It's no secret that the newspaper business is suffering through tough times. The vast majority of print publications are losing lots of readers and money. When the NY Times is having trouble--the big, bad gray lady of newspaper biz, you know there is a considerable source of anxiety in the print business.
Which leads me to the subject of the health of the SF Chronicle and its popular, but financially-troubling website, SFGate. I have heard ominous rumors about the state of the paper. Keep in mind that the Chronicle is owned by the Hearst Corp. which has deep financial resources, but how much money can you lose before waiving the white flag? And the Chronicle is losing a lot of money. How much is anyone's guess but like the Times, there's been a healthy amount of staff reduction and layoffs at the Chron. That's troubling.
Moreover, newspapers have tried to create revenue by installing paywalls on their digital platforms. Some have been successful like the Wall Street Journal; others, including the Times and the Chron, are treading on rough waters. The fact remains that there's so much free content on the web that most publications have found it difficult to gain a profit by selling its content on the web. Initially, the Times paywall was successful. Almost a hundred-thousand new paid subscribers bought subscriptions yet the Times is still losing lots of money. Not good.
A prominent Bay Area sports columnist told me recently that within the next five years the region will have only one newspaper. He was emphatic about that. I brushed it aside until I read that several newspapers, including the vaunted LA Times, the Chicago Tribune, and NY Times--major papers all in financial purgatory. This is a sad time for the print newspaper business.
*Follow me on Twitter
I just renewed my subscription.. Chronicle price went up... another sign...
ReplyDeleteIt has been going up steadily for some time now. As someone on a fixed income one more increase will probably cause me to cancel my subscription.
DeleteWhen the Seattle PI, which is owned by Hearst, went exclusively online a few years ago, it gave the Seattle Times a new lease on life. If the two papers had continued to compete with each other, both, according to my sources, would have been out of business within five years.
ReplyDeleteIt costs roughly $4 to $6 per book to publish a single issue of a newspaper. For a circulation of 250,000 that's any where from a million to a million-and-a-half-dollars a day. That ain't chump change. And that's just to print the damn thing!
The Seattle PI staff went from about 160 people down to around 30, and most of the content comes from other Hearst publications. Could the Chron suffer the same fate as the PI in a couple of years?
It costs $4 to $6 dollars "just to print" a single newspaper? NONSENSE! Kindly cite a source.
Deletehttp://www.businessinsider.com/2009/1/printing-the-nyt-costs-twice-as-much-as-sending-every-subscriber-a-free-kindle
DeleteHere are some basic costs for the New York Times. The math averages out to about $2.12 per book, but Sunday editions can be more expensive. This is a rough calculation based on print costs alone.
Ever try doing a crossword on the fucking internet? The internet is about as reliable for accurate and substantive news and analysis as the pollsters for the GOP. All this social networking will be our demise.
ReplyDeleteEver try doing a Google search on your newspaper and following the links to myriad other sources? Can you upload and download things from your newspaper and use it to send instant mail?
DeleteI complete the crossword puzzle on effing SF Gate daily. Red letters indicate an incorrect entry which allow you to finish in no time. Give it a try, Mr/Mrs/Ms/Madam Anon.
DeleteIt could be a statement of American youth. They are shallow. Reality TV that isn't,Violent video games, and instant gratification of Ipods,apps,...it all means the universe revolves around one person- and that one person doesn't care about the rest of the world. How many teens-30's care about the rest of the world? News?..whats in it for me? and their answer is -almost nothing, is the thinking.
ReplyDeleteWhatever
DeleteIt's not the youth, it's the world they're raised in IMO. Predictability is gone, used to be you got hired at IBM, you had a job for life. Calpers and all pensions are in play. Liar loans destroyed the housing market. Fewer and fewer kids have jobs in their teens( illegals?).
DeleteA pattern of the rug being pulled from beneath people who "play by the rules" leads kids to believe that only a chump wouldn't maximize every opportunity, not expecting when the next may arrive.
The newspaper topic reminds me of Danny Devito's buggy whip speech in "other people's money".
PayWalls? Go ahead Chronicle. See how fast you lose readers.
ReplyDeleteBy the way Chronicle, why don't you ever publish stories about your paid subscription losses by the Audit Bureau of Circulations?
Fearfull of giving your readers the true health of your paper?
"By the way Chronicle, why don't you ever publish stories about your paid subscription losses by the Audit Bureau of Circulations?"
DeleteWhy should they? You think that would be newsworthy? Do they ever publish stories about your paid subscription changes of any other publications?
I came of age in the 60s/70s and I kinda remember the same being said about our generation.
ReplyDeleteBig difference in rejecting the old ways..FOR BETTER-or try. And what I see now is just how to screw the other guys better,faster and much of the pain of others is just ignored.
DeleteAmerica's influential newspapers practice "journalism" only as a cover for influence peddling. They are America's most powerful lobby, with editorial power over all aspects of our politics and culture. The sooner this cancer is neutralized the better.
ReplyDeleteThank you for that Sarah Palin!
Delete9:23
DeleteSince I've never followed Sarah Palin, perhaps an obvious fan like yourself could help me find an instance where she compared the media to a political lobby.
Well said. About four years or more late, but well said.
ReplyDeleteMost small newspapers were either absorbed or went out of business from the early 2000s to The Second Great Depression, and that doesn't count the closures and consolidations of the 1980s and 1990s.
Print has been dying a long, slow death.
Those that are left have cut staff to the point that they are irrelevant. That is why I read European newspapers that still have staff.
I'm sick of the our side-your side emphasis of so much American media, including coverage that dominates so many American newspaper front and editoral pages.
It's like they are covering a football game. Most of my former colleagues, like me, are no longer in the newspaper business.
Lastly, newspapers like the WSJ and NYT are losing even more credibility, especially the WSJ, not only because of bias, but because of the amount of typos that make it to print.
When I was in J school, I was told that if a typo made it into the NYT, the copyeditor would be fired. Don't know if that was true. If it's true now, they must be going through them hourly.
A lot of people just don't take the time to read anymore, and this is why we have a more uninformed and less sophisticated public. It's also a dangerous thing in a free society such as ours, where a free press with a diversity of opinions and outlooks is so important.
ReplyDeleteIt's a sad commentary on our society that people's attention spans have also been shortened by overexposure to television and the social media. It doesn't augur well for the future of this country!
Talk about shallow... I wouldn't discredit the WSJ for typos. I'd discredit it for being owned by Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation. It's just a matter of time before the sewage from his British scandal floats over the pond to the US.
ReplyDeleteI would pay a nominal fee for sfgate - $1 a month or $4 a month. Nothing outrageous, as long as they kept LOCAL CONTENT!!
ReplyDeleteAnother item I think that has hurt paprers like the Chron is b/c everhything has a far-left slant. When that is the case, you force me to look to the CCTimes, SJ Mercury, Fox, Drudgereport, CNN, etc.