New business model
Posted on 11/09/2008 12:35:11 PM PST by abb
The Star-Telegram used to be a special business.
For decades, the Fort Worth newspaper had some of the strongest numbers anywhere, stoked by a fast-growth market and big-city competition. With almost 400 journalists at its peak, it staffed one of the largest newsrooms for a paper its size and had a fat news hole for stories.
Profit margins sometimes hit 30 percent, justifying the large head count and making the Star-Telegram a cash-generating machine.
That’s all yesterday’s news.
Newspapers across the nation are facing their own economic crisis, and they’ve cut more than 24,000 jobs in the past year. The Internet is taking a growing share of ad dollars and undercutting the pricing power of all the legacy media.
Broadcast television, radio stations and magazines are losing audience and revenue just as fast, and even Time Inc. is laying off 600 workers from its magazines.
With audiences fragmenting and revenue plunging, newspapers are rapidly restructuring, trying to reinvent their business models. A stunning local example was announced Friday, when the Star-Telegram and The Dallas Morning News said they’re looking at ways to share their editorial content.
News stories, photos and graphics are the DNA of a newspaper, so it’s hard to imagine mixing and matching with your oldest rival. These are desperate times, though, and the enemy of your enemy becomes your friend.
Newspapers are growing their online revenue, but those ads are less lucrative, and the faltering economy is making bad times even worse. Big local advertisers — retailers, auto dealers, home builders and Realtors — are reeling, too.
The Star-Telegram is still racking up operating profits, and it’s reaching more people than ever — 1 million a week, combining the newspaper and online audience.
snip
(Excerpt) Read more at star-telegram.com ...
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122608993574009247.html
Broadcast Blues Hit Media Firms
http://www.variety.com/article/VR1117995398.html?categoryid=14&cs=1
ABC mandates production cuts
Producers asked to trim budgets by 2%
ping
“ABC mandates production cuts
Producers asked to trim budgets by 2%”
HAHAHAH...wonder how they love their Obaaaa-ma now?
Absolutely good news.
Die screaming vile beast!!!
New business model
To all you journalists with inflated perceptions of your purpose and talents....can you say “Paper or plastic?”
>To all you journalists with inflated perceptions of your purpose and talents....can you say “Paper or plastic?”
I thought it was “how many ketchup would you like with that, sir?”
The future is the internet, not print or tv. We are very strong in talk radio, but Obama and the dems kicked our a$$es online. We need to pump millions of dollars into a RNC online effort starting now, an effort that could be compared to Obama’s $605 + million, we need to drown out the dems’ online messages, essentially we need to own the internet just like the dems own cable/network news and most print news.
The idiots will never figure out:
Bias = Layoffs
I wish I could eliminate Valpak and other spam of that ilk from clogging my mailbox. Grrrrrr...
Maybe the media needs to start practicing “diversity”...real diversity...stop being a bunch of liberal libertine suckups
If the fairness doctrine shuts down much of talk radio, there will be demand for conservative content. Newspapers could make some serious money by serving up some conservative content.
One of those areas...is mine.
I guess I am expendable. Ha!!
Take the money you were wasting on that newspaper subscription and send it in to Jim Rob. You have no idea how good it will make you feel.
I didn't have a subscription....although I bought it nearly everyday.
Pretty right of center fish wrap...fwiw-
I give to FR...every year.
Thanks!!
Last Wednesday I stopped taking it 7 days a week to Sundays only. I emailed this author and told him that when the last one out of building that turns out the light...well I will be the in the parking lot doing the happy dance.
I’d love to see a conservative subscription site with it’s staff of reports and bureaus. We’ve got plenty of conservative opinion bloggers but most of our ‘hard news†stories still come from the MSM. $50 a month would be more than reasonably for a good product.
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