The Paper of 2018

This is one of the oldest, most widely-held misconceptions in our business today.

I see this point made often on here and it leads to a false conclusion. The reason for newspapers' struggle, simply put is twofold: First and foremost, loss of advertising to other mediums. Secondly, loss of circulation as it is linked to advertising rates.

Newspapers have been giving away their product for years. Or damn near it. The subscription price, with inflation, doesn't equal the actual price. The cost of home delivery (press, ink, pressman, delivery method, delivery medium, newsprint) often equals -- in some cases exceeds -- the cost of getting the product to homes. If newsprint and fuel costs are up -- as they are now -- there is a good chance the delivery is a loss. (There are so many factors and variables it's impossible to make a blanket statement).

But, one thing is for certain. Subscriptions -- the money collected for them -- are not a revenue stream.
They're a necessity, just not a revenue stream.
So, the newspapers that hit the driveway -- for concept -- are free. The consumers are paying for the convenience of the tangible.

(Sidebar: There is a profit in single-copy or rack sales.)

 

It largely depends on the market.
I suspect that many places won't be changing a thing and why should they?
Certain markets are fairly well insulated and most of the doom and gloom associated with the news biz comes out of the northeast. People talk about the bad times and they mean Philly, Boston, Baltimore.
Sure it hasn't been easy in other places, but it certainly hasn't been the end of the world.
I think the 50k papers are here to stay. The investments they have in the local communities are too strong to just go away. Locally owned/small company metros won't vanish either.

I'm a little curious about Japan.
They have a newspaper culture, and thriving newspapers. They also seem to be smack dab in the middle of a technology center. How do they make it work?

 

Culture. Newspapers are a cultural institution.
It's a fantastic and wonderful discussion.

 

Layoffs in San Diego and buyouts in K.C. would undermine that line of thinking.

I'd like to know that, too.

I still think there's a market for PM papers in this country -- a PM afternoon free commuter paper would do well in bigger cities such as Philly, Boston, NYC.

I ride the train to work on occasion at night. People are reading the AM commuter rags they find on the floor. I'd rather read about what happened during the day, not what happened yesterday.

 

No, you're missing the point. Whether the cover price does or doesn't provide revenue isn't the issue. It's whether you're driving people away from the paid product that contains the most (and most expensive advertising) in favor of the free one (where the advertising is minimal). You can't expect the paid product to not lose circulation if you're putting all the content online.

Besides, while big-city dailies usually lose money on the cover price, that's not true on small papers. Think about it: Big paper charges 50 cents for a 60-page paper, little daily charges 50 cents for a 20-page paper. Same price, different amounts of raw materials.

 

San Diego is privately owned. It's not like it had to cut staff in order to keep the stock price up. It's the owner's desire for X amount of dollars.

The problem with PMs in big metropolitan areas is delivery. There is much more traffic to deal with in the afternoon, and because of that, you need to print earlier and earlier and then it becomes a matter of nothing that happens after 10 a.m. making the paper anyway, so why bother? Richard Benjaminson's 1980s book "Death In The Afternoon" explained this.

 

I'm saying a commuter paper -- stock the main train stations and a few other outlets in the downtown.

I haven't read that book, but I will do so.

 

I understand your point. You're missing mine.
Newspapers gave away their product long before the internet. The subscription wasn't revenue, it was price of getting the product to the home. Now, it's free without the fee. What would you do if your the consumer? In many cases, there's more on the web. Multimedia. Video. Polls. Slideshows. Photogalaries.
(And, I agree with your big daily/ small daily comparison on the cover price. Although, it is cheaper to mass produce than to produce finite.)

 

I think there's an interesting possibility in reviving the PM format. I do like that idea of a commuter rag. Obviously, that would only work in certain places.

EDIT: One thing is painfully obvious though ... in order to even be relevant, papers will have to obey the 24-hour cycle by 2018. Many are doing this now ... but many others are being ridiculously stubborn.

 

So what? The readers still perceive it as something for free vs. something they have to pay for -- they do not know or care if the newspaper makes a profit on it. All they know is that they can pay 50 cents at the 7-Eleven or they can read the same thing for free on the Web.

As long as the print product exists, you still want readers to go where the ads are -- you don't want to direct traffic AWAY from your best advertisers: HEY, GO HERE! NOT ONLY DOESN'T IT COST YOU 50 CENTS TO READ THE SAME THING, BUT YOU DON'T HAVE TO SEE ALL THOSE ADS!

Whether a paper makes profit on the cover price -- some do, most don't -- is completely irrelevant to the fact that in either case, newspapers are undermining the product that still pays the bills by giving customers a free alternative to it.

 

You're right. But for the wrong reason.
Frank, say every newspaper, tomorrow, pulled the plug on their websites. Shut them down.
Stuttered the doors and windows. Changed the locks.
Do you think newspaper circulation would reach 1970s numbers?
Or, when you type 'GOOG' into Google will the price be a multiple of the current $600?
Newspaper are just getting what's left of the pie. At this point, it's just table scraps. But, we'll grow. We'll adjust. We'll morph. Well, the good ones will.

 

It's hard to project 10 years into the future. Hell, by 2000, we were all supposed to be driving flying cars and making plans for vacations on the Moon. Or have all perished in a nuclear winter for those who believed Carl Sagan.

But I've heard that one area in the newspaper business in which there is growth potential is community news. I don't know how true that is considering I have a publisher who deserves a nickname akin to Lean Dean, but I doubt seriously that the Internets will be able to allow Grandma to tape up a photo of her grandson that ran in that day's paper.

You can't take the interwebs with you on the beach and curl up with it. The salt air and the sand might ruin your lap top or iPhone. By the same token, you can't line your bird cage with the interwebs.