Detroit Press to end home delivery most days

[Chalupa]

File this under,"Republicans Dance with Glee."

New York Times plans temporary pay cut, layoffs

The Associated Press

NEW YORK - The New York Times Co. is cutting pay for most employees by 5 percent for a nine-month period and laying off 100 people.

http://www.philly.com/philly/wires/ap/busi...cutlayoffs.html

And....

Washington Post launches another round of buyouts

The Associated Press

WASHINGTON - The Washington Post announced it plans another round of buyouts in its newsroom and throughout the newspaper as it seeks to cut costs.

It is the fourth round of buyouts at the newspaper since 2003. About 230 employees, including some of the paper's most famous names, took the most recent buyout offered last year.

http://www.philly.com/philly/wires/ap/business/41911922.html

[papsrus]

File this under,"Republicans Dance with Glee."

New York Times plans temporary pay cut, layoffs

The Associated Press

NEW YORK - The New York Times Co. is cutting pay for most employees by 5 percent for a nine-month period and laying off 100 people.

http://www.philly.com/philly/wires/ap/busi...cutlayoffs.html

That would be me. Shit.

[Jazzmoose]

Laid off, you mean?

[papsrus]

Laid off, you mean?

No .. not yet. I'm sure there's more coming in a month or two. Got the 5% pay cut announcement today though.

EDIT: Now I'm told it's only 2.5% for those of us out here in the hinterlands, offset by an additional week's vacation. So that's basically the same as a one week unpaid furlough.

Edited March 26, 2009 by papsrus

[Jazzmoose]

So I guess it could be worse. But still, that sucks.

[papsrus]

NYT Co. threatens to shutter the Boston Globe

Now, what really pisses me off about this is, they've known for years that the Globe is a black hole. They could have tackled this problem a year ago, certainly. Now, all of a sudden, it's concession time or we shut you down? It's bullshit. It's not good for either the Globe (certainly) or the NYT Co. to wait until the 11th hour on this. If you know something is broken, why wait until this late in the game to try to fix it, unless you have no intention of fixing it?

Edited April 4, 2009 by papsrus

[ejp626]

NYT Co. threatens to shutter the Boston Globe

Now, what really pisses me off about this is, they've known for years that the Globe is a black hole. They could have tackled this problem a year ago, certainly. Now, all of a sudden, it's concession time or we shut you down? It's bullshit. It's not good for either the Globe (certainly) or the NYT Co. to wait until the 11th hour on this. If you know something is broken, why wait until this late in the game to try to fix it, unless you have no intention of fixing it?

Probably like everyone else, they thought they could limp along and "manage" the crisis. Now with the financial markets crashing, they probably find that given the future prospects of the newspaper industry (bleak), they can't even get financing on the previous (relatively sweet) terms. Why are so many other papers going bust all at the same time? Probably a combination of financing problems and just something in the water that things are never going to turn around.

[papsrus]

Senate to hold hearings on newspaper industry.

Allowing them to publish as non-profits -- good, bad, who cares?

[ejp626]

Definitely gloomy news at the NYT, but more specifically for the Boston Globe: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/22/business...tml?_r=1&hp

The New York Times Company reported a first-quarter loss of $74.5 million on Tuesday, compared with a loss of $335,000 in the period a year ago, as it joined the roster of newspaper companies recording the steepest advertising declines in generations.

Advertising revenue at the company’s publishing segment fell 28.4 percent in the quarter, including an 8 percent decline in Internet advertising at the News Media Group. The worst drop, 31.6 percent, hit the New England Media Group, which consists primarily of The Boston Globe and its site, Boston.com. The company has told unions at The Globe that the paper is on track to lose $85 million this year, and that unless deep cuts are made, the paper will be sold or closed.

Some of these figures were reported before, but it is notable that the New England group is losing 70% more than the previous year, and their share of the losses look to be almost 30% of the total. It is pretty staggering to go from fairly close to breaking even to a $75 million dollar loss company wide. So I think more changes will be coming their way.

[ejp626]

Can't tell if this is supposed to be snarky or black humor or a mix: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jason-notte/...i_b_181013.html

Anyway, one thing that will also go away (with the death of newspapers) is the punchline to "What's black and white and re(a)d all over?"

Now it would be "What's white and black and going down the drain?"

[papsrus]

NY Times has a story tomorrow about how electronic, portable, big-screen reading devices may be to newspapers what the iPod was to the music industry (which, I'm not really sure what that is in the end, but generally, a savior of sorts).

Apparently, several companies are planning to introduce these devices over the coming year. There's one out now called the Kindle. (?) Anybody seen one of these?

FWIW.

Edited May 3, 2009 by papsrus

[ejp626]

NY Times has a story tomorrow about how electronic, portable, big-screen reading devices may be to newspapers what the iPod was to the music industry (which, I'm not really sure what that is in the end, but generally, a savior of sorts).

Apparently, several companies are planning to introduce these devices over the coming year. There's one out now called the Kindle. (?) Anybody seen one of these?

FWIW.

Yeah, I've seen one or two on the train. I briefly thought about one, but the pricing was absolutely ridiculous. It wasn't so outrageous for books, but for newspapers and journals (particularly where this is already on-line for free). I don't think enough people are going to switch to Kindle and then agree to sign up for downloads of the NYT to make a difference.

[Jazzmoose]

I don't get the idea behind Kindle. If someone isn't going to buy a book or a newspaper, they're going to buy a device to read them, and then buy the book or newspaper that they wouldn't buy before?

Of course, the most absurd thing I've heard about Kindle is someone who thought it was great because it was portable. Maybe I'm crazy, but unless you're reading an unabridged dictionary...

[papsrus]

The Kindle

The Times story

Interesting. One of the huge downsides that might come from something like this is that news organizations might eventually take their free content (or the bulk of it) off the web. Don't see how they could charge a subscription fee to one set of users and offer it free to another.

[ejp626]

Interesting. One of the huge downsides that might come from something like this is that news organizations might eventually take their free content (or the bulk of it) off the web. Don't see how they could charge a subscription fee to one set of users and offer it free to another.

Except that NYTimes already tried that and it went over like a lead zeppelin. Part of the problem is for basic news, google can grab it and make minor rewrites and post it. The "news" isn't something you can copyright. That's 85-90% of the market for newspapers.

The number of people who actually care enough to read the columnists is small indeed, and most of the are the most networked people and if you can't get it free, they will simply grab it from Huffington Post or Daily Kos but not here any longer (now that we generally don't post full articles -- good call by the way since it just ruined flow). For newspapers, it really is the genie out of the bottle. People who bother to pay for Kindle subscriptions are basically the same people that put a dollar in the beggarman's cup.

On top of everything, I actually grab tons of newspaper clippings from online sources since I occasionally use them (referenced properly) in academic articles. Well, there are too many restrictions on the Kindle content that I don't want to bother with it. Maybe someday they will pass DRMA III and force people to change their ways, but until then it will be free and much more convenient to go on-line. So I just don't see Kindle saving the newspaper/magazine industry.

Edited May 4, 2009 by ejp626

[papsrus]

Except that NYTimes already tried that and it went over like a lead zeppelin. Part of the problem is for basic news, google can grab it and make minor rewrites and post it. The "news" isn't something you can copyright. That's 85-90% of the market for newspapers.

The number of people who actually care enough to read the columnists is small indeed, and most of the are the most networked people and if you can't get it free, they will simply grab it from Huffington Post or Daily Kos but not here any longer (now that we generally don't post full articles -- good call by the way since it just ruined flow). For newspapers, it really is the genie out of the bottle. People who bother to pay for Kindle subscriptions are basically the same people that put a dollar in the beggarman's cup.

For me, there is a difference between what the AP offers and what the NY Times, WashPost, WSJ offer. It's more than just the columnists, in my view. You'll read stuff in each of those three publications that you won't get from AP, until maybe after the fact. ("The Washington Post reported today that ..."). Maybe going to google for an AP synopsis of an NYT or WashPost story is sufficient for most people. But maybe there are enough folks who would prefer the primary source to make it viable.

Maybe not. But if news organizations found a way to transition all of their content, or the bulk of it, to a subscription-based model linked to these devices (as opposed to the web), it might be that "killer app" for them.

Bezos seems to know what he's doing. Hitching your wagon to him, or apple, might not be a bad idea, especially when your current business model is swirling down the drain. <--- a bit of an overstatement (some papers still can/do make a profit, declining though it may be. It's the mad borrowing that's killing them. Declining readership of the paper products is certainly a problem, but we're in the information age. I'd guess more people consume news today than ever before. The question is, how to make that profitable for the news providers.)

Edited May 4, 2009 by papsrus

[ejp626]

Maybe going to google for an AP synopsis of an NYT or WashPost story is sufficient for most people. But maybe there are enough folks who would prefer the primary source to make it viable.

Maybe not. But if news organizations found a way to transition all of their content, or the bulk of it, to a subscription-based model linked to these devices (as opposed to the web), it might be that "killer app" for them.

As far as I can tell, if you do the most minimal of rewrites, you can even post WashPost and NYT stories. Maybe not. Maybe interviews are treated differently, though I've certain seen stories that appear to recycle another paper's interview.

It's not a legal issue the newspapers have pushed so far, since the "wrong ruling" would basically shut them all out of a story once someone published a "scoop." Not as much of an issue now that virtually all cities are going to be one-paper (or no paper) towns before long.

[ejp626]

Well, it looks like the ugliness over at the Boston Globe is about to get worse, as the Times is getting ready to sell:

http://www.suntimes.com/business/1615795,w...-061009.article

[GA Russell]

I agree with ejp that the Kindle is way overpriced. It seems to me that if they want you to pay for the content, they should give you the Kindle for free. "Give 'em the razor, and sell 'em the blade", as they used to say.

paps, I don't know what you do with the New York Times, but you might have some insight as to the fundamental issue regarding the financial losses. Is the major problem that advertising revenues are way down right now? Is that a temporary phenomenon (which is probably true for department store ads) or a permanent one (which may be true for classified ads, which apparently have moved over to craigslist)?

Or is the problem that people don't want to pay for a newspaper anymore? Is it because of the internet? (I doubt it. Nobody reads every day the number of articles on the internet that he would read in a newspaper.) Is it because fewer people take public transportation, so they aren't reading on the bus anymore? Is it because as the population ages it has become more conservative, and the newspapers are usually liberal? (I see lots of conservative articles/issues posted on digg that never make it to any newspaper I have the opportunity to buy.)

[Chuck Nessa]

Well, it looks like the ugliness over at the Boston Globe is about to get worse, as the Times is getting ready to sell:

http://www.suntimes.com/business/1615795,w...-061009.article

Probably best for all concerned.

[papsrus]

Well, it looks like the ugliness over at the Boston Globe is about to get worse, as the Times is getting ready to sell:

http://www.suntimes.com/business/1615795,w...-061009.article

Probably best for all concerned.

Indeed. My first reaction after hearing they had rejected salary cuts -- severe though they would have been -- was: "Selfish bastards." This paper's endless flow of red ink seriously impacts operations at other NYT newspapers, resulting in large job cuts and salary cuts at (nonunion) papers that are profitable. Trickle-on effect. The sooner they unload this albatross the better, IMO. ... Speaking selfishly, of course.

[ghost of miles]

The Times boosted their newstand price from $1.50 to $2 on the daily and from $5 to $6 on the Sunday edition. I'm certainly willing to pay it (I buy the Times off the rack probably 2-3 times a week) and want to support the paper, but they must be hurting. Anybody else read the article in the New Yorker several weeks back on the wealthy Mexican businessman who's loaned them a lotta bucks?

[papsrus]

The Times boosted their newstand price from $1.50 to $2 on the daily and from $5 to $6 on the Sunday edition. I'm certainly willing to pay it (I buy the Times off the rack probably 2-3 times a week) and want to support the paper, but they must be hurting. Anybody else read the article in the New Yorker several weeks back on the wealthy Mexican businessman who's loaned them a lotta bucks?

They've made some bad business decisions. Not alone there. Buying the Globe was one. Building a new office tower in Manhattan was another. Feasting at the credit candy store a third. Accelerated decline in the newspaper business in general coupled with the tanking economy put them in a bad spot. Not as bad as some other companies, but dicey nonetheless.

Selling the Globe is absolutely the right thing to do, even though they're certain to take a huge bath. They need to maintain the flagship and, hopefully, hang on to and invest in assets that are profitable instead of using them to absorb the Globe losses.

I'm frankly a little surprised anyone out there is willing to buy the Globe. I guess at some price it's attractive. But you're basically buying the privilege to lose $80 million a year.

[ejp626]

I'm frankly a little surprised anyone out there is willing to buy the Globe. I guess at some price it's attractive. But you're basically buying the privilege to lose $80 million a year.

Well, true. Though it looks like a lot of recent sales have been for the going price of the real estate owned by the paper: http://www.slate.com/id/2220223/

Going rate for Boston Globe's real estate - about $80-85 million. The value of the good will (as alluded to in the Slate piece) trending towards $0.

One real question is whether in a sale situation can the new owner void all the contracts and tell the union to fuck off.* That would certainly make it appealing to a guy like Zell (not that he is in the mood to buy more papers himself). But assume you spun off the Globe and immediately the new owners forced it into bankruptcy, I imagine you could get away with a lot.

* I'm not inherently anti-union, but I am anti-stupidity and to vote down this contract when your paper is the main drag on the NY Times was the height of stupidity.

[papsrus]

* I'm not inherently anti-union, but I am anti-stupidity and to vote down this contract when your paper is the main drag on the NY Times was the height of stupidity.

I agree. I'm frankly glad it's unfolding the way it is right now. The company was trying to squeeze $20 million in concessions from the paper, and the paper is projected to lose roughly $80 million this year. Doesn't take a genius to figure out this would not be good for the rest of the company.