Newspaper survival (was: Can Citadel Broadcasting survive?)

[Sid Schweiger]

>>Print is hurting worse than this, believe it or not. Layoffs all
> around yesterday, with massive cuts at the MediaNews-owned L.A. Daily
> News and its other southern California papers, more cuts at the
> company's San Jose Mercury News due next week, and major layoffs at
> Tribune-owned Newsday (described as a "massacre" in Friday's N.Y.
> Post). Everyone blames the Internet for print's problems; that doesn't
> seem to be playing as prominent a role in radio's struggles.

I suppose broadcast journalists don't think print matters and print
doesn't want to report on themselves.  But I did see an item in
yesterday's Herald about more layoffs at the Globe.<<

If the statistics I've seen are any indication, newspapers are in very, very serious trouble.  Their demographics are horrible (essentially, very few people under age 55 read a newspaper consistently), and they are losing ad dollars left and right to almost all other mass media including the Internet.  If you look at the businesses which place all or almost all their ad dollars in newspapers, they're the large, institutional advertisers who can't cram what they want to advertise into 60- or 30-second spots, or banners on a web page...i.e., Sears, Macy's, JC Penney, etc.  Business like that spend almost no money in electronic media, and many of them are in serious trouble because of it.  One business consultant (in an article on AOL) is even predicting the demise of the three I named...*this* year.

I've seen a few predictions from media consultants that any newspaper which doesn't make drastic changes to its distribution and business models within five years will be out of business.  I have a feeling that's a bit exaggerated, but the decline is quite evident and shows no signs of reversal.




Sid Schweiger
IT Manager, Entercom New England
WAAF/WEEI/WEEI-FM/WKAF/WMKK/WRKO/WVEI/WVEI-FM
20 Guest St / 3d Floor
Brighton MA  02135-2040
P: 617-779-5369
F: 617-779-5379
E: sid@wrko.com