TheGraphicOnline

Apology (sort of): Last week I wrote that the analysis appearing there of “A Way Out of the Newspaper Decline” was “the last (maybe).” Now you know what maybe means.

Meanwhile, we’ve been treated with a matchless opportunity to know the Real Truth in an article written by Juli Metzger. Who’s Juli Metzger? Get to know her – she’s now the Publisher of the Palladium-Item. Or if you prefer, she’s the Publisher of the Muncie Star-Press and has been assigned to also be the publisher of the Pal-Item. Either way, she speaks for both papers and probably for the current thinking of her parent organization, Gannett Co., owner of the largest chain of daily newspapers in the country.

As far as I know, Ms. Metzger’s statement on the subject is her first in the local paper. She goes right at it by saying that she is being asked if there will be a newspaper in Richmond “in the long term.” And her answer is: “The short answer is yes. But it might not resemble what you’re holding today.” Presumably, the web site readers are not holding it, but let’s not quibble. As an aside, isn’t it interesting that newspapers in small and medium-sized cities are in just the opposite position as the financial giants that are being bailed out with billions of dollars, because the are “Too Big To Fail.” All the newspaper failures to date are in big cities. Papers in cities our size will survive (for now) because they are “Not Big Enough to Fail.”

Publisher Metzger cites some of the many factors pressuring newspapers right now and, toward the end, reveals the most significant prediction: “We’ll stop giving so much of what we do away for free…That could change in the months ahead.” Aha! Good for her. She’s joined the Really Big Brains in the industry who have discovered that you can’t give away free in one shop what you’re trying to sell in another. Yet, newspapers are still chasing readers out of the paper and into their web site.

It may help to remember how the industry got into this fix – three main reasons: 1) The newspaper industry’s determination to control all information sources in its own market; 2) Recent erosion of their advertising base by the internet, and 3) The present whirlwind of near-collapse in the economy. To combat this Perfect Storm, the industry’s solution has been to move all their readers into their own web site and count on advertising to follow them there. And you know, it looked for awhile that this might work: Ad volume on the internet rose each year by double digit figures…UNTIL two years ago it did not rise, and last year it began a decline across the industry. That plan is not working. Remember, advertising in newspapers has typically yielded 80% of the revenue needed, while internet ads, even at best, is yielding only about 8%.

So what’s a publisher to do? Not that anyone who has any real say-so wants to know about them, but here are two SOLUTIONS (or ideas) they can have for free:

As we talked about last week, newspapers are going to have to find a way to charge for their web sites – instead of giving everything away free and hoping the advertisers will make up the difference. It will take awhile to get people used to it, but it can be done if they cancel the free-ride service and make their site an invitation to take the newspaper. The way that has to be done is (as mentioned last week) to charge a reasonable price “for a combined web site/newspaper subscription – the way we used to pay for a newspaper alone.”

Second “solution”: Let’s move into the future. Publisher Metzger cites “the outmoded and costly distribution model of product delivery – a paper dropped on your doorstep every day.” She’s right. Home delivery is expensive. Also, printing a traditional newspaper (ink on paper) is still expensive, so it makes sense to do the same preparatory work – reporting, writing, editing, designing, etc. – and then just push the internet button and Presto! it’s delivered to every subscribing computer. But IF they want to preserve the ink-on-paper version (which many people will prefer for a long time), here’s an idea on how to save on delivery. Call it the “Milk Bottle Solution.”

Remember in the old days (some can still remember) how we got milk deliveries? The cheerful delivery man drove his Wayne Dairy truck up and exchanged the full bottles for the empties we left in the box on the front stoop. We thought that system would last forever. It didn’t. First, they exchanged cartons for bottles. Then they told us that home delivery would end and we could buy it cheaper at the grocery. How do we do it now? At the grocery – and don’t think anything about it. I predict that some day we will pick up our daily paper at the grocery (or service station, or wherever) and wonder why we didn’t always do it that way.

Enough solutions already. This is another last (maybe) column on “A Way Out of the Newspaper Decline.”

–Vic Jose

Vic Jose :: Apr.08.2009 :: Uncategorized ::

Trackback URI | Subscribe to the comments through RSS Feed