5 Other Reasons the Boston Globe Faces Closure

[A. Joseph Ross]

On 12 Apr 2009 at 5:50, martinjwaters@yahoo.com wrote:

>      The Globe's circulation decline tracks what's going on with other
> major metro dailies. When you add the print circulation to visitors to
> boston.com, the decline is less than in many markets. Boston.com is
> one of the most widely used and successful newspaper web sites. But,
> like the newspaper industry as a whole, the advertising there doesn't
> produce any substantial revenue within the company's overall picture.
 
I'm not sure why newspaper Websites exist if they don't produce 
advertizing revenue.  It would seem to me that what the Website does 
is give away for free what the paper is selling.  I know there are 
some newspapers (The Daily Hampshire Gazette in Northampton and the 
Recorder in Greenfield come to mind) which charge for a subscription 
to access most of the news on their Websites.  I understand that not 
many people are willing to pay for that sort of Web content, but at 
least they aren't undercutting their product.

>      Now the bottom has fallen out of print advertising, same as all
> across the newspaper industry. That's the biggest problem for the
> industry right now -- not declining circulation. Classified ads,
> traditionally the biggest source of ad revenue, are nearly extinct.
> And advertising traditionally provided about 75 percent of a
> newspaper's revenue. 

Maybe newspapers ought to try to figure out some sort of Web 
advertising model along the lines of Craigs List to help stay afloat.
 
-- 
A. Joseph Ross, J.D.                           617.367.0468
 92 State Street, Suite 700                   Fax 617.507.7856
Boston, MA 02109-2004           	         http://www.attorneyross.com