The tragic thing about this mess is that the Times-Pic isn’t some AP-filled shell of its former self—even if its newsroom has been seriously scaled back over the last several years—and it isn’t even losing money. Its reader penetration is 75 percent, the highest of any big city in the country.
My wife happened to be in New Orleans the week the new strategy was announced and she brought me three days of newspapers. The paper still has a rich news report. On May 31, a Thursday edition that will no longer exist under Advance’s plan, I counted more than 50 staff or contributing bylines and columns and roughly 30 staff photographs.
The previous day’s edition fronted a stunning photograph by the paper’s Michael DeMocker, who captured a man comforting a five-year-old, Briana Allen, as she bled to death, shot at a birthday party. Photographer Ted Jackson photographed a dazed woman resting on her porch after sweeping up the blood.
In exchange for this, and a still-profitable daily newspaper operation, Advance and the Newhouses are doubling down on this:
All right, all right. Advance Publications did respond to reader outrage and switched the “yellow journalism” of Nola.com to a less garish shade several days back, but this is the company behind the The Oregonian’s website in super-wired Portland and MLive.com. Point is, the digital brains behind this website, which nobody I’ve seen thinks is any good, are what the Newhouses are betting the franchise on.
Because Advance is privately held, it’s difficult to get a good grasp on what’s happening here. But here’s what’s been reported: The Times-Picayune, as currently constructed, makes money, though we don’t know how much. At about $5.7 million last year, digital ads brought in just 8 percent of total ad revenue (which seems low), according to analyst estimates reported by Advertising Age. I’d estimate that the Times-Pic brings in at least $25 million to $30 million a year in circulation revenue.
While smart papers have been going to a digital subscription model, and smarter papers have moved toward a hybrid model that blends digital and print subscriptions and incentivizes readers to subscribe to the lucrative Sunday print edition, the Times-Picayune never even tried a meter model or leaky paywall. And it actually penalizes readers for subscribing to the Sunday paper. A Sunday-only subscription costs $2.77 a week. Buying it on the newsstands costs $2. Its Sunday circulation is just 16 percent more than its daily circulation. Most newspapers’ Sunday circulation is at least 50 percent bigger than their daily circ.
To be clear, my complaint is not with trimming down print to three days a week. While I understand there are some serious public access issues with that in a poverty-stricken city, the newspaper has to have money to survive.
The problem is that rather than using the new-found cash flow created by reducing operating costs to support its news operations, Advance is gutting its newsroom, getting its community out of the habit of a daily paper, and moving to what looks for all the world like a hamster-wheel model online. It’s liquidating the newspaper, as Jack Shafer recently wrote. Contrast the Newhouses’ actions to those of Warren Buffett, who has been snapping up papers and promising to maintain news staffs and daily publishing—to invest in them. Buffett’s businesses will be healthier longer than the Newhouses’.
What might Advance have done differently? Digital subscription revenue, for one, could have provided a real opportunity to transition print subscribers over to digital ones for the long haul.
The paper also could have killed, say the Tuesday print edition while maintaining the size of its newsroom and the cost of its subscriptions, and given free online access to subscribers to make the changes go down easier.
Or it could have killed four days of print, like it’s doing, but kept its newsroom at full strength and far better able to create the kind of journalism that the digital stuff needs to flourish.
Instead, New Orleans got the worst of all worlds.
The Newhouses say the paper isn’t for sale. Here’s hoping they change their minds before September.
Last time I checked, no journalist is forced to work at the Times-Picayune. If you don't like the working conditions, go somewhere else.
#1 Posted by Dan Gainor, CJR on Fri 15 Jun 2012 at 03:22 PM
Ryan prognosticates: Buffett’s businesses will be healthier longer than the Newhouses’
padiikiller responds: Says who?
Buffet didn't buy any really big papers. He bought mostly a bunch of local papers - many of which had both paywalls in place AND the "hamster wheel" parallel blog operations you decry.
And Buffet hedged his bet big time. The $170 million he spend for ownership of the MG papers is chump change compared to the $400 million he loansharked to the company at 10.5%. And he protected himself handsomely in the event of default, by taking MG's lucrative TV operation as collateral.
The only party guaranteed to make money from the Media General sale is Buffet. If the newspaper operation makes money, so does Buffett. If the newspaper operation loses money, he still makes money.
Apples and oranges, Ryan, vis a vis the Times Picayune deal.
#2 Posted by padikiller, CJR on Fri 15 Jun 2012 at 03:41 PM
Check again Dan, The Times-Picayune is/was the only daily in New Orleans. If it were FOX cutting it's staff by half would you feel the same way?
#3 Posted by nolaphotos, CJR on Tue 19 Jun 2012 at 02:51 PM
So start your own daily paper and compete.
Good luck with that...
First there was the weekly journal with pithy commentary by Ben Franklin.
Then the daily with Horace Greely...
Then the morning and evening papers of Hearst...
Now we have this thing called the internet.
A daily paper is about 23 hours 59 minutes too slow...
#4 Posted by padikiller, CJR on Tue 19 Jun 2012 at 03:31 PM
Hey nolaphotos
I hate to see any professional news outlet cutting staff. But having had my share of jobs and papers shot out from under me, I am realistic. The industry has changed. Only a poorly run business waits until it's too late to make changes. The world is moving away from print for news. That means the old/existing models need to change.
And it doesn't matter if that's the only major outlet in the area. Again, you can move.
Sorry, but that's reality.
#5 Posted by Dan Gainor, CJR on Wed 4 Jul 2012 at 03:02 PM
I wonder how the Harrisburg Patriot-News decision will affect the coverage of a state capital, not just by the media in Harrisburg but by others across the Keystone State. One also can pick up a Philadelphia or Pittsburgh newspaper in Harrisburg, and there are a number of stations that have bureaus there, including the CBS stations in Pittsburgh and Philadelphia. There also is the Radio Pennsylvania network (heard in Pittsburgh on all-news KQV) and other coverage on public stations such as WESA in Pittsburgh. This will be interesting.
#6 Posted by Patrick Cloonan, CJR on Tue 28 Aug 2012 at 01:52 PM