Fixing this mess

[Frank_Ridgeway]

and they'll have more money to invest if their traffic doubles or triples overnight when the local newspaper's site gets converted to pay-per-view.

Based on past performance, what leads you to believe local TV stations would invest any such profits in the news product?

 

[pressmurphy]

and they'll have more money to invest if their traffic doubles or triples overnight when the local newspaper's site gets converted to pay-per-view.

Based on past performance, what leads you to believe local TV stations would invest any such profits in the news product?

Because radio/TV isn't a dying medium. I don't minimize the problems electronic media have these days, but they're still a lot more stable than most newspaper corporations.

And there is a fixed number of FCC licenses available, so the entity is always going to have value above and beyond the parcel of land upon which the office is located. Anyone with a barrel of ink and a roll of newsprint can start of their own paper -- and there are sound economic reasons why few have tried in the last decade.

 

[Frank_Ridgeway]

But PressMurphy, the MO of local stations has always been to pocket the money and spend as little on news gathering as possible. I see no reason to believe they would change that.

 

[pressmurphy]

But PressMurphy, the MO of local stations has always been to pocket the money and spend as little on news gathering as possible. I see no reason to believe they would change that.

I'm not naive enough to argue with your question, because it is both tempting and easy to take the money and run. What I will reiterate, though, is that electronic broadcasting has a brighter future, so they're more likely to invest in that future and continue reaping profits.

As for the print industry, look at it from the perspective of a mid-sized metro that's publishing these days on a set of presses that's 30 or 35 years old. They're already handicapped with what they can do with color configurations and speed, and now they know they have to install new presses by around 2013 or 2015.

How would you feel about investing between $40 million and $75 million on a replacement when your circ is slipping a consistent 3 percent (or worse in many cases now) a year and you might only get 20 years of use out of the new presses instead of 40 before newspapering as we know it goes belly-up. And, by the way, you need to make the decision in the next 18 months in order to get the plant up and running in 2013 even though you don't know when the recession will end.

Meanwhile, broadcasters are going out and snapping up low-power stations to extend their reach. It makes sense because they're expanding in their area of expertise.

Some newspapers, too, are investing in their future. But it's primarily in online, niche pubs and other endeavors outside their core competency. There's not necessarily anything wrong with that, but it's a tacit admission that their primary product is disintegrating.

So do they retard the growth of their key replacement product (the Web) by hiding it behind the "pay-per-view" wall or do they go all out to grow it now, perhaps beating other local media to the punch on innovative content, strategic alliances, etc.?

 

[slappy4428]

I don't know that you can fix the mess in some situations.
Smaller papers will always have a niche; larger papers have to blow up the model and start over.

 

[Frank_Ridgeway]

There is plenty of free porn on the Web. Yet lots of people pay for porn on the Web. Why? I have no idea.

Let's try this again. There are lots of Web sites that will tell you which coffee to buy, yet people still pay for online access to Consumer Reports or Cooks Illustrated. Why? Because CR and CI actually test the products and they are credible.

Newspapers are suffering from a lack of faith in the value of the product.

 

[pressmurphy]

Let's try this again. There are lots of Web sites that will tell you which coffee to buy, yet people still pay for online access to Consumer Reports or Cooks Illustrated. Why? Because CR and CI actually test the products and they are credible.

You're right, but I regard those pubs and the Wall Street Journal as exceptions to the rule. They can exist in print and charge online because of the niche nature of their content and the extraordinary expertise they offer.

General interest newspapers do not have the same sort of leverage and continue to widen the authoritative content divide by whacking the hired help at every turn.

 

[playthrough]

Exactly. They'd have leverage if they were still the best at something.

There are some papers with great coverage of State U that still charge for access to those stories, right? There's just no reason that can't exist for the rest of the paper with local news, etc., if like Frank said, the paper would just believe in itself and that people would pony up real cash for that news.