St. Petersburg Times = Tampa Bay Times

That's right. I knew there was some reason that made it easier for them to fold the Rocky. And MileHigh, it still hits me in the gut every time I see that front page in your sig. Had a friend who worked out there. What a sad day for newspapers. Unfortunately there are likely more to come.

 

As a near-lifelong reader of the SPT and the Trib, I almost hate to see one really push for the demise of the other. The competition between them was - and in some areas still is - great, and it made them both so much better. As a fan of good journalism, it was always great fun, too, to see how each played the story.

 

As someone with ties to both of the major local daily newspapers -- I spent 15 years at the Tampa Tribune, my wife worked at the St. Petersburg Times (as well as the Trib) -- I've spent a few days pondering the big changes at both papers. Not just the news that the Times is changing its name but also the news that the Media General fired its top leaders in Tampa and announced that there will be more layoffs to come. After digesting it all, I've come to this conclusion:

The Times will not put the Tribune out of business. The only thing that will kill the Tribune is the Tribune itself.

The Tribune is struggling mightily -- losing money, losing readers -- but still has a considerable base readership (130,000 daily) in its core market (Hillsborough and eastern Pasco counties). While the Times has made inroads into those areas, by the numbers, it's still a second read. Reader and advertiser loyalty for the Tribune remain high for now. As long as the Tribune provides a product that serves them, they will continue to buy it.

That said, the Tribune is barely providing a product worth buying these days. It is getting thinner. It is getting sloppier. It is missing news. And it's about to have even fewer resources to work with.

There's been plenty of conjecture about how the Times, being in stronger shape, will simply overwhelm the Tribune with its latest move. Yes, it is absolutely stronger, but my sense (both as a longtime resident and as an industry observer) is that this won't be enough to make the Tribune's core audience switch allegiances on its own.

Back when the Times was flush with cash, and outspent the Tribune in newsgathering and marketing by what I'm sure was a 10-to-1 margin, it barely made a dent in Tribune turf. But the Times is bleeding red ink these days -- cutting people, cutting sections, cutting geography. If it couldn't kill the Tribune in good times, it's certainly not going to do it in lean times.

The newspaper war began in 1987, when the Times opened a Tampa office around the corner from the Tribune's headquarters, and it spent tons of money trying to change the hearts and minds of the public. That was 25 years ago. It wasn't until the last four or five years -- when Media General ravaged a once-strong operation to make up for years of bad decisions on the corporate level -- that the flood gates actually opened. Until then, its inroads were relatively minimal.

Any talk about a new name for the Times being the death blow for the Tribune is nonsense. About 15 years ago, the St. Petersburg Times branded the front page of its Tampa edition as The Times. It didn't really make much of a difference at that time.

Why? For as much as we want to think of the Tampa Bay area as one large metropolitan area, we delude ourselves. It is actually an area with three biggish cities surrounded by dozens of smaller cities and towns. Far too many residents cling to their geographic identities like grim death. There just aren't enough of us who think regionally. Hillsborough residents barely cross the bridges to go to Rays playoff games. Pinellas residents barely tolerate crossing the Bay to go to the airport. For heaven's sakes, it's still a toll call between the two counties unless you're on the right plan from Verizon.

Here's the skinny about the name change, everything you really need to know: When Media General finally kills off the Tribune -- and, make no mistake, it will do that someday -- the Times will be there, touting its name more than its coverage. The time between the Times' new name on January 1 and whenever MG decides to stop putting resources into the money-losing Tribune is simply an investment for the future -- getting future readers conditioned to the idea that it's not a St. Petersburg newspaper anymore.

Despite what the Times chairman/CEO wrote, the name change really has nothing to do with the Times' stated "vision" for the Bay area, or gaining a newfound national stature as a regional paper rather than a local one, or trying to convince advertisers that it's the paper for all of Tampa Bay. At least not at the moment. Indeed, it's entirely about grabbing, say, 30,000 Tribune subscribers who might switch to the "other" Tampa newspaper when the Tribune finally goes belly-up.

Only then will the other factors -- vision, stature, advertising -- actually come into play. With the larger circulation base, then the Times can charge advertisers higher rates. There's nothing sinister about this. Just understand this is entirely why they're doing it.

But, no, the Times won't kill the Tribune. That will be a case of filicide ... the parent killing the child. The Times is simply the next-door neighbor kid combing his hair, putting on some nice clothes and hoping to snag the other kid's toys after the funeral.

 

They also knew they'd have to fight the union for more layoffs and cutbacks. I always wonder what role that played in the the decision to close the RMN. I've heard differing opinions on that one.

 

I wonder what happens to the Tribune's satellite properties (Hernando Today, Highlands Today, etc.) if the Trib goes up to the great big newseum in the sky.

As a former alum of one of those two places back when convergence was the buzzword (I always loved the way Gil what's-his-face would say con-veeeeeer-geeeeeeencccccccce, weighing every syllable like it was the Holy Writ), it'll be sad to see them go by the wayside.

I remember the go-go days of 2005, when it seemed like convergence would be our ace in the hole. We had all sorts of money, all sorts of new toys. If we could justify it, we could buy it. Except full AP. We were just starting to do videos, web updates and all sorts of things. Then came along Craig's List and bam!

You're right, it's not if, it's when the MG suits, who once boasted about expanding throughout the Sooooth (South), pull the plug on that money pit and its Taj Mahal, vulnerable to hurricanes, monument to stupidity on the shores of Tampa Bay.

 

I'm not anywhere as bitter as you seem to be about your Media General experience, Bamadog, but you raise interesting questions about the future of Hernando Today and Highlands Today if the Tribune goes away and MG decides to focus entirely on WFLA and TBO.com instead.

Gil Thelen actually was one of the few bright people to sit in the Tribune's glass offices, and his retirement in 2006 was directly related to the boneheaded decisions coming out of Richmond. (I'll leave it at that.) Remember, he came through the newsroom. He joined the Tribune as executive editor before becoming publisher. My bias: I like Gil and he had more than a clue about how to run a newspaper. He also asked me on several occasions to head up some special projects designed to make the Tribune a stronger news operation. Some were implemented; others weren't.

He also understood the good things that convergence could bring. Anyone who truly understands the modern media marketplace realizes there are distinct advantages to having a trinity of print, online and broadcast. Convergence itself isn't evil. However, in Tampa, MG used convergence mostly as an excuse to cut payroll without fully understanding the damage being done to the products.

The new building isn't an issue. It's not even a symbol of the problem. (And, technically, it's not even on the shores of Tampa Bay. It's on the Hillsborough River.) The old building next door was 30 years old and way too small to house a modern newsroom. The hurricane threat isn't really a factor, either. While the first floor is vulnerable to a Stage 3 hurricane, so is every other building in downtown Tampa. And if you're a newspaper based in Tampa, you need to be downtown.

 

That was my feeling as well.

 

I was a bit bitter because the way things were run guaranteed failure. I've never been a fan of the panacea and while I think we needed to broaden our horizons and expand to all platforms, it always sounded like an excuse to converge three jobs into one (my old joke from that era).

The sad thing was we were dominating the thrice-weekly fishwrap in our town that had been there since the 40s. We had a great sports staff, good news folks and some good circulation folks. But the fact the whole place is dependent on Tampa's press meant our sections were a day late (the Highlands Today Yesterday was a common taunt in the area).

I just thought all of the happy talk (the sooooooth!) was a bit too ambitious. Guess events proved me right. I think the little properties fold along with the mothership. That's a shame, but everything that goes on with this biz nowadays is a shame.

 

I said that the TImes is becoming the dominant paper region wide because it's circulation is 80% larger than the Times. According to Wikipedia Pinellas County has a population of 916K and the Time's daily circulation is 298K. Hillsborough County has a population of 1,229K and the Tribune's daily circ is 165K. So for the Times to be selling almost 300K of papers a day it is selling a lot of copies outside of Pinellas County.

And the Florida group of Media General is losing a little money. I understand that figure combines the televison station and the newspaper. But the press release announcing the dismissal of the Tampa management said a committee had been formed to stop the Tampa papers "burn" rate. A paper can survive for a with negative profits because depreciation is a non-cash expense. So the paper can lose 5M but have depreciation of 10M and positive cash flow of 5M so a company will keep the paper open. But a burn rate implies that the losses exceed the depreciation and that Media General is having to put cash into the Tampa paper.

In Denver when that happened Scripps pretty quickly pulled the plug on the Rocky. And Scripps is similar to Media General. A company with a lot of other assets headquatered in a far away city. Scripps decided it was not worth staying in the newspaper business in Denver. And Scripps knew because of its JOA with the Denver Post that the Post was also burning money and would go out of business in the next six months or so if the Rocky stayed open.

Media General, on the other hand, knows that Poynter is probably not loaded down with debt like MediaNews was at the Post and the Times can probably fight on for a long time. So a financially sound strategy might be to fold in Tampa and invest that money somewhere else where the competiton is not as strong.

And I don't have a stake in the fight. Just one man's opinion.