I really wish that that more people would subscribe to their hometown newspaper.
I also really wish that more people would use the phone book.
I wish that the Top 40 radio stations that I grew up with and once worked at were still around.
But like the former high school jock that reminiscences about the good old days of 20 or 30 years ago, you can't be stuck in the past and simply wish things were different.
Instead you need to understand why things are different and to take advantage of the changes.
And Money is the key.
Money is what determines if any business stays in business, including all of the advertising and media options I mentioned.
Why are some struggling? The quick and easy answer may be the Internet. But let's dig deeper and take a look at the root cause.
That root cause again is money.
What made the internet popular is the cost to the end user, (consumer) is either low or perceived as low. The cost of a computer has dropped while the computer hardware and software have become better and more reliable.
And the content that is available at no charge to the consumer via the internet has replaced the content that we used to pay for with a newspaper subscription.
Due to the structure of traditional news media and these changes, they are hurting. It reminds me of the energy crisis, a combination of solutions need to be implemented and the sooner the better.
The solutions are simple: Restructure the business so that the books balance and provide local content to justify your existence to your readers/audience so they will come to you and you can sell advertising.
Implementing these solutions requires new thinking and can be very hard.
Here's the latest bad news for the paper business from Mediapost:
| Summer Blues: Newspapers Plunge As Online Stalls |
| by Erik Sass, Wednesday, Aug 27, 2008 8:32 AM ET |
 The print story in July should be familiar by now, with double-digit losses across the board at New York Times Company, McClatchy, Gannett and Media General. But the new bad news in these companies' results for the first month of the third quarter is the drastic slowdown in online revenue growth, which has basically flat-lined at three of the four (McClatchy is the exception). At NYTCO, total ad revenues tumbled 16.2% to $129.4 million in comparison to July 2007, while the year-to-date figure is down 10.8% to $1.04 billion. As in previous months, the New England Media Group contributed significantly to the decline, with regional revenues down 24.5%. This makes July the tenth straight month that NYTCO has seen total ad revenues decline, since the trend turned negative in October of last year. This bad news only got worse with anemic online revenue growth--just 0.9% in July. Like other newspaper publishers over the last few years, NYTCO relied heavily on upsells from print classifieds to power online revenue growth in the 20% to 30% range. But as print classifieds dwindle (down 30.1% in July), there are fewer opportunities for upsells to online listings. Online display advertising, while continuing to show strong growth, remains a small part of newspaper revenues. Indeed, the same basic dynamic could be seen at other big newspaper publishers. Gannett's total publishing ad revenues were down 16.7%, due in large part to a 25.4% drop in classifieds. The company does not release separate online revenue figures in its monthly reports, but it seems likely that the results were in line with the second quarter, when online publishing revenues grew just 3% and total operating revenues 10%. Media General's interactive division saw revenues grow just 5.7% in July as total revenues fell 13.8%. Again, the drop is due mostly to losses in print and online classifieds. McClatchy posted relatively good results for online, which grew 12.8% in July, thanks to display advertising. Chief Financial Officer Pat Talamantes noted that online advertising is "up in all categories except employment advertising. In fact, when employment advertising, which has declined nationally both in print and online, is excluded our online advertising was up 58.5% in July." |
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