Last week, Sam Zell, CEO of Tribune, and COO Randy Michaels announced a set of deep cuts, saying that shrinking revenue left them no choice.
They said they would trim 500 pages of news each week from the company’s dozen papers, including The Chicago Tribune and The Los Angeles Times. Their aim is a paper with pages – excluding classified advertising and special ad sections – split 50-50 between news content and ads.
Zell’s plan is an accelerated version of what many newspaper companies are already undertaking in the hope of staving off the kind of huge dislocation that occurred in other industries, like the steel business in the 1980s or the domestic automobile business today. In those cases, the pressure came from legacy costs, labor and foreign competition. In the newspaper business, which struggles with those costs as well, the biggest threat is the migration of advertisers and readers to the Internet.
I think Zell is condemning his empire to the same mediocrity and failure as GM. What do you think?
I could live with 80% ads and 20% news if the news was worth reading.
The printed press has to give up on the “breaking news” thing and concentrate on in depth reporting. Or at the very least, good reporting and good editing (both have been lacking) in the printed press for a long time.
If I can’t get something decent to read, I’ll be stuck doing the sudoku and crosswords in the free papers forever….
I think your experience makes you a solidly qualified judge of mediocrity.
#11
> I’ve read the Times since I
> was in Junior High School back in the 1970s.
That’s the point. It’s an age thing. I’m probably a decade or more younger and I haven’t gotten a paper since I was in college. I had a friend in college that got the Times and I estimate that he read about two maybe three a week and the rest went right from his door to the trash. Most people in gen-X and especially gen-Y and later simply don’t have the time to be sifting through a brick of generally old news. Yes, it is nice every once in a blue moon to sit down with the paper but I cannot remember the last time I had that kind of time.
> They nearly lost me when they
> dropped the television guide,
Perfect example. TV Guide is worthless. I’d have to say it has been a good 25 years since I read a TV Guide. I’m a bit shocked it is still published. Cable and satellite systems have on-screen guides and broadcast TV is awful. In addition, you can also get TV information online so why would anyone need a TV Guide?
>>Most people in gen-X and especially gen-Y and later
>>simply don’t have the time to be sifting through a
>>brick of generally old news.
Yeah, playing X-Box 360, WoW, and posting on MySpace and FaceBook can be so time-consuming!
>>Cable and satellite systems have
>>on-screen guides
Yeah, and without exception, they suck. I don’t read TV Guide either (except when I’m waiting in the dentist’s office), but those on-screen guides truly bite the big one. If I really need to see what’s on TV, I look up the online guide. And I believe that #11 was referring to the television LISTINGS in the LA Times, not the “magazine” (or whatever it is).
>>I cannot remember the last time I had
>>that kind of time.
If you don’t have time to sit down on a Sunday morning with coffee and bagels and page through the New York Times, you need to re-think your priorities in life. I hear a lot about the busy-busy-busy lifestyle, and usually it just means people are frittering their time away on video games or other frippery. People had just as much to do 30 years ago as they do today, it’s just that too much worthless peripheral crap clogs up many people’s lives.
#33–Thomas==tell us, are you too busy to read a book? a magazine?
Did you read any books or magazines in college or get buy with summaries and bought papers?
Funny how you claim ignorance as a badge of honor instead of the deficiency you should recognize. How long does anyone talk to you before you reveal how shallow you are?
Read a book!
“Is that the newspaper you’re interested in buying?”
It’s been about 15-20 years since I’ve seen a major paper worth paying for. Old news… 😉
#33 – “Most people in gen-X and especially gen-Y and later simply don’t have the time to be sifting through a brick of generally old news.”
As an exec I avoid hiring people in these categories as, in my experience, they are unproductive and unmotivated. Too busy? Right.
Let’s see…News paper sales are down because most people prefer to get their news from other sources . Most people do not like leafing through advertisements to get to the news that is in the papers. So instead of making the newspaper more desirable make it less desirable by adding more advertisements. Yep, that ought to do it…..Brilliant!
>>#33/35 Thomas==tell us, are you too busy to
>>read a book? a magazine?
Bobster, that has to be one of the stupidest arguments Tommie has ever made.
He’s “too busy” to pick up a book or newspaper that he can bring with him on a plane, train, or automobile, can bring it into the crapper with him, read in bed at night, or myriad other ways of portable reading.
Yet he DOES have time to sit glued to a computer screen, clicking on link after link after link, looking for stories of interest??
Or perhaps, he’s just as incurious as George (Dumbya), and prefers to get his information from condensed summaries given by other people who have the mental horsepower to read the original source documents.
#34
Shocking as this maybe, some of us actually work. So, I don’t see the point in MySpace or Facebook either. I don’t have an X-box but I certainly understand the escape and fun of video games.
RE: On-screen guides
You are clearly in the minority. Between TiVO and the onscreen guides, TV Guides are worthless. Some us are able to grasp that new fangeldy technology and use it to our advantage. Apparently it is still midnight in your house.
RE: Sunday paper
On rare occasions, I do have time to sit down and read a paper on a lazy Sunday afternoon. Usually I don’t because I’m trying to catch up on all the chores that I did not do during the week or would rather go out in the world.
#35
Books are different. I do read quite a bit at night before I go to bed although I do not always get the chance. However, with books I do not have to sift through BS to get to what I find interesting. Whereas newspapers I have to sift through a ton of BS to get to interesting stories and those that are interesting are too short. I get one technical magazine and I usually get a chance read about every fourth or fifth one. About the only time I read a regular magazine is while perusing a book store or waiting in the doctor’s office.
I’m not the only one that feels this way. All of the people I have encountered in my business that are younger than me have *never* subscribed to a paper but are up on everything going on because they read it online.
> Funny how you claim ignorance…
I made no such claim. I do keep up on current events I just don’t do it with antiquated solutions like newspapers. I do read articles from newspapers; I just do it online where I can get to the information that is interesting faster and quicker.
#37
So, you only hire people that are over 40? It is called being productive and sifting through a paper instead of getting the news quickly is called being productive. You should look into it. I hear it is good for profits.
#39
Ah, the consummate troll. Retorting to one of your idiotic comments takes no time at all.
Somehow, you and bobbo have mistaken “newspapers are worthless” to mean “reading news is worthless.” Quite the contrary, I read online quite a bit. The difference is that I can do it far more productively than I can with a newspaper.
>>The difference is that I can do it far more
>>productively than I can with a newspaper.
Well, if you’re looking for the local girls’ softball team scores, I have no doubt that you’re correct.
Paging through a newspaper I very frequently come across news items that I would never have actively sought out using an online newspaper, and probably wouldn’t have even clicked on had I seen the link. It’s the difference between a Renaissance person and a technician. There’s something to be said for broadened horizons.
I concur that paper newspapers are going to have to change their business model. I don’t subscribe to the local paper, but I buy one most days. And I learn many things that I would never have known by clicking my way around the online version. I also read the online version of the WSJ, the NYT, the Washington Post, the Chicago Tribune, and a number of other publications. I don’t spend an hour going through them, like I might a paper paper, I just look for (what I consider to be) the highlights.
In any case, the basic premise of your argument, that it’s somehow “quicker” to read an online paper than it is to read a paper paper, is just silly. I would argue just the opposite; I can scan an entire article in a paper paper in a few seconds to see if I”m interested. Online, I’ve got to click from page to page, put up with time-wasting videos, etc. If you’re not interested in the advertising supplement of the paper paper, just take it out and throw it away.
Last time I checked – about a year ago – both the Trib and LAT had good crosswords and decent comic sections. That’s enough for me, the one or two day s a week I buy a newspaper.
I get my news online and via radio, terrestrial and satellite. Oh, and sometimes MSNBC, although I don’t really consider Olberman to be “news.” Entertainment, yes; news, no.
#42
> Well, if you’re looking
> for the local girls’ softball
> team scores, I have no doubt
> that you’re correct.
Aahahahah….you cannot be serious. I’m going to go out on a limb here and say that the vast majority of people whose daughter’s are not on the local softball team do not care enough about the scores to want a paper.
> Paging through a newspaper I very frequently come
> across news items that I would never have
> actively sought out using an online newspaper
I find the opposite to be true. Many times while surfing the net or news sites I find other articles and information that I would have never encountered in a paper newspaper. RSS alone makes it far easier to get to interesting information that generally won’t exist in a single paper edition. I think the web is far more amenable to chance stories of interest than newspapers. Indeed, you should broaden your horizons.
RE: Speed of reading
Again, I disagree. A very long article will require jumping through numerous pages and sometimes a few sections in a paper newspaper. Online, I can peruse through the article much quicker in that I can jump to pages (as well go page by page).
The internet has definitely shaken up my old news habits. I wonder if others have experienced the same thing?
I find I just don’t have the inclination or time to patiently wait through video news stories. So, I don’t watch local news anymore as once was a life-long habit.
In fact, I prefer not to watch internet video news stories for the same reason, always choosing to go for the optional text version, which I can then scan in seconds, by-passing filler & commercials.
I still read the local paper for local news, but expect this will change to web news at some point too.
RBG
There are several trends merging here:
* The trend toward an ADD lifestyle
* The trend away from locally produced (anything,
from news to food to entertainment to any kind
of physical goods, etc., etc., etc.)
* The trend toward higher profits and executive
salaries
* The trend toward everything coming from NY/LA
and all profits going there
Like to add to the list?
#46 Uncle:
Eat Local is the latest trend
http://100milediet.org/why-eat-local/
This & other web content is locally produced and is a global trend.
RBG
ROSEBUD
Hello!!!