Alden Proposes Purchase of Tribune Publishing

[Readallover]

Hedge fund Alden Global offers to buy Tribune Publishing

 

[Readallover]

A Tribune paper reports on Alden's offer:
New York hedge fund Alden looks to buy The Morning Call’s parent company

 

[Readallover]

Note reference to LA Times losing $50m/year.
https://nypost.com/2021/01/05/hedge-funds-bid-to-buy-rest-of-tribune-publishing-met-with-resistance/

 

[LanceyHoward]

I understand the economic challenges newspapers face. But I grew up in Denver and have seen Alden gut a paper of my youth, the Denver Post. And then I left Colorado for grad school in Indiana and I remember buying the Tribune on my way to class every day. The thought of Alden gutting the Chicago Tribune makes be very, very sad.

 

[Bronco77]

The thought of Alden gutting the Chicago Tribune makes be very, very sad.

Me, too. Read it every day from my early teens to age 25, when I left the Midwest. "Dewey Defeats Truman" notwithstanding, that paper did a lot of great work over the years, especially from the mid-1970s until the industry decline began. Both the Trib and Sun-Times were great reads in the late '70s and early '80s when both were at the top of their game.

 

[Fredrick]

Anybody know if the hedge funds that have pillaged newspapers will be hurt by the happenings on Wall Street? Don't even know the names of them all. Does this hurt them at all? Will it affect speed of layoffs, end of the print product, etc?

 

[ChadFelter]

The end of the print product can't come soon enough as far as I'm concerned.

 

[Mr. X]

The end of the print product can't come soon enough as far as I'm concerned.

I know that would result in saving money, but wouldn't the losses in advertising revenue exceed the savings?

 

[ChadFelter]

I know that would result in saving money, but wouldn't the losses in advertising revenue exceed the savings?

For now, yes, absolutely. Print is still profitable. It will probably stay profitable for another year or two.

I just mean from a journalism perspective, it's tough to build a web product that generates significant revenue when writers are wasting their precious time writing stories "to fill the paper." That's still a pervasive problem even at papers that are "digital first." Until it's "digital only," the web product won't be good enough to sell enough subscriptions to keep the business afloat.

 

[cake in the rain]

For now, yes, absolutely. Print is still profitable. It will probably stay profitable for another year or two.

I just mean from a journalism perspective, it's tough to build a web product that generates significant revenue when writers are wasting their precious time writing stories "to fill the paper." That's still a pervasive problem even at papers that are "digital first." Until it's "digital only," the web product won't be good enough to sell enough subscriptions to keep the business afloat.

Hmmm...maybe. I've been on both sides: A newspaper with a web site, where "filling the paper" was absolutely a priority (albeit a declining one) and a website with a newspaper, where we hardly ever talked about the print edition and acted as if it didn't exist.

The digital-only site still shoveled a lot of crap and was not probably something I would pay for. I mean, it's nice to say you're going to focus on high-quality stuff to sell subscriptions, but the entire digital-only infrastructure was set up around getting stuff up on the web fast, with little or no editing. When the nightly lottery results are drawing 1,000 times the traffic of something that took you three days to report and write, the incentives can get skewed.

In that sense, I think there's going to be a difficult transition for media outlets going from a click-heavy emphasis to subscription emphasis, just as there was going from print to digital.

 

[Tarheel316]

Hmmm...maybe. I've been on both sides: A newspaper with a web site, where "filling the paper" was absolutely a priority (albeit a declining one) and a website with a newspaper, where we hardly ever talked about the print edition and acted as if it didn't exist.

The digital-only site still shoveled a lot of crap and was not probably something I would pay for. I mean, it's nice to say you're going to focus on high-quality stuff to sell subscriptions, but the entire digital-only infrastructure was set up around getting stuff up on the web fast, with little or no editing. When the nightly lottery results are drawing 1,000 times the traffic of something that took you three days to report and write, the incentives can get skewed.

In that sense, I think there's going to be a difficult transition for media outlets going from a click-heavy emphasis to subscription emphasis, just as there was going from print to digital.

I think, unfortunately, you are right.

 

[I Should Coco]

In that sense, I think there's going to be a difficult transition for media outlets going from a click-heavy emphasis to subscription emphasis, just as there was going from print to digital.

The key question is how many people will pay for those high-quality, in-depth online articles behind the paywall, when there are still plenty of other ways to get free information.

Case in point: I was wondering where travel restrictions to Hawaii stand as COVID vaccinations begin to (finally) become more common on the islands. So I Googled "Hawaii travel restrictions" and hit the news tab.

The Washington Post had what looked like an in-depth story on the issue from one day ago, but it was behind the paywall. So I clicked on the Honolulu paper's story link and read it for free. There also were updates available from the Hawaii governor's office and other Hawaii travel/tourism websites. Several ways to get the information I needed, without paying a cent.

 

[MeanGreenATO]

The end of the print product can't come soon enough as far as I'm concerned.

Are we sure this isn't Alex Mather's burner?

 

[Tarheel316]

The key question is how many people will pay for those high-quality, in-depth online articles behind the paywall, when there are still plenty of other ways to get free information.

Case in point: I was wondering where travel restrictions to Hawaii stand as COVID vaccinations begin to (finally) become more common on the islands. So I Googled "Hawaii travel restrictions" and hit the news tab.

The Washington Post had what looked like an in-depth story on the issue from one day ago, but it was behind the paywall. So I clicked on the Honolulu paper's story link and read it for free. There also were updates available from the Hawaii governor's office and other Hawaii travel/tourism websites. Several ways to get the information I needed, without paying a cent.

You lay out perfectly the reasons why this approach probably won’t work.

 

[Fredrick]

For now, yes, absolutely. Print is still profitable. It will probably stay profitable for another year or two.

Hmmm ... print is still profitable you concede. And will be for two more years?? Let's see what you are saying ... print is "still profitable" despite the elimination of 75 percent of the pages from 10 years ago; elimination of the name columnists and writers; elimination of high school coverage (at least in the bigger cities, not the small small town papers); elimination of popular features like 50 percent or more of the comics, elimination of business sections; travel and leisure sections; book and movie review sections (nobody reads reviews, man, they had to be first to go ... yeah right). Need I go on? So newspapers, despite costing the boomer subscribers so much money it'd make your head spin, are still making money.
Think they might be still making A LOT of money if they were as jam packed full of news/sports/entertainment as they used to be, if they actually arrived on the doorstep more than 25 percent of the time? If they actually were worth a bleep? Please respond. You are the one who said they are still profitable.

 

[ChadFelter]

The key question is how many people will pay for those high-quality, in-depth online articles behind the paywall, when there are still plenty of other ways to get free information.

Case in point: I was wondering where travel restrictions to Hawaii stand as COVID vaccinations begin to (finally) become more common on the islands. So I Googled "Hawaii travel restrictions" and hit the news tab.

The Washington Post had what looked like an in-depth story on the issue from one day ago, but it was behind the paywall. So I clicked on the Honolulu paper's story link and read it for free. There also were updates available from the Hawaii governor's office and other Hawaii travel/tourism websites. Several ways to get the information I needed, without paying a cent.

I think the big misconception is that high-quality, in-depth articles are the only content that could be effective behind a paywall.

It's not so much about the quality of the content, it's about the uniqueness of the content. Work should go behind a paywall if people can't get it somewhere else. That could be big in-depth stories but it could also be rankings and lists and previews, if they're unique.

Your Washington Post example is spot on. It might be in-depth quality journalism, but it's not unique. Other outlets are doing the same reporting, so it's too competitive to be effective behind a paywall. The fact that you're getting to it from a Google search shows that it's not a good story to go behind a paywall. People don't subscribe because they visited one time while searching for something, they subscribe because they've become loyal to that writer or news organization to read about (a) certain topic(s).

Sounds like the editors at the Washington Post aren't making nuanced decisions about what goes or doesn't go behind the paywall. Or if they are, they're weighing the wrong things in those decisions.

 

[Fredrick]

Work should go behind a paywall if people can't get it somewhere else. That could be big in-depth stories but it could also be rankings and lists and previews, if they're unique.

Chad ... with all due respect, you talk like a consultant and that's not good (I don't mean to offend; you obviously are an intelligent person). They don't have the answers and you don't have the answers regarding making $$ off digital. Let's face it. It's a horrible business model and newspapers are NEVER going to succeed $$-wise digitally. What will happen is when the print product is gone, the "newspaper" Websites will employ just a few individuals. As far as sports, there will be one or two content producers, maybe one editor type to help write headlines, etc., and help put the stories online. The online product will not support more than a bare-bones staff, kind of like a specialty Website. That will be your newspaper of the future. ... PERHAPS in a few cities they will become nonprofits and receive some donor support.

 

[ChadFelter]

Hmmm ... print is still profitable you concede. And will be for two more years?? Let's see what you are saying ... print is "still profitable" despite the elimination of 75 percent of the pages from 10 years ago; elimination of the name columnists and writers; elimination of high school coverage (at least in the bigger cities, not the small small town papers); elimination of popular features like 50 percent or more of the comics, elimination of business sections; travel and leisure sections; book and movie review sections (nobody reads reviews, man, they had to be first to go ... yeah right). Need I go on? So newspapers, despite costing the boomer subscribers so much money it'd make your head spin, are still making money.
Think they might be still making A LOT of money if they were as jam packed full of news/sports/entertainment as they used to be, if they actually arrived on the doorstep more than 25 percent of the time? If they actually were worth a bleep? Please respond. You are the one who said they are still profitable.

Newspapers are still profitable because expenses have been cut significantly (many salaries cut and many pages cut) and because the few subscribers left and few advertisers left are paying jacked up prices. But that's exactly why it won't stay profitable for long. 1) There aren't many salaries left to cut. 2) The cost of newsprint is going up. 3) The people paying for newspapers will keep dying off. 4) The few people still alive will eventually get priced out. 5) The few advertisers still dumb enough to pay for print ads will eventually realize they can reach a bigger audience for a smaller cost by advertising elsewhere.

So, no, newspapers wouldn't still be profitable if all of those people were still being paid. They'd be bleeding money. Print is still profitable because as much as revenue has plummeted (loss of classified ads, loss of advertisers), newspapers have managed to cut expenses by a greater amount. A simple formula you should learn: Revenue - expenses = profit. As long as expenses stay lower than revenue (no matter how low revenue is), profit is achieved.

Websites would have a shot to succeed financially because there's no newsprint to pay for, no page designers to pay for, no printing plant to pay for, no delivery drivers to pay for and no circulation folks to pay for. With all those costs gone and all resources focused on putting out a quality and unique digital product, it could create an environment where overall revenue is on an upward trajectory rather than a downward one. That could become more and more profitable over time, while print keeps getting less and less profitable over time.

I'm not talking like a consultant, I'm talking like a business person. And ultimately, whether we like it or not, the news industry is a business. Like all businesses, jobs dry up when money dries up. It sucks but it's true.

 

[Fredrick]

Websites would have a shot to succeed financially because there's no newsprint to pay for, no page designers to pay for, no printing plant to pay for, no delivery drivers to pay for and no circulation folks to pay for. With all those costs gone and all resources focused on putting out a quality and unique digital product, it could create an environment where overall revenue is on an upward trajectory rather than a downward one. That could become more and more profitable over time, while print keeps getting less and less profitable over time.

I thank you for the discussion. Not all communications in 2021 have to be meanspirited. You have shown there can be discussion with a person you disagree with 100 percent. I will say this: Your description of how websites could make money should inspire all independent sports writers to go it alone. Because there's no reason to give one's work to a newspaper company running a website, Without the printing presses, it's all equal footing. If a newspaper website can make it in your world, a much more talented reporter's website (than the young, unsourced person who will be writing the stories for the newspaper websites) would make money as well.

 

[ChadFelter]

I thank you for the discussion. Not all communications in 2021 have to be meanspirited. You have shown there can be discussion with a person you disagree with 100 percent. I will say this: Your description of how websites could make money should inspire all independent sports writers to go it alone. Because there's no reason to give one's work to a newspaper company running a website, Without the printing presses, it's all equal footing. If a newspaper website can make it in your world, a much more talented reporter's website (than the young, unsourced person who will be writing the stories for the newspaper websites) would make money as well.

If a writer can produce unique content and has a strong following, I do agree they could potentially make more money by going it alone. Much like how Notre Dame football makes more money by going it alone than splitting a TV deal with a bunch of schools with lesser brands. Someone like Jayson Stark could probably start his own website and do pretty well for himself. But for most writers, just like for most college football teams, they'll get more exposure from being part of a bigger organization.