![]() Newspaper profits remain healthy, but they are dropping fast. Some major newpapers have several times as many readers online as in print, but grim financial reports have forced the papers to downsize. Tierney’s papers have bucked the trend and kept their circulation steady, but their advertising has declined along with that in the rest of the industry.Ī newsstand in New York. With some clever and assertive marketing, Mr. Tierney dismissed the industry’s gloomy talk, expressing confidence that it could win back paying readers and advertisers. That is in sharp contrast to his tone in 2006, when he led a group of investors who paid $515 million for the two Philadelphia papers. “When everyone’s taking on water, you can’t expect to stay dry only less wet.” Tierney agrees, “but you could change that and still be sliding,” he said. Scripps Company, are shielded somewhat by having highly profitable non-newspaper holdings, but even they have made cuts.Ĭritics of the industry including many executives within it say that newspapers have done a poor job adapting to the Internet and working creatively and aggressively to sell ads. Other publishers, like the Washington Post Company and the E. Others may seek shelter from market pressures by becoming nonprofit or going private the Tribune Company recently did both. The real estate downturn hit the newspaper business hard, especially in California and Florida, where real estate ads fell more than 20 percent at some newspapers. The long-term shift of advertising to the Internet especially classified ads for things like jobs, cars and houses accelerated last year. Some of the largest papers including The San Francisco Chronicle, The Boston Globe and The Los Angeles Times have lost 20 to 30 percent of their circulation in just a few years. Adjusted for inflation, 2007 ad revenue was more than 20 percent below its peak in 2000.Ĭirculation revenue has declined steadily since 2003, and the number of copies sold has been slipping about 2 percent a year. In the last six decades, only one other year 2001, when there was a recession had a steeper decline, according to the Newspaper Association of America. In 2007, combined print and online ad revenue fell about 7 percent. But in the last 12 to 18 months, that link has been broken, and executives do not expect to be able to repair it completely anytime soon. “The next few years are transitional, and I think some papers aren’t going to make it.”Īdvertising, the source of more than 80 percent of newspaper revenue, traditionally rose and fell with the overall economy. Tierney, publisher of The Philadelphia Inquirer and The Philadelphia Daily News. “I’m an optimist, but it is very hard to be positive about what’s going on,” said Brian P. Last year started badly and ended worse, with shrinking profits and tumbling stock prices, and 2008 is shaping up as more of the same, prompting louder talk about a dark turning point. The talk of newspapers’ demise is older than some of the reporters who write about it, but what is happening now is something new, something more serious than anyone has experienced in generations. Since mid-2007, major downsizing often coupled with grim financial reports has been imposed at The San Francisco Chronicle, The Seattle Times, The San Jose Mercury News, USA Today and many others. Not long ago, news like that would have drawn much commentary and hand-wringing in the newspaper business, but in the last few months, reductions have become so routine that they barely make a ripple outside each paper’s hometown. The Chicago Sun-Times began a major round of newsroom layoffs, then put itself up for sale, and publishers in Minneapolis and Philadelphia warned that tough economics could force cuts there. In just the last few weeks, The San Diego Union-Tribune eliminated more than 100 jobs, one-tenth of its work force.
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