I hate to say I told you so, but when it comes to the issue of whether newspapers should shut down their printing presses, well, I told you so.
For years I've been saying that it makes no sense for either professional orcollege papers to end or cut back their print editions in favor of going all-digital. Why? Because even today, at most papers the majority of revenues still come from printed display advertising. Note the use of the word "printed."
You may wonder how that can be the case, given what we all know about the ongoing slide of print
circulation and ad revenues. And yes, it's true that papers no longer enjoy the 30 percent-plus profit margins of a decade or so ago.
But this is where we arrive at two cold, hard facts that the digital utopians don't want to talk about:
1) Many newspapers remain profitable even today. Warren Buffett, whose Berkshire Hathaway investing firm has bought 28 papers in the past two years, has said he expects profit margins of about 10 percent. Granted, that's a huge drop from the glory days, but compare that to the oil industry, which often draws fire for its enormous profits, which are typically well below 10 percent.
The move has earned plenty of well-deserved scorn from other media outlets, including this little poke from Best of New Orleans.com:
For years I've been saying that it makes no sense for either professional orcollege papers to end or cut back their print editions in favor of going all-digital. Why? Because even today, at most papers the majority of revenues still come from printed display advertising. Note the use of the word "printed."
You may wonder how that can be the case, given what we all know about the ongoing slide of print
But this is where we arrive at two cold, hard facts that the digital utopians don't want to talk about:
1) Many newspapers remain profitable even today. Warren Buffett, whose Berkshire Hathaway investing firm has bought 28 papers in the past two years, has said he expects profit margins of about 10 percent. Granted, that's a huge drop from the glory days, but compare that to the oil industry, which often draws fire for its enormous profits, which are typically well below 10 percent.
The move has earned plenty of well-deserved scorn from other media outlets, including this little poke from Best of New Orleans.com:
2) Digital advertising, which some thought would be the proverbial pot of gold for online news sites, has turned out to be a major disappointment. Why? Because most of us ignore online ads, which means websites can't charge very much money to run them. The long and the short of it is this: It's turned out to be very, very difficult to support news sites of any size on digital ad dollars alone. Anyone who argues otherwise has been living under a rock the past few years.
All of which brings me to the New Orleans Times-Picayune, which just last year cut its printed edition to just three days a week in order to focus on the digital product. Now, lo and behold, the paper is reversing course and printing the paper seven days a week once again, though under a convoluted plan that involves publishing a broadsheet some days, and a tabloid called "TPStreet" on others.
"The report, which is not from The Onion, says the new product, to be called "TPStreet," will launch this summer in newsboxes around the city and cost 75 cents, just like the daily paper, which it will not be, because it is more innovative than that..."
Or, as The New York Times' David Carrnoted:
"The company endlessly complicated what had been a simple proposition that has worked since the newspaper’s founding in 1837: deliver a printed bundle of its best efforts every day for a fixed price."
Befuddled or not, the Times-Picayune isn't the only paper to suddenly rediscover the virtues of print. Just last week The Philadelphia Inquirer announced that its Saturday paper would once again be found on newsstands after only being available to subscribers for two years.
Of course, all the blather about focusing on digital has been a smokescreen all along. Invariably, whenever a paper says it's shifting its emphasis to digital news, that's doublespeak for newsroom layoffs.
Yet another example of this occurred last week at the New York Daily News, where more than a dozen veteran staffers - including my former boss, the terrific Clem Richardson - were axed as part of a so-called "digital restructuring." Particularly hard-hit were the paper's bureaus in the boroughs.
But in a move positively soaked in irony, a staff memo detailing the layoffs also announced a new web operation called Daily News Local, which the publishers said "will significantly enhance our local borough reporting." No word yet on how borough reporting will be enhanced with fewer staffers.
So what have we learned? That once again, Jeff Jarvis and the digital nerds were just plain wrong. Dumping print and going all-digital just doesn't work, at least not for the vast majority of papers, the vast majority of the time. Nor does gutting newsroom staff, then promising readers more while delivering less.
What does work? Keeping the seven-day-a-week print operation while implementing website paywalls. As I've pointed out, this combination has worked at papers as diverse as the Arkansas Democrat Gazette and The New York Times.
And yet, some publishers still insist on following the advice of the digital nerds, the ones who said information wants to be free, who said papers would make a fortune from digital ads, who said papers should shut down their presses, who said...
You get the idea.
All of which brings me to the New Orleans Times-Picayune, which just last year cut its printed edition to just three days a week in order to focus on the digital product. Now, lo and behold, the paper is reversing course and printing the paper seven days a week once again, though under a convoluted plan that involves publishing a broadsheet some days, and a tabloid called "TPStreet" on others.
"The report, which is not from The Onion, says the new product, to be called "TPStreet," will launch this summer in newsboxes around the city and cost 75 cents, just like the daily paper, which it will not be, because it is more innovative than that..."
Or, as The New York Times' David Carrnoted:
"The company endlessly complicated what had been a simple proposition that has worked since the newspaper’s founding in 1837: deliver a printed bundle of its best efforts every day for a fixed price."
Befuddled or not, the Times-Picayune isn't the only paper to suddenly rediscover the virtues of print. Just last week The Philadelphia Inquirer announced that its Saturday paper would once again be found on newsstands after only being available to subscribers for two years.
Of course, all the blather about focusing on digital has been a smokescreen all along. Invariably, whenever a paper says it's shifting its emphasis to digital news, that's doublespeak for newsroom layoffs.
Yet another example of this occurred last week at the New York Daily News, where more than a dozen veteran staffers - including my former boss, the terrific Clem Richardson - were axed as part of a so-called "digital restructuring." Particularly hard-hit were the paper's bureaus in the boroughs.
But in a move positively soaked in irony, a staff memo detailing the layoffs also announced a new web operation called Daily News Local, which the publishers said "will significantly enhance our local borough reporting." No word yet on how borough reporting will be enhanced with fewer staffers.
So what have we learned? That once again, Jeff Jarvis and the digital nerds were just plain wrong. Dumping print and going all-digital just doesn't work, at least not for the vast majority of papers, the vast majority of the time. Nor does gutting newsroom staff, then promising readers more while delivering less.
What does work? Keeping the seven-day-a-week print operation while implementing website paywalls. As I've pointed out, this combination has worked at papers as diverse as the Arkansas Democrat Gazette and The New York Times.
And yet, some publishers still insist on following the advice of the digital nerds, the ones who said information wants to be free, who said papers would make a fortune from digital ads, who said papers should shut down their presses, who said...
You get the idea.
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