NY Times publisher: Our goal is to manage the transition from print to internet – Haaretz – Israel News — It sounds like he is serious despite the fact that this might be the death knell for all newspapers in the USA. This is crazy.
And what began as a casual chat ended in a fascinating glimpse into Sulzbergers world, and how he sees the future of the news business.
Given the constant erosion of the printed press, do you see the New York Times still being printed in five years?
“I really don’t know whether well be printing the Times in five years, and you know what? I don’t care either,” he says.
Sulzberger is focusing on how to best manage the transition from print to Internet.
“The Internet is a wonderful place to be, and were leading there,” he points out.
The Times, in fact, has doubled its online readership to 1.5 million a day to go along with its 1.1 million subscribers for the print edition.
Sulzberger says the New York Times is on a journey that will conclude the day the company decides to stop printing the paper. That will mark the end of the transition. Its a long journey, and there will be bumps on the road, says the man at the driving wheel, but he doesnt see a black void ahead.
Asked if local papers have a future, Sulzberger points out that the New York Times is not a local paper, but rather a national one based in New York that enjoys more readers from outside, than within, the city.
related link:
This is already being planned for offices and condos I think
found by William Giacona
What will my conservative friends wipe their behinds with?
If sites like BBSpot, the Onion, and Penny-Arcade can be profitable merely on a combination of page views, a little merchandising, and advertising, I cannot understand why newspapers cannot do the same. Does BBSpot really get more hits than the New York Times’ website?!
And for some strange reason online newspapers want to avoid people viewing their articles. E.g., they hate deep links. Why? What is so bad about someone coming to your site, being exposed to ads, and reading the article? That’s exactly how the web is supposed to work!
Online newspapers also love robot.txt files. Which is another way of saying they don’t want search engines to index their sites. For some strange reason, when someone searches for a topic, online newspapers do not want to be found. Can someone from the industry explain that piece of shit to me?! I’m serious!
And I can’t understand why they pull articles after a week or two, and even worse, sometimes they’ll charge people to view those pulled articles. Why? Are they really that desperate for server space that they have to flush it every couple of weeks? Google has nearly the entire internet cached on its servers and it’s profitable!
Print newspapers are mere advertising delivery services. Why don’t they understand that the online version is the exact same thing?
All I can say is the toilette will never be teh same. I just can’t bring the laptop into the can… My legs don’t have the right configuration balancing the thinkpad on my thighs… Books, mags and newspapers will ALWAYS have a place in my shitter…
The less NYTs in print the better. The head of the WSJ was on C-SPAN’s Q&A a couple weeks ago and continues to talk about the current, and expected future, profitability of the print edition. He also said that Dow Jones’ other online publication continue to be increasing profit areas.
Let me assure you, they all have a screw loose. Circ is down because the products suck.
Seems like a huge over-reaction to totally shut the print edition down.
A much better idea is to do what they’re doing in England — going to smaller tabloid size. This may eventually lead to a advertising-only financed paper but, before they can do that, they need to find out a way to make the on-line side profitable!
# 2 SN – “for some strange reason online newspapers want to avoid people viewing their articles…What is so bad about someone coming to your site, being exposed to ads, and reading the article?”
Exactly! What the hell is up with that?
5 years sounds about right to me. Not to fold the paper; but, admit that the online side will predominate.
I have pretty tight connections with folks who edit and publish the online edition of my local paper. Their online circulation passed the only print competition 4-5 years ago.
They brought in outside consultants around then who travel the country doing circulation and marketing analysis for newspapers — and their analysis, then, was they expected print to bring significantly less revenue than online editions by 2010/12.
The toughest part of that internal struggle is getting the print-side management to get their butts online to see what’s going on — what can be achieved — and try partnering with their online cohorts. Generally, the latter are still treated as alien interlopers.
I dont see this as a real issue myself – JCD has it correctly I believe, if the product continues to suck then the readership will decline as a direct result. Of course it doesnt help when the govt puts members of the press into lockup for protecting their sources – the key is to diversify holdings & to increase readership/circulation by offering the chance for real-user input (aka why blogs have done so well in recent years). imho.
Newspapers will survive and going online-only is pure suicide. A New York Times without a print edition would be as needed as AOL in a broadband age.
Like mentioned by others above, once newspapers figure out they make their money by views of advertising, they’d be fine.
I remember in the 1990s, some sort of “Total News.com” site had links to every newspaper in the country and some of these newspapers actually blocked referring traffic from that site in protest, almost as if they didn’t want people to find their site in a “OMG! They linked to our site, how dare they!” sort of way.
But the pain of adapting to the new world will affect news papers for a few years to come, the changes they need to make are unclear and a difficult road to walk.
#2, newspaper content is more expensive than Onion content because you have to have reporters all over the globe, not just a couple of very funny writers in one office.
I don’t understand why online papers restrict viewers, but if I could subscribe to an online paper the way I subscribe to Slashdot (per page view), I certainly would!
11. “newspaper content is more expensive than Onion content because you have to have reporters all over the globe, not just a couple of very funny writers in one office.”
More reporters means more writers which means more content which means more page views which means more advertising revenue.
The Times, in fact, has doubled its online readership to 1.5 million a day to go along with its 1.1 million subscribers for the print edition.
So how are they crazy, when they recognize the trend and are planning for the eventuality?
To me, it sounds like: “They get it!”
They are only crazy if they don’t plot the ROI of online vs paper, as the months/years go by…
And if there is still a market for a print paper, someone else can fill that niche. Isn’t that what the free market and supply/demand is all about?
The New Yorker had a fascinating piece about Sulzberger and the Times about a year ago:
The author, Ken Auletta, wrote a long piece a couple of years ago about Dow Jones, the parent company of the Wall Street Journal, and it can be shocking how screwy the management of these top-tier papers can be. Even Gore Vidal thinks the Times is poorly run.
The New York Times does not have a comics section and therefore is not a real full featured newspaper IMHO. And they consider Newark to be the “West Coast”.
And as has been pointed out, if newspapers in general all drop the print versions, what WILL we read on the pot? use to empty the cat box? start the charcoal?
in reference to the discussion – heres a page of the site in question 🙂
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/07/world/asia/07birdflu.html?_r=2&oref=slogin&oref=slogin
interesting article btw