International in London can attest with its thelondonpaper losing close to £17 million ($34 million, €13.5 million) in its first 10 months. And Metro International, the largest publisher of free newspapers around the world has reported a loss of €5.6 million, $8.9 million, £7 million) in the first quarter.

The Gray Lady Sees Red – A Bombshell Q1 Loss For The New York Times Company And Is That The Harbinger Of Things To Come? - April 18, 2008
With so much bad news about the US newspaper industry for the past couple of years', quarterly reports showing larger revenue declines attract mostly yawns these days, but the New York Times Company had mouths gaping Thursday by announcing a quarterly loss. Are things really that bad? Apparently so.

You Can Judge The Health Of The US Print Newspaper Business By How Many Checkbooks Showed Up At This Year’s Annual Nexpo Technical Trade Show And The Prognosis After Four Days Is The Patient Is Quite Sick - April 17, 2008
Nexpo is the big US newspaper equipment trade show. It’s where many deals are often made for capital investments, presses, inserters and the like, the whole range of what it takes to produce a newspaper technically. This year’s convention in Washington is said to have been disappointing at best. Vendors seemingly were standing around talking to one another more than they were to prospects.

Sacrebleu, Le Monde Journalists Strike To Protest Proposed Job Losses, But Do They Really Believe, Given Huge Losses, They Can Attract New Investment Without Giving Up Control? - April 15, 2008
There’s a conflict in basic economics going on at Le Monde. The journalists went on strike for 24 hours Monday to protest recommended job losses that would stem the flow of red ink and make the company profitable in a couple of years; they have rejected increased investment that would mean losing their financial control, but more new money with the inmates still running the asylum is just fine. Désolé mesdames et messieurs, but newspaper economics just don’t work that way anymore.

Debt For Many Newspapers Is Public Enemy #1 - April 9, 2008
On the face of it the Journal Register Company should be financially okay. It owns 22 daily newspapers, has some 310 other newspapers including small weeklies, and earned last year $90 million before tax, interest, depreciation and amortization. It only had to pay $38.5 million in debt interest, well less than it earned, it reduced debt by $105 million and it has no scheduled principal debt payments due until Q2, 2009. It’s listed on the New York Stock Exchange. So what’s the problem? How about $625 million of debt!

It’s Coming Up to Newspaper Q1 Earnings Reporting Time So If You Don’t Want To Know The Bad News Look Away Now - April 4, 2008
The newspaper industry starts reporting its Q1, 2008 earnings in the next week and already the analysts are out with their predictions that basically say if you think last year was bad you ain’t seen nothing yet.

Murdoch Loves To Put The Cat Among The Pigeons Which Is What Selling The WSJ US Edition In London Does, But The Newspaper That Should Be Most Worried Is Not The FT As Many have Suggested But Rather The IHT - April 3, 2008
The Wall Street Journal’s announcement that is to start selling its US edition (USWSJ) in London starting April 16 is a masterstroke but whereas many people seem to consider this a direct attack on the Financial Times in its home city the people who should really be watching and worrying about this the most are across the English Channel in the Paris suburb of Neuilly, the home of the New York Times owned International Herald Tribune (IHT).

There Are Still 'Good News' Stories About the Newspaper Industry, It’s Just That There’s Not So Many As There Once Were And You’ve Got To Look A Little Harder To Find Them - April 2, 2008
When a major publishing house such as Hearst announces that it’s investing some $60 million on new printing facilities for one of its metropolitan newspapers It’s the kind of news that sends a big positive message to Wall Street, Main Street, and, yes, even the folks who work on newspapers who by now must be getting pretty demoralized over all the bad news continually out there.

Overall US Newspaper Revenue in 2007 Plunged $3.9 Billion From 2006, The Drop In 2006 Over 2005 Was Just $167,000, and Before Then Joint Print/Internet Revenue Was Up Each Year; Spot A Nasty Trend There? - April 1, 2008
What started as a small trickle in 2006 – a slight overall revenue decline of $167,000 when US newspaper print revenue losses were offset against the Internet’s gains -- became a raging torrent in 2007 with newspapers reporting a $3.9 billion decline and the second worst print drop since those measurements began in 1950.

The Tale Of Two Medias: People Magazine And OK! Publish First Pictures of Jennifer Lopez And Twins And Pay Millions For The Privilege While Most US Newspapers Cannot Afford The $1,000 - $2,000 A Day To Send A Reporter On Presidential Candidate Planes- March 27, 2008
If there is one sector of print media that is doing pretty well these days it is magazines – US consumer magazines increased ad revenues by 7% last year – and those concentrating on entertainment and sports personalities did particularly well. And they’re paying millions of dollars for exclusive coverage of celebrity events. But only a very few newspapers have budgets allowing for their own daily coverage of the Presidential candidates.

Credit Agencies Warn Declining Newspaper Revenue Threaten Debt Agreements, Or In Layman Terms, Who Was Expecting An 18% Downturn? - March 25, 2008
Standard and Poors put it this way about Dean Singleton’s Media News: “We are concerned that lower EDITDA may lead to a violation of the leverage covenant in its bank agreement over the near term.” Or as Sam Zell simply explained for why Tribune may now consider selling newspaper properties, “We started with the assumption that print would be down two or three per cent this year, not 18%.”

Murdoch’s £650 Million Investment In Three UK Color Printing Plants – And They Are Getting Rave Reviews -- Talks Louder Than Words About His Vision For The Future Of Print Newspapers - March 19, 2008

NYT To Add Two Directors Proposed By Private Equity Funds - March 19, 2008
The New York Times Company has agreed to add two directors proposed by two private equity funds that now hold 19% of the company, but in reality nothing really changes – the Sulzberger/Ochs families still have complete control.

As AbitibiBowater, North America’s Largest Newsprint Producer, Fights To Avoid Becoming Another Bear Stearns, Norway’s Norske Skog Announces More Cutbacks, US Newspaper Groups Brag At Huge Newsprint Usage Declines, And China Ramps up Newsprint Production and Exports - March 18, 2008

‘It’s Time For Newspaper Publishers To Reset Targets So We Don’t Live In A Constant State of Depression’ – Frank A. Bennack Jr, Hearst Vice Chairman - March 13, 2008
Frank Bennack Jr., immediate past president of Hearst for some 23 years and now board vice chairman, told a California audience this week it’s about time newspaper publishers got real and understood print margins will never again see 30% plus and it’s time for publishers to accept new lower goals. And by coincidence it was a similar message this week, too, from Rupert Murdoch in a presentation he made in New York.

With A Juicy Sex Scandal Involving the Governor of New York What Should Have Been The First Move By A Smart Newspaper Marketing Manager? To Buy The Search Words 'Eliot Spitzer' on Google and Yahoo - March 12, 2008
With Eliot Spitzer apologizing on live television, but never actually saying for what he was sorry, his wife, Silda, standing by his side and obviously wishing she could be anywhere but there, with the New York Times breaking on its web site the scoop that the New York governor apparently had made use of an international prostitution service, it was left to the smart marketing folks at Newsday who understood very quickly what really needed to get done with this story -- lock up the Eliot Spitzer search term on Google.

That California Daily That Gave Up Printing On Mondays Then Moved To Three Times A week, Now Is Going Twice A Week – So Much For That Experiment - March 11, 2008
The daily Tracy Post in California’s San Joaquin Valley took a “Mondoliday” back in February, 2006, with the Monday – Saturday paper switching to Tuesday-Saturday in print, although the web site continued seven days a week with increased coverage on Mondays.

What Do The Washington Post, The Financial Times and El Pais All Have In Common? Hint: Think Textbooks - March 11, 2008
If ever diversification was a financial commandment then The Washington Post Company, Pearson, and Prisa can testify that the education business is a good place to be these days.

Forget Gannett, Forget McClatchy — Want To Read Positive Stories About The US Newspaper Business Then Concentrate on Community Newspapers – They’re Being Read By 83% of All Americans 18 And Older - March 5, 2008
While media stories concentrate on the dismal January performances by daily metropolitan newspapers at such big chains as Gannett and McClatchy, there’s actually a section of the US newspaper industry that is continuing to do very well, thank you very much -- non daily community newspapers.

If Print’s Goal Is To Maintain Readership, Then The Manchester, UK, Experiment Seems To Have Worked, But They’re Giving Away Twice The Number Of Papers They Had Planned On - March 4, 2008
Over the past couple of years ftm has kept a close watch on two regional UK newspapers that took different approaches to stem drastically falling circulation – the Manchester Evening News that embarked on new marketing ground by giving away 50,000 issues downtown while maintaining sales in the suburbs, and the Birmingham Mail that went through a complete relaunch concentrating on local news, and enough time has now passed to see what worked and what didn’t.

Can Going All-Color Help Resurrect Newspapers? - February 26, 2008
New York Daily News publisher Mort Zuckerman got far more publicity than one might have expected for his announcement this month that he was making what is thought to be in excess of a $100 million investment to make the newspaper all color by the end of next year. Perhaps because it was one bit of positive news about an industry which is so used these days to nothing but bad news.

Even In The Nordic Area Newspaper Titans Are Being Slammed Because of Disappointing Results -- Schibsted Shares Down 36% In One Year, SanomaWSOY Down 25%, But Great Results From Privately Held Bonnier - February 19, 2008
If you were to think of two very well run publicly traded giant publishing houses where you just knew the profits would roll in quarter after quarter then most likely Schibsted in Norway and SanomaWSOY in Finland would spring to mind. But both this month came out with disappointing results and their shares have been hammered over the past year.

New York Times Says 100 Newsroom Jobs -- About 7% -- To Go This Year - February 15, 2008
Not even the New York Times is safe from newsroom cutbacks, and Editor Bill Keller told staff Thursday that 100 newsroom personnel will lose their jobs this year. There will be buyouts, some positions won’t be filled, but if that is not enough then there will be layoffs, he said.

The News Coming Out Of Tribune Is Bad, Really Bad, For Why It Wants To Cull 2% Of Its Workforce, And Other Newspapers Already Realize From January Results That Tribune Is Not Alone - February 15, 2008
Tribune newspapers have announced they will fire some 400 – 500 employees, about 2% of their total workforce, with the reasons given by each newspaper’s publisher more frightening than the one before. In sum they’re saying that if you think 2007 was a bad newspaper year, it’s nothing compared to what 2008 is already shaping up to be.

Time Magazine’s 2007 Business Model Changes Were a Great Financial Success But There Was a Serious Blip – Subscription and Newsstand Sales Took A Dive. - February 14, 2008
Time Magazine Editor Richard Stengel boasted to the Direct Marketing Association (DMA) this week that 2007 was the second most profitable year in the magazine’s history, not something you hear too often from a media executive these days, and it must have been especially pleasing to employees who the year before were going through continuous culls.

Here’s Another New Newspaper Business Model: Close The Daily Tabloid On Monday With No Warning, Fire The 90 Staff, And On Thursday Start Publishing a Free Metro With Most Of Editorial Based Outside Your City - February 13, 2008
Here’s how they closed the Halifax Daily News: “I have worked for this paper for 18 years through various owners, and you don’t expect when you are coming in on a Monday morning that there will be strange guys you haven’t seen before with their hands folded and looking very stern and telling you to go into the executive boardroom. Then you know it’s done.”

A New Newspaper Business Model: Switch From Being A Six Times Weekly PM Paid Broadsheet To A Twice Weekly Free Tabloid And Put The Real Daily News Effort, With Fewer Journalists, Onto The Web Site -February 12, 2008
As newsrooms continue to shrink their editorial staff as part of their “new business models”, some of the new ways of doing things are becoming clearer. Like paid-for daily newspapers no longer being daily, nor paid-for, and their use of paper lessens.

Is It Right For Marketing To Intrude Into Editorial? - February 7, 2008
Here’s a sub – head on a Times of London feature about Bill Forsyth, the writer and director of the 1981 movie, Gregory’s Girl: ‘Gregory’s Girl, free with the Times on Saturday, is a much-loved cult film …’ The article ran to near 2,000 words.

Advertsing Forecasts For 2008 Already Lowered As The Common Thread In Q4 Newspaper Results, Besides Terrible Numbers, Is 'Softening' - February 1, 2008

Results announced by many newspaper companies Thursday confirmed worst fears that December was just plain awful – so much for Christmas – and the overwhelming outlook for this year is 'weak'. And already financial analysts are lowering their 2008 advertising revenue forecasts with the 'R' word looming ever more.

US Editors Complain About The New AP Rate Structure But They Have Only Their Predecessors To Blame For Killing Off The News Agency Competition - January 31, 2008

The Associated Press has announced a new rate structure for its member newspapers in the US and there is a hue and cry by editors of many metropolitan newspapers who believe that in today’s difficult economic climate their rates should be decreasing rather than staying the same or increasing a bit. Well, no sympathy from this corner!

The Financial Message To Newspapers: Increase Your Digital Investments As Quickly As Possible - January 30, 2008
It’s beginning to look like Wall Street thinks there may be some value to owning newspaper shares, not for their print activities but for all the financial advantages of building various web businesses. And the quicker newspaper companies do that, the more that will find favor with the financial people.

Murdoch Finally Succumbs To The Notion That Rich People Are Willing To Pay For Exclusive Financial News - January 29, 2008
There’s an old saying in the financial news world –“he/she who has the news first is all powerful, he/she who gets the news second is often powerless.” That’s why the likes of Reuters and Bloomberg make millions of any currency you care to name in selling their financial news first to those who are willing and able to pay for it. When the rest of us see most financial news for free on the web it’s way too late to make the buy/sell decisions that will provide the ultimate profits or stop the worst losses, for those who paid got into the market first.

A Futurist Panel At The World Economic Forum Suggests Print Newspapers Will Cease By 2014 So Should We Start Packing Our Bags? - January 25, 2008

A World Economic Forum (WEF) panel featuring such futurists as Paul Saffo of Stanford and Peter Schwartz, chairman of Global Business Network, suggested Thursday that print newspapers will disappear by 2014. But ever since the Internet became a powerhouse we’ve heard similar predictions on the end of print, so, no need to pay attention to this prediction either. Right?

What You Have To Understand About the LA Times Fiasco Is That Everyone Is Right – Zell Supporting Hiller; Hiller Getting Rid Of O’Shea, And O’Shea Protecting Editorial, But For All That Right There Is Something Very Wrong -- The Decline Of A Great American Newspaper - January 23, 2008
It is a newspaper publisher’s responsibility to shuffle declining revenues with editorial costs and deal the hand that meets margin requirements while overall serving well the daily readership. Just as an editor’s job is to provide the finest editorial product possible within given resources.

To Lose One Editor Decrying Budget Cuts Is Understandable; To Lose Two Is Sloppy, But To Lose Three Such Editors In Three Years Is Just Plain Tragic – Welcome To The Los Angeles Times - January 22, 2008
That such a proud newspaper as the Los Angeles Times has now gone through three editors in three years, all gone because they refused huge editorial budget cuts, is as good a sign as any of the sorry state of the US newspaper business – cutting the fat is done, cutting into the meat is ongoing, and they’re even chipping away at the bone.

Sarkozy’s Analysis of French National Newspapers – Under Capitalization And Circulation Too Low– Is Best Proven By The Nonsense Now Going On At Le Monde - January 18, 2008

French President Nicolas Sarkozy moved stock markets and caused panic attacks throughout the French public broadcasting scene with his New Year comments on how he wants to change the face of French broadcasting, but hardly reported was that he wants his government to fix the problems facing national newspapers, too.

Could It Be That Free Is Just Fine Until There Is A Big Breaking Story And Then We’ll Cough Up The Money To Buy The Better Journalism In A Paid-For Newspaper? - January 16, 2008
The UK is one of the world’s leading competitive newspaper markets with Londoners choosing between nine titles every weekday and 10 on Sunday, and the reputation of the so-called “red top” tabloids with the sex exposés, nude women and the like is known around the world.

It’s Time To Shoot The Messenger: 'What Is The Purpose, What Do You Hope To Gain' From Your Newspaper Doom And Gloom Articles? - January 15, 2008

It’s not easy these days writing positive articles about the newspaper industry, and a regular reader has taken this writer to task for newspaper bashing. “Publishers completely understand the challenges before them, but that doom and gloom really goes in one ear and out the other.” the reader chastised.

The Subprime Financial Crisis Claims Another Victim – Newspapers - January 11, 2008
It’s only the second week of the new year yet already forecasters are dramatically lowering their already low forecasts for newspaper advertising, not the least reason being the subprme crisis effect on real estate that in turn has led the savaging of newspaper classified advertising.

We’re Probably Going To See More and More ‘Price Increase, But Still Great Value’ Headlines As Newspapers Raise Their Newsstand Prices To Claw Back Revenue - January 10, 2008

The Financial Times, The Washington Post, and the Chicago Tribune are just three major newspapers that within the past couple of weeks have raised their newsstand prices, primarily because they saw that recent price increases by others, or in the case of the FT by itself, have helped the bottom line without losing many readers.

It’s A New Year But For Newspapers It’s The Same Story -- Share Prices Hitting 52-Week Lows With Advertising Declines Accelerating, But The Sliver Of Silver Lining Is That Web Display Advertising May Shoot Up And Newspapers Must Take Advantage - January 8, 2008
US Newspaper ad revenue declined 8.6% in 2007, according to JP Morgan analyst Imran Khan, far worse than the 1.7% decline in 2006, and he believes the decline will accelerate in 2008, but that will be positive for online search and display advertising. Now if newspaper web sites could only increase their web display advertising share then all may not be lost, but it doesn’t look like they are.

There’s No Question That The Young Are Interested In News So It’s The Primary Job for Newspaper Publishers Is To Ensure Their News Is Available On All The Right Platforms - December 14, 2007
Many newspapers have given up on trying to regain their young readers who have drifted away to other platforms, but that’s a big mistake -- publishers should be ensuring that whatever platforms the young are looking at then that is where the newspaper should be, too.

Today Rupert Murdoch’s Dream Comes True - December 13, 2007

With So Many Tons Of Free Newspapers Tossed After The Quick Read Are Advertisers Getting True Value? - December 11, 2007
Transit authorities in many big cities have long complained about the trash left behind from free newspapers being tossed after the quick read, but the figure by London transit authorities that they are clearing some 9 1/2 tons of free newspapers out of the Underground (subway) each day on just three of its 12 routes gives a startling view to how serious the problem is, and it surely must have advertisers wondering the reader value of their messages.

The One Overwhelming Conclusion Out Of Media Week For The US Newspaper Industry Is That Things Will Continue To Get Worse Before They Get Better - December 12, 2007

The speakers put on their best spin about increased digital investments, more cost cutting and the like that would eventually transform their print business, but the bottom line at the UBS Media Week remained that print shows no sign of recovery for the first few months of 2008 and who knows what might happen after that.

Norske Plans A Big Newsprint Production Cut In Europe and AbitibiBowater Announces Huge Cuts in North America And There’s Consolidation Galore -- The Perfect Recipe For Higher Newsprint Prices - December 6, 2007
One saving grace for North American newspapers is that newsprint pricing actually dipped in 2007 but those days are now over. Price increases have already been announced and production is being cut on both sides of the Atlantic.

The New Business Model For Newspapers: Make The Online Sale First With Print Being The Add-On? - December 5, 2007

Newspaper Groups Have Shied Away From Giving Q1, 2008 Guidance But Now Comes A Hint From NYT Editor Bill Keller That It’s Not Looking Good -- 'We Will Be Rethinking Coverage Priorities And How We Use Our Space And Our People.' - November 29, 2007
This has been a year most US newspapers would rather forget – advertising continuing to flow to the Internet, the real estate bubble burst throughout the country affecting classifieds, their own web site growth usage slowing…the list goes on, and there are all sorts of signs out there that even in 2008 there is very little light to the end of the tunnel.

‘Any Editor Who Thinks He Can Sell His Newspaper Entirely On News …Is Not Going To Succeed’ – Peter Wright, Editor Of The UK’s Mail On Sunday - November 27, 2007
Back in July ftm suggested that newspapers desperate for new revenue streams should take a close look at their circulation distribution systems, and maybe those systems could be used to deliver more than just the daily newspaper, so we take particular note that Peter Wright, editor of the UK’s Mail on Sunday tabloid gave basically the same message recently to the Society of Editors conference.

US Newspaper Online climbed 21% in Q3 While Print Declined 9% And That Tells You It was A Terrible Declining Quarter - November 22, 2007
The bad news coming out of Q3 newspaper revenues is that online revenue growth is still way behind making up for print’s losses, and the really bad news is that while print’s decline is accelerating, online’s growth is decelerating.

'If We Don’t Act To Improve The Health Of The Newspaper Industry, We Will See Newspapers Wither And Die'—Kevin J. Martin, US Federal Communications Commission Chairman - November 15, 2007

News Corp Says It Wants To ‘Crush’ The Financial Times, But The FT Steadily Increases Its US Circulation – True, Still Way Lower Than The Wall Street Journal’s, And It Is Gearing Up To Fight The ‘Crush’ - November 7, 2007
The UK’s Financial Times continues to increase its US sales which, while like a pin prick to the Wall Street Journal, still must be somewhat aggravating given News Corp’s Peter Chernin exclamation just a couple of months ago when asked if the company wanted to buy the FT, “We don’t want to buy the FT. News Corp will crush it!”

With Newspaper Stocks Trading Some 30- 40% Below Fair Value, They Needed Some Good News This Week, But the Semi-Annual Circulation Figures Issued Sure Didn’t Help The Cause - November 7, 2007

Some Plain Talking In Two Important Speeches About ‘Appointment Media’: Tom Curley of AP Says News Industry Attitudes Have to Change and Gavin O’Reilly of WAN Says Online Has Little To Do With The Future Health Of Newspapers - November 6, 2007
A few days back Tom Curley, AP President and CEO, spoke in New York and Gavin O’Reilly, president of the World Association of Newspapers (WAN), spoke in Manchester, England – worlds apart – but their basic message in important speeches that should not be missed was quite similar, that while attitudes need to change, content, as always, is all important, and traditional media still has a long healthy road ahead.

US Newspaper Editors Are Having To Explain To Their Public What All The Changes Really Mean To The Daily Read, Some Of It No Holds Barred - October 31, 2007

Tribune’s Orlando Sentinel has been experiencing an increasing number of errors each month since June’s financial belt tightening, and Public Editor Manning Pynn didn’t hold anything back in explaining to readers why:

Do We Spend Much Time Reading Newspapers? According To A New UK Study We Sure Do
One of the many questions about print that advertisers have always asked is whether people actually spend much time reading their favorite newspaper, or is it just a quick skim? According to a new UK readership study apparently we spend far more time reading newspapers than perception dictates.

If You Want To Rock n’ Roll Or Just Plain Listen To Previously Unreleased Music For Free, Let Alone Watch Movies Not Yet Released, Or Take Really Cheap Vacations Then Just Buy UK National Newspapers

Their music may be quite different but there is something that binds together such diverse musicians as Ray Davies, Prince, Travis, The Stranglers, Bob Marley, Iggy Pop, Ian Dury, and The Ramones – their CDs are free when buying a UK national newspaper.

For Those Of You Who Really Want To Read A Positive, Up-Beat Story About Print Newspapers Then Read On
Financial analysts don’t often get to hear rave reviews about how well the newspaper business is doing these days, so this week was a bit unusual as the money people were told, “We still recognize the huge value of print and we will launch selectively where market opportunities present themselves. We have a revitalized business, which is clearly focused, more efficient, operating on a much reduced cost base, and has a renewed sense of purpose.”

'Why Are Some Sports Stories Only Available Online? Why Have You Savaged The Financial Section? What Have You Done To The Weekly TV Book?' – All Typical Questions Bombarding Newspapers Whose Readers Don’t Like The Changes That Lower Margins Force
Newspaper readers have a tradition of not being shy in telling editors what they think about unwelcome changes to their daily read. But newspapers are becoming clean – telling their readers that, like it or not, it’s a matter of economics and they very much need to boost revenues. C’est la vie!
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The Paparazzi Are At It Again With Kate and William And The Media Are In A Muddle – Some Buy, Some Don’t, Some Publish, Some Withdraw - October 9, 2007

If You’re A 'Local' Paper, Concentrate On The Good News - October 2, 2007
London’s Evening Standard, under intense competition from two free PM newspapers, has adopted a new editorial policy – accentuate the positive and rely less on headlines promoting bad news. The bad news won’t disappear, but the paper is now looking to strike a balance.

Lagardère Kills Another Embarrassing Sarkozy Story? - October 1, 2007
France is a twitter over what some believe is a love letter from someone not his wife that President Sarkozy was carrying with his papers a couple of weeks back, but the story about it that was to have appeared in the weekly gossip magazine Choc got killed shortly before the magazine went to press. Choc is owned by Arnaud Largardère who seems to be rather active in protecting the man he calls his 'brother'.

ftm Hits The Drudge Report And The Effect Is Staggering - October 1, 2007
Our feature Sept. 28 discussed the influence of the US Drudge Report links on making UK newspaper sites so popular internationally but ftm now has first-hand knowledge of just how effective Drudge is in boosting unique visitors and page views to a site.

The Internet Makes National Newspapers Truly International - September 28, 2007

The UK’s national newspapers have always been ferociously competitive in print throughout the country. But now they are ferociously competitive on the Internet globally. But can they make money from that global brand?

Newspaper Publishers Looking For New Additional Advertising Revenues Should Add The Word 'Spadia' To Their Vocabulary - September 26, 2007

With so much emphasis on cost-cutting these days one should really rejoice when newspapers are willing to do something they have never done before in trying to boost their advertising revenue. So give a welcome to 'spadia'.

The Cashless Society Finally Hits Paid-For Newspaper Newsstands -- And What A Great Idea It Is! - September 21, 2007

Senior Dow Jones Executives Lobby Murdoch To Keep The Wall Street Journal’s Web Site Subscription Based But He Believes Opening It Up For Free Can Bring In Much More Than Its Current Annual $65 Million - September 20, 2007
One of the first decisions that will probably get made when News Corp. pays its $5 billion for Dow Jones will be whether to open up its web site to all for free on an advertising basis or try to grow its 983,000 subscribers who currently pay some $50 million annually with another $15 million coming from advertising.

The Death of TimesSelect As One Of The Web’s Few News Subscription Services Begs The Question Whether Newspapers Should Dump Circulation Revenue And Go For Free Just As They Do On The Web? - September 20, 2007
The accountants won the day at the New York Times. Its TimesSelect subscription service was making some $10 million plus on the web– that’s more than petty cash -- but the newspaper killed it even though senior management still thought it was the right long-term strategy. But the accountants made it clear – the company will earn more by opening those pages to paid advertising that everyone can access and with the Times Company shares hitting 10-year lows this week the deed was done.

To UK National Publishers It Seems To Be A No-Brainer – Circulation Is Down So It’s Time To Raise the Newsstand Price - September 13, 2007

The Times, The Guardian and The Daily Telegraph all have one thing in common – their August circulation numbers were down so in September those UK national newspapers raised newsstand prices. No doubt the accountants have done the math and figured the additional revenue per copy will be more than forecast losses from lower circulation.

Magazine Wholesalers Get Their Price Increases - September 10, 2007
It’s one thing to produce a magazine, quite another to get it distributed to newsstands across the country. And if the wholesalers don’t like what they’re making from that distribution then there’s trouble ahead.

Murdoch’s Sun Slashes Its Price In London To Stop Falling Below 3 Million Circulation While The Times Goes Up 5 pence, Equaling The Price Of Its Quality Rivals - September 6, 2007
It has been sunny and warm in London this week, but not so sunny that it was necessary for all those red sun umbrellas to show up all over town. Upon closer inspection they were actually Sun umbrellas with about 100 youthful hawkers wearing bright red T-shirts flogging the tabloid at just 20 pence, 15 pence off its regular price.

There’s An Old Saying, 'The Rich Get Richer And The Poor Get Poorer' And When It Comes To Newspaper Web Sites A Harvard University Study Says That Adage Is Still True September 4, 2007
The basic newspaper strategy these days is to maintain margins as much as possible on the print side while investing heavily on increasing visits to the newspaper web site, because that site eventually is going to have to become a major financial player on the newspaper’s bottom line. So Harvard University has unleashed a real shocker of a report that basically says that might be true for all the really big guys, but for everyone else usage at newspaper web sites has already leveled off and in many cases it is already declining.

Free Newspapers Are Trash In More Ways Than One - August 24, 2007

There is an old adage that you get what you pay for – if you pay for a newspaper you’re more likely not to discard it so quickly, but if it is thrust into your hands for free then it can just as easily be thrown away without any thought. And that seems to be exactly what is happening.

The Economist Lifts Its US circulation By 15.6% And Increases Its Ad Pages By 13.3% While Time’s Circulation Drops 17.1% and Ad Pages Are Down 2.4%, So Is The Right Question “What Are The Brits Doing Right?” Or Is It “What Are The Yanks Doing Wrong?”- August 15, 2007
The Economist and Time Magazine had a few things in common at the beginning of the year – both titles raised their newsstand price by $1 – Time to $4.95 and the Economist to $5.99 – Time joined the Economist in publishing on Fridays so readers had the magazine at home over the weekend, and both focused on an editorial product that included exclusive commentary and analysis that readers wouldn’t find on the Internet. But there was no similarity on the results after six months.

That Prince CD Giveaway Allows The Mail on Sunday to Boast Its July Average Circulation Grew By Some 200,000 But In Reality The Net Gain Is Somewhere Between 0 and 31,000 - August 14, 2007
The Prince CD giveaway did what the UK’s Mail On Sunday (MoS) wanted – it boosted its July average circulation numbers by some 4.43% over the same period a year ago and by 1.92% over June, but the full July numbers indicate there was very little if any glue from one week to another by giving away 2.8 million copies of Prince’s new CD, so will advertisers be fooled by the one-off numbers?

The New York Times Narrows Its Page Width to Save $10 million Annually, The Orange County Register Reduces Its News Hole, US Newsprint Consumption is Down 11.1% This Year And Newsprint Producers Continue To Report Losses – The Right Scenario For A Price Increase? - August 8, 2007
Just this week alone the New York Times has started producing a narrower newspaper and the total news hole is down, The Orange County Register in California is laying off people and has announced it’s reducing the news hole, and similar announcements seem to come with great regularity so is this the right time for the newsprint industry to try to impose rate increases?

As Newspapers Continue To Gut Their Newsrooms Can Publishers Justify Their Spin That The Editorial Quality Remains The Same? - August 7, 2007

There’s hardly a day that goes by that some US newspaper doesn’t announce it is cutting back on staff and also resourcing jobs elsewhere. But usually with such cutbacks publishers and editors try and convince their readers it will make no difference to the end product. Hogwash!

God’s Country Doesn’t Appreciate A Free Bible With Its Newspaper! - August 2, 2007
It was only a couple of weeks ago that ftm suggested that newspapers should consider delivering other items for sale with its newspaper – its distribution system is really worth a lot of money.

Is Turning a Paid-For Metropolitan PM Into One That Gives Itself Away Downtown But Charges In The Suburbs One Way Forward? - July 31, 2007
One of the biggest questions newspapers are trying to resolve is how to get the eyeball “numbers” up and that in turn comes down to redefining exactly what comprises the “numbers”. In the US the National Newspaper Association says the way to combat steadily falling print circulation figures is to combine them with Internet readership, the idea being to impress advertisers that multimedia newspaper eyeballs are continually on the increase. But in the UK the ABC says it has no such plans to combine print and digital numbers.

Those 600,000 Extra Sales For The Prince CD Giveaway All Disappeared The Following Week, and A Los Angeles Times Column Is Killed For Suggesting A Similar Promotion
Sales for last week’s Mail on Sunday indicates that all, yes all, of those 600,000 additional sales with the new Prince CD giveaway were lost the following week. As so many pundits have said, those kind of promotions work on the day but usually there is no glue – the additional users wanted that CD and not the newspaper and they would be gone for the following issue.

Read The Dow Jones Q2 Advertising Revenue Results And Shareholders Should Be Kissing Rupert Murdoch’s Feet That He Is Offering A 65% premium; Results From The Likes of Gannett, McClatchy, and Media General Tell The Same Sorry Newspaper Story
Down, down, down. There’s no other way to describe the Q2 financial performance of US newspapers and frankly for this year at least there is no light at all at the end of the tunnel. Truth is, for the likes of the Los Angeles Times (Tribune) and the Tampa Tribune (Media General) the word “down” doesn’t really do it justice. Try “freefall”.

As Newspapers Desperately Seek New Revenue Streams They Should Have Their Marketing Folks Concentrate On Something Already In-House – The Distribution/Circulation System
It’s no secret how desperate newspapers are for new revenue streams – witness Tribune’s decision to run front page ad strips in all its newspapers which it believes could be worth millions in new money – but maybe newspapers should look closer at their circulation distribution systems for there are some bright ideas out there how newspapers can earn a lot of money by selling and delivering more than just the daily newspaper.

Just The Gift The UK (and Global) Tabloids Needed For the Slow Summer Season – Kate Middleton And Prince William Appear Again To Be An Item, And She Is Already Complaining Again About The Paparazzi
When Prince William announced three months ago he was breaking up with Kate Middleton it was the paparazzi crying in their beer. But now there are all sorts of signals the two are dating once again, and it’s like old times again – paparazzi are harassing her and she is complaining to the police and to the media.

Murdoch Continues To Add To His Stable Of NYC Suburban Newspapers
While almost everyone is concentrating on whether Rupert Murdoch will get his hands on Dow Jones for some $5 billion, Murdoch himself has not taken his eye off another strategy – buying up local newspapers in the New York City suburbs so that he can offer joint advertising packages with his New York Post.

Axel Springer Believes It’s A Lot Easier For Print To Make Money In Poland Than It Is In France So Au Revoir To The Planned French Version of Bild - July 6, 2007

That huge collective sigh of relief heard throughout France Thursday came from newspaper publishers upon hearing that Axel Springer has shelved its long talked-about plans to publish a French version of its German Bild tabloid that has a 12 million daily readership and close to four million circulation, the highest in Europe.

“We Do Not Have the Answer To The Problems of Newspapers” – Donald Graham, Publisher Of The Washington Post, And If The Likes Of Him Don’t See A Solution Then Is It Just A Matter Of Time For Print? - June 22, 2007
Donald Graham’s presentation to the newspaper Mid-Year Review was remarkable for its candor – newspapers including his are in big trouble and his only solution is to make up for those lost revenues elsewhere.

The Way Wall Street Sees It: "Even The Most Diligent" Cost-Cutting By Newspaper s Cannot Make Up Revenues Losses – Goldman Sachs After Reviewing Gannett’s Dismal May Numbers - June 21, 2007

As newspaper groups continue to report how their Internet revenue increases are just swell but, well, let’s not talk about print, Goldman Sachs weighs in with the view that no matter how good that Internet revenue, no matter how big the print cost-cutting, those print losses continue to outstrip all the bandages.

“The Internet Is No Longer An Add-on …It’s Now Our Primary Medium” – Media General’s Explanation Of How Important The Internet Is To Media Companies - June 20, 2007
For all the presentations being made this week at the Mid-Year Media Review in New York, the statement by Reid Ashe, Media General’s chief operating officer, sums up best what they all seem to be saying, “The Internet is no longer an add-on. For many applications such as breaking news or, increasingly, classified advertising, it's now our primary medium."

This Should Not Slip Through the Radar – Community Newspaper Chains Have Teamed Up To Offer National Advertising Network, Something National Advertisers Have Always Craved - June 17, 2007
Ask a national advertiser the one thing that irks the most about newspapers and the response invariably is how difficult it is to place ads. Having to deal with each newspaper separately is a real pain you know where. But now 10 community newspaper chains in the US have banded together to offer national advertisers a one-stop shop effective in August, and that is really big news!

“The Face Of Journalism Is A Grim Mask These Days; “It’s Not Even About Survival Anymore, Now It’s A Question Of Timing” – A San Francisco Journalist Chronicling What’s Happening At The Chronicle - June 12, 2007
If there is one newspaper in the US that stands out amongst all the rest for having to fight before anyone else the flight of classified advertising to the Internet it must be the San Francisco Chronicle, for it is in that city by the bay that Craigslist first got its start, and the financial hemorrhaging throughout the industry from that continues to this day. The Hearst-owned newspaper, which operates one of the most successful newspaper web sites in the country, has been losing some $60 million a year since 2000 and is anyone out there calling that just “cyclical”?

Memo To Time Inc. Staff: The Cull Isn’t Over - June 11, 2007
Time-Warner CEO Richard Parsons has bad news for those Time Inc. staff who figured the worst from the magazine group’s cull was over – the sale of 19 magazines to Bonnier earlier this year and the transfer of some titles to the Internet – there’s more to come.

Poll Says All That Newspapers Need Do To Stop Readership Slippage Is To Be More Objective, More Relevant, More Compelling, Have Better Design And Better Integrate Online Delivery - June 7, 2007

Newspaper Circulation Races Ahead In The Developing World, But In North America It Is Down And Europe Is Static – Perhaps Because Free Newspapers Now Account For 31.94% of Europe’s Newspaper Circulation - June 5, 2007
The rise and fall of newspaper circulation is really the story of newspapers in the developing world, particularly India, China, and South America, charging forward whereas in North America it is the reverse – circulation is dropping, and in Europe free newspapers now have nearly one-third of total circulation.

WAN Survey Confirms Young Get Their News From Family, Friends, and Social Networking, And, Surprisingly, They Claim To Read Paid-For Newspapers More Than Free Newspapers - June 4, 2007

Young people get most of their news and information from family and friends and from social networking sources than any other media, according to a new report from the World Association of Newspapers.

US Newspaper Web Sites Grew Their Advertising Revenues 22.3% in Q1 Over A Year Ago Which Is Great, But Their Print Editions Dipped 6.4% Which Is Terrible -- Add The Two Together and “Terrible” Wins - May 31, 2007

Newspapers are now accounting a record 7.1% of their profits from their Internet sites which is good news and bad news. Good news because they are growing their Internet revenue at a decent, if slowing, rate, but bad news because the print revenues are down so much that they make the Internet figures look better than they would otherwise be.

Time Inc. Not For Sale - May 27, 2007
Time-Warner is sending out signals that Time Inc. is not for sale in spite of its difficulties over the past two years. Chairman and CEO Richard Parsons told shareholders last week, “I am not an advocate of selling Time Inc.,” and then Ann S. Moore, Time Inc.’s top executive, made it clear at an industry breakfast the magazine group was not on the market.

Staff Fire Le Monde Publisher Who Told The World After 9/11: “Nous sommes tous Américains (We are all Americans)” - May 25, 2007
You had to really look for it to find it, but there it was on Le Monde’s back page – a short blurb announcing that journalists, who wield the tremendous power of being able to veto shareholders in choosing the newspaper’s director, have voted out Publisher and Editor Jean-Marie Colombani, known as JMC.

When Was The Last Time You Saw A Newspaper Company Report: “Strong Advertising Markets Both on Print and Online”? Welcome To Europe Where Established Media Companies Are Doing Better And More Media Barons Are In The Making - May 15, 2007
Norway’s Schibsted reported ”Strong advertising revenues and improved circulation figures for the print versions of VG, and Aftenposten.” Mecom, another media company also headquartered in Norway, has been busy the last year spending close to €2 billion ($2.7 billion) buying up some 100 European regional newspapers. And Mathias Döpfner, chairman and ceo of Axel Springer, told Variety, “At the moment we are not only generating the highest profits with our newspapers in the history of our company, but also we are making money a lot faster with our newly launched newspapers.”

Orlando’s Answer To Kevan Stone – Refocusing Newsroom To Online Journalism - May 15, 2007
The Orlando Sentinel has announced it is restructuring its newsroom to refocus on its online product, turning its newsroom into a 24/7 operation. But 24 jobs are to go.

Google Doesn’t Want To Own Content, But To Focus Instead on User-Generated Content - May 14, 2007
When Rupert Murdoch made his $60 a share bid for Dow Jones, and when word came of Thomson’s bid for Reuters, the financial markets started looking for who else might turn the offers into a bidding war, and more often than not Google’s name came up.

Lessons Learned From Most Recent UK Newspaper Audit: Two Big Exclusives Help a Bit, Cutting Back on DVD Giveaways Has Strong Impact, Price Rises Not Forgiven, And Free Newspapers Really Do Hurt the Paid-For - May 14, 2007
Rupert Murdoch’s Sun tabloid had two big exclusives in April – that Prince William and girl friend Kate had broken up, and an interview with the sole British female captive the Iranians released, and they helped push average circulation up 0.52% (15,803 copies) over March, but while that was the largest circulation gain of any national newspaper one had to really wonder why it wasn’t much more.

How Does “Yesterday Was The Worst Single Day I’ve Ever Seen At The Star Tribune” Meld With The World Association of Newspapers Telling Financial Analysts In London The Newspaper Business Has Never Been So Good? - May 11, 2007
In some parts of the world the newspaper business is thriving; in other parts it is not, but add all the circulation numbers and how many newspapers there are today and the good news outweighs the bad, according to the World Association of Newspapers (WAN).

NY Post Slashes Price Back To 25 cents As NewsStand Sales Falter - May 11, 2007
The New York Post learned a marketing fact of life over the past couple of weeks – once you gain readership via a low price don’t assume you also captured the reading loyalty of your readers. Loyalty is very fickle these days -- double the price of the newspaper and readers will leave. It’s not size but price that counts.

Fragmentation -- A Word That Is Already Giving Newspapers And Their Web Sites Grief; “We’re Following The Money” – Words Advertisers Are Telling Newspaper Publishers Causing Even More Sorrow - May 10, 2007
Fragmentation has already hit print, and it is starting to show up on its web sites, too. One stop shopping at a generalist news operation is losing favor to specialist operations. Why read about professional sports in your local paper or its web site, for instance, when you can visit ESPN and similar on the web that provide more specialist detailed sports information than one can ever absorb.

Warren Buffett Tells Those Investors Complaining About The Dual-Share System at the New York Times, Washington Post And Wall Street Journal To Quit Whining – They Knew What They Were Getting Into When They Invested - May 8, 2007
Warren Buffett hasn’t had much good to say about newspapers shares for a very long time, and now he doesn’t have much good to say about those whining investors who put money into companies with dual-voting systems that basically maintain family control and don’t like the results.

OK! Smashes Hello In Final Appeal On Douglas-Zeta Jones Wedding Pictures - May 3, 2007
Britain’s highest appeal court has ruled that people can sell exclusive publication rights to their personal events, and if a competitor breaches those rights then they’ll have to pay the financial penalty.

Overall US Newspaper Daily and Sunday Circulation Continues Decline According To Latest Audit Numbers, And With Online Growth Slowing That Space Between A Rock And A Hard Place For Publishers Is Getting Ever Smaller - May 5, 2007
The latest overall US newspaper audit numbers continue trending down as they have for the past 20 years – Sundays down 3.1% and daily circulation off 2.1% -- but for many large metropolitan newspapers the results are much worse – 5% plus, in the case of the Dallas Morning News 14% for the daily and 13% for the Sunday. Combine those kinds of numbers with slowing online growth and it is an even bleaker picture out there.

Would You Invest In An Industry That Forecasts Flat Revenue Growth For Each Of The Next Five Years? That’s What Tribune Newspapers Are Projecting, So Perhaps It’s No Surprise That McClatchy, Since Gobbling Knight-Ridder, Sees Its Shares Hitting An Eight-Year Low - April 30, 2007
We all know what Wall Street thinks of newspaper shares, but how do newspapers themselves see the long-term future? Usually, if you’re lucky public companies give a one quarter outlook, but Tribune’s legal documents accompanying its share buyback program to go private gives an insight for the next five years which should make most newspaper investors cringe.

ftm follow-up Meredith Reports Strong Q1 – April 27, 2007

ftm follow-up ABC To Investigate Free Papers Alleged Dumpster Dumping – April 27, 2007

When The British Have A Real Newspaper War It’s a Beaut – A Former Scotland Yard Detective Poking Into Trash All Over London, Embarrassing Video Released on YouTube, Ads Aimed at Damning The Other In The Eyes of Advertisers, And Oh So Much Money Bled By Murdoch And Rothermere - April 26, 2007
Even though London has 10 daily national AM newspapers all are basically at peace with one another. Staff poaching goes on all the time, once in a while one will cut its newsstand price forcing others to follow, a lot of money is thrown around looking for the elusive exclusive, but basically it’s civilized peace. How boring! But now a battle royal has broken out between the two new PM Free papers and it looks like no holds barred. Now we’re talking!

Newsprint Savings Were The One Joy Among All Those Bleak Q1 Newspaper Earnings Reports As Lower Consumption Bites Into Cost Along With Softer Pricing - April 25, 2007
Narrowing pages, restricting circulation areas, reducing bulk sales, banning pages of financial tables and TV listings to the Internet, and generally falling circulations have bit strongly into US newsprint consumption, with those savings about the only bright spot in newspaper Q1 earnings reports.

A 20-Something Gives Specifics To Newspaper Publishers Why He Doesn’t Read Print Any More, And Suggests What Editors Need To Do To Get Him Back - April 24, 2007
A few weeks ago ftm wrote about this writer’s 28-year-old son who, when offered a free issue of his local newspaper and a free copy of USA Today turned them both down. He got all the news he needed from the Internet, he said. So is he and his generation lost to newspapers? No, he says, but to get him back newspapers do need to change their ways.

When USAToday Announced Its Annual 6% Advertising Rate Increase For 2007 ftm Cried Out That Newspapers Needed To Think Again About Such “Business As Usual” Antics Given Falling Circulations, And The Q1 Results, Including a 7.9% Revenue Drop at USA Today, Proves The Point - April 20, 2007
This is a story about newspaper Q1 revenues. It is not a “good news” story – even digital growth at the New York Times Company is slowing. The best perhaps that can be said is that at Dow Jones the revenue slip was not as bad as expected. But it is still a story of newspaper groups posting losses – at Tribune its first loss in five years and the quarter down 81% -- and at USAToday, the nation’s biggest circulation newspaper, advertising revenue slumps 7.9%. We’ll understand if you read no further.

Unfortunately for Italy’s Richest Man And Its Former Prime Minister It Was A Slow News Day So When Oggi Magazine Ran All Those Paparazzi Pictures Of What It Calls “Berlusconi’s Harem” It Made Global Headlines, Big - April 19, 2007
Italy’s Oggi Magazine on Wednesday ran several pictures of former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi walking hand-in-hand with a couple of 20-somethings, there was a shot of a couple more, each sitting on a knee, and his left hand looks suspiciously as if it is under one girl’s sweater, and there was a red-head whom he seemed to appreciate perhaps the most. Those pictures would be political death for politicians in many countries but in Italy they could easily get him re-elected!

Prince William’s Dumping Of Kate, Reasserting Him As The World’s Most Eligible Bachelor, May Be Just What The Flailing UK National Tabloids Need, with Paparazzi Help, To Get Their Circulation Up Again, Plus What A “Kiss And Tell” Exclusive Kate Could Offer To The Highest Bidder - April 16, 2007
Now that Prince William has decided he would rather spend his time with his army buddies than with Kate Middleton, any time the young prince is caught with his hand cupping an 18-year-old Brazilian girl’s breast, as happened at a night club a couple of weeks back, and it is going to be banner headlines and picture salvation for the UK’s tabloid newspapers. And if Kate Middleton were to offer a “Kiss and Tell – not that she would – she would be set financially for life!

ftm follow-up TeenPeople Dies On The Web - April 17, 2007

ftm follow-up Danish Newspaper War -- Nyhedsavisen Doing Better - April 16, 2007

Publishers Around The World Should Study Closely The Tampa Tribune’s New Business Plan – It’s Making All Of The Cost Adjustments Metropolitan Newspapers Must Fulfill In The New Media Age While Positioning Itself As Tomorrow’s Leading Multiplatform Hyper-Local News Force - April 12, 2007
Too often newspapers announce various cost cuts coupled with some idle talk about increasing digital revenues, but not with much of an implementation plan. Which is why publishers everywhere need to take a look at the Tampa (Florida) Tribune’s announcement this week of combining “Out With The Old” with a solid plan “To Bring In the New?” It may just be the recipe to save metropolitan newspapers.

If The American Society Of Newspaper Editors Are So Proud Of Their Profession Then How Come They Want To Drop The Word “Newspaper” From Their Title – What Kind Of Message Does That Send To The Public? - April 4, 2007
The American Society of Newspaper Editors held their annual conference in Washington last week. But you wouldn’t necessarily have known that because they’ve changed their logo to read “ASNE – Leading America’s Newsrooms” and they seem now to be ashamed of the word “Newspaper”, even considering switching to the word “media” instead. Shame on them for even thinking of giving up the best generic brand in journalism!

So Much Attention Has Been Paid To The Problems of Daily Newspapers That The Success Of Weeklies Has Been Forgotten – But Not By The Smart Money - April 3, 2007
For all the doom and gloom told time and time again about US newspapers, there is one sector that is actually doing very nicely, thank you very much. How about 6-10% revenue growth in 2006 and profit margins holding steady. No wonder it is the weeklies that are getting the attention of the smart money.

Meredith Bought Four Big Magazines From Gruner + Jahr In 2005 At A Fire Sale Price of $350 Million. It Was Seen As A Great Deal Then, But Two Years On? - March 30, 2007
Meredith Corp. has announced it is banishing Child Magazine, one of four magazines bought from Gruner + Jahr (G+J) in 2005 for $350 million, to the Internet. At the time it bought the magazines, analysts gushed what a great deal Meredith had struck, but in today’s subscription and revenue environment did Gruner + Jahr actually make the better deal by getting out of the US magazine business at any price?

An Editors’ Survey Gushes That Newspapers Are Here To Stay Which Is Reassuring, But A More Meaningful Survey Would Have Asked Advertisers How Much Print Figures In Their Future And Newspaper Boardrooms How Little Margin Is Now Acceptable -- Then You Would Know The Future Of Newspapers - March 29, 2007
A survey of some 435 global editors-in-chief and senior news executives says they are very optimistic about the future of newspapers. That Newsroom Barometer is swell for telling how journalists see the future of newspapers, but unfortunately, and this is going to bang on some egos, they are not the ones that count. Better that an “Advertisers Barometer” had asked advertisers their future spend allocation plans, and a “Boardroom Barometer” sought out whether executives plan to continue their cuts to maintain current margins or whether they accept that yesterday’s profitability is gone, and are they willing to settle for less?

Time Inc. Tells US Newspapers – “It’s No Longer Appropriate To Continue LIFE As A Newspaper Supplement” – Admitting The Newspaper Business Is No Longer Worth The Risk - March 27, 2007
Time Inc. is still busy putting its house in order and seems to have concluded that newspapers are in even worse shape than magazines. Proving the point, it is shutting down its LIFE Magazine weekly newspaper supplement in April.

The Key For A Newspaper’s Survival Is For It To Decide What News IT Owns – Its Franchise -- And Then Devote All The Resources Necessary To Doing Exactly That On All Its Platforms - March 23, 2007
The reason so many print newspapers are losing circulation is that they have lost touch with their mission statement -- their reason for being. To just exactly what precise audience is the newspaper targeting itself – the audience it considers its own – and is it willing to dedicate all the necessary resources on various platforms to protect that core journalistic and advertising platform?

Large US Newspapers Had An Awful February -- Can Publishers Still Maintain Their “Cyclical” Argument Or Is The Reality That Advertising and Circulation Revenues Are In Perpetual Decline With No Signs Of Recovery - March 22, 2007?
Advertisers gave most large US newspapers a financial thrashing in February, bringing shivers and chills to many boardrooms and on Wall Street. Publishers can’t do much more than pray that February is just part of the “cyclical” argument and everything will eventually get better. But what if February’s slump is not cyclical, but much worse – the formation of a new, much smaller, newspaper advertising landscape.

Newspaper Web Sites Had A Banner 2006, Increasing Revenue 31.5%, But Their Print Revenue Was Down 1.7% And There’s The Problem -- That 1.7% Drop Is More Money Than That 31.5% Gain - March 20, 2007
US newspaper advertising figures for 2006 tell the tale better than words. Print advertising was down by some $800,000 which is 1.7% less than the year before, and Online continues fantastic growth with 31.5%, about $637,000 more than the year before, but the end of the day the Internet’s gains failed to surpass print’s losses.

Two Trends For Magazines, -- Show Any Weakness And The Publication Is Consigned To The Internet Only Or Worse, And The New Buzz Word is Video - March 19, 2007
With all the bad news about magazines closing, or being consigned just to the Internet, the surprising news from the Magazine Publishers of America is that in 2006 some 262 magazines were actually launched – that’s a 2% increase over the year before. But what the figures don’t say is how really tough it is out there these days.

The Key To Building Newspaper Circulation – Give Readers More Of The Stories They Want, But Do Editors And The Public See Eye To Eye On Those Choices? - March 15, 2007
It’s really a simple marketing exercise – find out what people want and sell it to them. Trouble is when it comes to the newspaper business do we really know what the public wants? There is help on the way to figure that out, and if you’re an old-time editor who believes you know that without being told, you may want to think that one again.

Maybe We Really Should Give Up On Getting The Young to Read Newspapers, and Concentrate on Those Who Appreciate Their Morning or Afternoon Print Read - March 14, 2007
There we were together, son and Dad, in the Dallas hotel lobby. On the counter free copies of the Dallas Morning News and USA Today, there for the taking. Dad grabbed both. But for 28-year-old son, this was a “no sale” – he had absolutely no interest in reading either. Not even for free. Television and the Internet, he said, took care of all his information needs.

As The UK National Newspapers Cut Back On Their DVD Giveaways A Truer Picture Emerges On Just How They’re Doing -- The Circulation Numbers Are Down, Down, Down! - March 12, 2007
The enlightened Fleet Street spin said UK national newspapers were doing well in February, continuing January’s recovery and rebounding from a disastrous 2006, but the February audit numbers shows every single national newspaper down on its UK circulation from a year earlier and just three of 20 eked out month-on-month gains. So much for spin!

Less Circulation, Less News Hole, Less Page Width And All The Other Newsprint Savings That Publishers Have Dreamed Up Are Working – Newsprint Usage And Prices Are Down. But For How Long? - March 2, 2007
The one cheer in the newspaper corporate boardroom these days is that the sometimes bitter cost control battle with newsprint suppliers is moving in print’s favor. There’s probably another 10 months for prices to continue falling, but come 2008 it will be another story.

Can You Believe That The Times Of London Is Promoting Its Revamped Web Site With A Poster Showing A Well Endowed Lady’s Black Lace Bra Stuffed Full Of Cash? This Is The Times, Not The Sun! - February 22, 2007
These are hard times at Rupert Murdoch’s Times Newspapers that owns the UKs Times and The Sunday Times, The two have reported a £80.7 million ($157 million, €120 million) loss for the last fiscal year, so apparently that means desperate measures for desperate Times.

Is A Newspaper An “Essential Service?” - February 20, 2007
News is important to our daily lives. But does it really matter where we get that news – radio, television, the Internet, or even a newspaper? A Wall Street Journal op-ed piece suggested that government-raised funds might be made available for serious journalism or should it be, as Slate slated that article, “If dailies can’t make it on their own, they deserve death.”

Have You Noticed Which US Newspapers Are Getting The Really Smart Investment Money? Think Local, Local, Local - February 15, 2007
The headlines are all about how terribly the large metropolitan newspapers are doing financially. But look further and you’ll see that the really smart money is still being invested in newspapers but at the very very local community level.

Want To Sell More Newspapers In The UK? It’s Not The Journalism, Stupid, It’s The Free DVD, Cheap Holidays, And Discount Dining - February 13, 2007
UK national newspapers had a good January, stemming the monthly downward circulation trend, but look closely and you’ll see it wasn’t the journalism that won the day but rather all those free DVDs and other promotions that ensured the New Year began with a really big bang, and not another whimper.

What Do McClatchy, New York Times Company and Journal-Register Have In Common? They Have All Taken Huge Write-Downs On Some Of Their Newspaper Properties. With Little Advertisement Improvement In Sight, Values Are Falling! - February 9, 2007
There is nothing that makes clearer how many newspapers are no longer a growth business than when their values are reduced in the company’s financials. There have been some big write-downs recently, and surely more to follow.

Did You Know That Newspapers Are a $180 billion Global Industry With More Advertising Revenues Than Radio, Outdoor, Cinema, Magazines And The Internet Combined? Maybe They’re Not Dead After All! - February 7, 2007
The World Association of Newspapers (WAN) hasn’t much patience with the doom and gloom pundits who constantly report that newspapers are a dying industry, so this week it has produced some updated statistics to show the good news that newspaper circulation globally is growing and new newspapers are being launched far more frequently than may have been thought.

Here’s A Question Every Publisher Needs To Answer In Determining The Right Strategy Going Forward: Is It More Important In The Short-Term To Maximize Making Money Now Or For the Long-Term To Increase Readership? - February 2, 2007
There’s an interesting debate going on at the New York Times about whether the $10 million annually it earns from its TimesSelect service, that keeps access to its most popular columnists behind a pay wall, is so smart after all. Could that pay wall in fact stop a new generation of readers from becoming familiar with everything the Times has to offer?

The Two Most Feared Words A Newspaper Employee Will Hear This Year Are “Centralizing” and “Outsourcing” -- Both Are Synonymous For “You’re Fired!” - January 24, 2007
Newspapers, doing whatever they can to protect their 20% margins, are now digging deeper and deeper into their organizations for solutions to running the business at far less cost, and that means in some cases that local jobs are lost and it’s hello The Philippines, hello India.

New Newspaper Marketing Tricks – Free Access To The WSJ Web Site To Those Who Buy The WSJE At Newsstands; Springer Starts Giving Away Welt Kompakt On Trains, And For Some, Being Displayed On Google News Is All Important - January 17, 2007
The Wall Street Journal runs the largest paid-for news site on the web and has always condemned other news media for giving their news away. But convergence is the all-important buzzword these days and in an important new marketing twist newsstand buyers of the Wall Street Journal Europe (WSJE) newspaper are now being given free access to the web site just like subscribers.

Here’s A Lesson From The UK’s Sunday Times – Raise Your Cover Price To A New Industry High And Even The Most Loyal Readers Will Depart -- A 20p Increase in September Has So Far Cost It More Than 100,000 In Circulation - January 15, 2007
Sticker shock can apply to a newspaper’s cover price as the UK’s Sunday Times has learned. The term got its start in the US when buyers looking at a new car’s price sticker in the auto showroom were shocked to see figures far higher than expected. Well, the Sunday Times raised its price in September to £2 ($3.90, €3), the highest in the UK, and the sticker shock has so far cost it more than 100,000 circulation.

Dean Singleton, Gary Pruitt And Sly Bailey Have One View In Common – That Traditional Media’s Downturn Is Cyclical And Things Will Get Better -- And There Are Signs They May Be Right - January 11, 2007
The general view of the financial markets these days is to stay away from traditional print companies for all the various doom and gloom theories, but there are some first signs appearing on both sides of the Atlantic that the worst may be over, or at least bottoming out, and the cycle is starting to turn back in traditional media’s direction.

Is 25-Year-Old Kate Middleton The Financial Salvation Of The UK National Tabloids?
The ferociously competitive UK national tabloids have never had it as good as when they could plaster pictures of Princess Diana on their front pages, and inside pages, daily. For Diana it was a nightmare, she could hardly step out in public without being hounded by hordes of paparazzi -- indeed some were chasing her on that fateful night nine years ago when she died in a Paris car crash. And now the feeding frenzy has started up again, this time with her elder son’s girl friend.

With China Expected To Deliver 75,000 Tons of Newsprint to the US in 2007, and With Economies Having Already Cut US Newsprint Usage By 6.6% This Year, The Laws Of Supply And Demand Are Finally Favoring Publishers
The relationship between newspapers and their newsprint suppliers has never been a love affair. No matter what publishers did in the past to cut back on their newsprint usage to save costs the producers would go and close down a newsprint paper mill or two to reduce supply and the laws of supply and demand put publishers right back where they were. But this year is different.

It’s Official, At Least In France: Newspapers Are Charity Cases
France has always had a tradition of very heavily subsidizing its newspaper industry -- in the 2007 budget €274 million is allocated, a 22% increase over two years ago – but the French Culture Minister is worried that newspapers need even more help and so he has come up with a novel idea for reader tax deductible financial support.

Here’s A Bold Idea For Newspapers Trying To Attract Back Young Readers (Mostly Unsuccessfully): Forget It And Concentrate On Your Core Readers 45 and Older
Newspapers have been trying whatever they can to attract back younger readers – special sections, something for the young on almost every page -- but at the end of the day those young readers are still slipping away to the Internet. So why not just throw in the towel and concentrate on those readers who really do want their daily newspaper read – those aged 45 and over.

Fighting Two New Free Newspapers London’s Evening Standard Raised Its Price 25%. How Many Print Marketing Gurus Out There Believe That Strategy Was Right? Hint: The Combined Free Newspaper Circulation Is Already 8% Up Over Business Plans
It’s been three months since some 750,000 free PM newspapers first hit London’s streets and the incumbent Evening Standard with a 310,000 circulation responded by raising its cover price 25%. The free newspapers are now doing better than expected, with joint circulation now above 800,000, but has that impacted the Standard’s “quality, you get what you pay for” philosophy? Hint: Think “south”.

2006 Is Financially A Rotten Newspaper Year With Circulation and Advertising Pages Down, And The Prognosis At The New York Media Meetings Is That 2007 Won’t Be Much Better, If At All, But That Doesn’t Stop Ad Rates From Going Up
Janet Robinson, The New York Times CEO chose the word “challenging” to describe 2007; Gary Pruitt of McClatchy calls the advertising downturn of the past four months that is continuing into 2007 as “awful” and USA Today says it expects slightly less advertising pages in 2007 on a 6% rate increase. Throw it all into the mix and the basic message from this week’s New York Media meetings is that it is going to be another tough year for print.

USA Today’s Circulation May Have Dropped 1.3% In the Last Audit, But That Hasn’t Stopped It from Seeking a 6% Advertising Rate increase For 2007
USA Today has the highest US audited daily circulation at 2,269,509, but that’s a 1.3% drop from its previous audit. So how come it is asking its advertisers for a 6% increase for 2007?

Can Anyone Really Say Anything Positive About Their Print Operations As Newspaper Week Gets Underway In New York? Maybe The Real Story Is Who’s Not There -- Tribune. Think Back A Year And The Non-Show Was Knight-Ridder. Spot A Trend?
Newspaper week kicks off Monday in New York but who speaking at the conferences can have anything good to say about their newspaper business. They can say their web sites are doing great; they can say their cable TV operations are doing very well; they can say that broadcasting – with all that political advertising – is looking strong, but newspapers – it’s just not there and the likelihood is that many could say, if they don’t avoid the issue, that they don’t see any improvement for next year, either.

Those Newspaper Publishers Who Believe It’s Business As Usual and January Means A 6% Hike In Advertising Rates Had Better Think Again
It’s a cycle that sees no end. Circulation drops, costs rise, revenues are flat and yet the business needs to maintain its 20% plus margins. But thankfully January is just around the corner so its fallback time -- raise those 2007 advertising rates by some 6%. But this time there’s a huge problem ahead -- many advertisers are going to give a whole new definition to the term “playing hardball”.

The Fall In US Newspaper Print Advertising Revenue Has Now Reached A New Negative Milestone – Even With the Double Digit Advertising Growth From Newspaper Web Sites Overall Advertising Revenue in Q3 Is Down
Overall US newspaper advertising revenue in Q3 came in at $11.8 billion, a 1.5% drop from a year ago. But newspaper web sites saw a 23% increase in advertising revenues over a year ago, so the sad conclusion for publishers is that their print revenue is now dropping faster than their superlative online products can replace it.

Newspapers Need To Change To Survive -- We All Know That – Except, Perhaps, The Existing Readers?
The Washington Post this week implemented its new policy of drastically reducing its financial tables in its print edition, saving about two pages of newsprint daily and that adds up to a considerable financial savings. But as might be expected some readers are not pleased and call the move “one more reason to cancel the newspaper.”

If Only All Families Would Follow Arnold Swarzenegger’s Newspaper Philosophy: “We’re Teaching Our Kids To Read The Newspaper in the Morning.”
California Governor Arnold Swarzenegger wants his kids addicted to newspapers. Now that’s one addiction we can all agree upon!

Radical Is Not A Word Usually Associated With Time Magazine, But Look At All The Changes Its Implementing – Higher Cover Price, Lower Rate Base – And It Pinpoints The Seriousness Of The Problems Print Magazines Face Today
What do you do when single copy sales of your weekly magazine news drops 24% in just six months? The folks at Time Magazine have the solution – raise the newsstand price by $1 to $4.95.

The Latest UK National Newspaper Audit Is Little Short Of A Disaster For the Paid-Fors And Either Their Giveaways Aren’t Helping Any More Or If It Weren’t For Them Who Knows How Really Bad It Might Have Been
The Sunday Times raised its price to £2 and lost 37,376 subscribers (2.32%) over September although the accountants can make the case they’re still doing better from the price hike. The Evening Standard raised its price by 10p to fight two free newspapers, and it lost 2.54% on the month and is down a whopping 14.38% on the year. And the Daily Express having returned to normal price after a 10p reduction for several months now finds itself worse off than ever.

Two Lessons From Tribune’s Actions In Los Angeles -- If There Is A Corporate Debate About Firing Reporters Then Keep It In-House And If It Comes Down To Editorial Quality Or Increasing Margins Then Margins Win
Tribune ended up doing what few thought it would actually do – it fired its Los Angeles Times publisher last month and it