McClatchy 4Q: Another Bad Quarter – MediaPost Publications, Feb. 7, 2008
Quoting: The McClatchy Company reported weak fourth-quarter results and a discouraging outlook for 2008, joining NYTCO and Gannett, which announced their results last week.

Gannett: 4Q Rev Drops Across Media – MediaPost, Feb. 4,2008
Quoting: “Overall, the company’s earnings were $245.3 million, down 31% compared to the same period in 2006, as revenue dipped 12% to $1.9 billion. For the full year 2007, Gannett’s newspaper ad revenues sank 6.4% to $4.9 billion, as broadcasting slipped 7.7% to $789 million.

“Like other newspaper publishers, Gannett reports that the collapse of print classified advertising revenue has been joined by declines in local and national advertising, including retail. Classifieds were down 11.4%, local 3.3%, and national 11.6%”

A.H. Belo shares fall on first day – Houston Chronicle, Feb. 11, 2008
[The stock market’s newest pure-play newspaper company disappoints in its first day as a publicly traded company. “There is a certain group of investors who don’t want to own newspapers, and they don’t care about the dividend,” says one analyst. – Ed.]

Help-Wanted Index Fell 33% in Dec. – Editor & Publisher, Feb. 1, 2008
[The Conference Board’s index of help-wanted advertising in 51 major newspapers plummeted an astonishing 33% in December. However, the organization chooses to interpret the fall as a sign of an economic slowdown rather than the real reason, which is that newspaper help-wanted advertising is no longer efficient. – Ed.]

‘Denver Post’ To Cut Biz Section – Editor & Publisher, Feb. 4, 2008
[The paper says that the standalone business section had “no heft.” The merged metro/business section will run about six pages. No job cuts are planned and business coverage won’t suffer, the Post Editor said. Last months, the Orange County Register did the same thing. Businesspeople are more likely to get their information online, so it’s no surprise these are the first sections to get cut. – Ed.]

An Industry Imperiled by Falling Profits and Shrinking Ads – New York Times, Feb. 7, 2008

[Nothing in this Times account will come as a surprise to readers of the Death Watch, although there’s a good point about consolidation of local businesses into national chains affecting advertising. This piece is mainly a mashup of the doom-and-gloom that has pervaded the industry for the last year or so. – Ed.]

A Canadian is shaking up the Northwest newspaper business – Crosscut Seattle, Feb. 4, 2008

[David Black has made a fortune investing in newspapers (he owns 175 of them) and he’s actually stepping up his investments as the industry turns down. Black sees opportunity in being on every doorstep in the communities his papers serve. Although he’s been criticized as a bottom-feeder, his strategy has worked. – Ed.]

Four Top California Editors Out — More to Come? – Editor & Publisher, Jan. 28, 2008

[A procession of top editors has headed out the door at California newspapers recently, and the trend may begin spreading nationwide. The changing of the guard is perhaps due to reluctance of veteran editors to make the painful cuts that business conditions now demand. The short-term result is demoralized newsroom staffs, but this turnover may be necessary to reinvent newspapers. – Ed.]

What’s really wrong with newspapers – Rogue Columnist, Jan. 31, 2008

[Jon Talton takes a bullet list approach to describing what went wrong with newspapers. Some of his commentary is 20:20 hindsight, but there are some interesting insights here:

• Consolidation and monopolization made newspapers insular and risk-averse. Innovation doesn’t come from companies that are trying to preserve a dominant franchise;
• New ideas aimed at attracting non-readers (what some call the McPaper syndrome) distracted attention from the reporting that kept loyal readers. The result was a double whammy: those new audiences weren’t going to read anyway, and the traditional audiences became disenfranchised and left;
  
• Groupthink in top-heavy organizations created a generation of yes-men who implemented defensive strategies and didn’t question the status quote. In the 1990s, when newspapers needed bold ideas, they were being led by sheep.
  

Check out the lively discussion that follows. This blog post touched a nerve. – Ed.]

NYTimes ad sales fall 13% – Financial Times, Jan. 31, 2008

[Despite the plunge in sales, the company actually swung to a profit in the quarter. Nevertheless, the Times says it plans to cut about $200 million in expenses in 2008. – Ed.]

What’s Needed in 2008: Serious Newsroom Cultural Change – Editor & Publisher, Jan. 2, 2008

[E&P columnist Steve Outing asks his network of contacts what they would want him to do if he could wave a magic wand and solve their problems. Many responded that they’d like to see him change the culture in newsrooms, which is still hopelessly focused on turning out the “daily miracle.” Quoting:

“The feeling in newsrooms, especially among the people on the new-media side, seems to be that there are an awful lot of people within rganizations that aren’t on board with a vision of changing for the future…implementation is being slowed by many people in the organization — including mid-level managers — who still don’t buy into the idea that a total transformation of the news organization is necessary…

“get everyone involved in using new forms of digital media. Imagine if everyone in your news organization maintained a blog, an active page on Facebook, and participated in other innovative new media forms (e.g., Twitter). By actually living the digital life and embracing it (even if you’re forced to by your boss), you’ll better understand how the modern consumer interacts with media and news.

“MySpace has well over 100 million users; Facebook has 59 million active users. With that kind of mainstream acceptance, it’s unconscionable for journalists not to participate in that online environment.

“Howard Owens, director of digital publishing at Gatehouse Media, asked for this: ‘Reporters and editors would take seriously their roles as community conversation leaders, concentrating on getting it right on the web first — web-first publishing, blogs, video, participation — and using the print edition as a greatest hits,promote the web site vehicle. Old packaged-goods-thinking about the newsPAPER would disappear overnight.’

“The feeling in newsrooms, especially among the people on the new-media side, seems to be that there are an awful lot of people within organizations that aren’t on board with a vision of changing for the future.”

Record Year For Online Newspapers – eMarketer, Jan. 28, 2008

Average monthly unique visitors to US newspaper sites increased 6% in 2007 to 60 million. Almost 40% of active US internet users visited a newspaper site during the fourth quarter.

Subtract Madison, Wisc. from the dwindling list of cities with more than one daily newspaper. The Capital Times, an afternoon fixture for more than 90 years, will cease daily publication in late April and move mostly online. It will continue to publish two free weekly editions.

In its announcement, the paper spun the decision as recognition of readers’ increasing preference for online news sources. However, the economic reality is that the paper’s circulation has dropped from a peak of 47,000 to just over 17,000. Despite the existence of a 60-year-old joint operating agreement with the Wisconsin State Journal, which also covered the story, the numbers weren’t working. Kristian Knutsen of Cap Times competitor Isthmus has a comprehensive reaction and analysis.

The decision “was driven by cool calculation and raw greed,” writes Bill Lueders in a column in Isthmus. The newspaper’s publisher begged to differ, saying that the move will rejuvenate the paper and make it a more vibrant voice in the medium where readers are clearly moving. About 40 jobs will be cut as a result of the shutdown of daily operations, with about 20 of them in the newsroom. However, that will still leave 40 editors and reporters.

Afternoon dailies, which were once the mainstay of newspapering, have been going under for years as Americans’ work and reading habits have changed. The decline in the Cap Times’ circulation is indicative of that trend.

Welcome Web wunderkind Marc Andreessen to the deathwatch!

In a savage post on his blog, the Netscape co-founder announces “I hereby inaugurate my New York Times Deathwatch, which will continue until the last Sulzberger has left the building.”

The diatribe was touched off by the announcement that arch-conservative Bill Kristol will become a Times columnist, but Andreessen has problems with the whole Times company, and he lists them with withering eloquence:

• Total quarterly revenues fell 1.7% compared to Q4 2006, adjusting for an additional week in the 2006 quarter;
• Ad revenue in December was off 25%
• Classified advertising fell off the table
• Circulation continues to decline at the NYT-owned Boston Globe – 7% in the last year;
• The Times’ regional papers are also suffering;
• Hedge funds are pressuring the Sulzbergers to sell;
• The board of directors knows nothing about publishing (this one is particularly funny).

Meanwhile, Dan Kennedy at The Guardian muses on the possibility that Google could buy the New York Times Co. It isn’t gonna happen, but it’s fun to speculate.

The Financial Times has all the gory financial details.

Jon Talton takes a bullet list approach to an analysis of what went wrong with newspapers. Some of his commentary is 20:20 hindsight, but there are some interesting insights here:

• Consolidation and monopolization made newspapers insular and risk-averse. Innovation doesn’t come from companies that are trying to preserve a dominant franchise;
• New ideas aimed at attracting non-readers (what some call the McPaper syndrome) distracted attention from the reporting that kept loyal readers. The result was a double whammy: those new audiences weren’t going to read anyway, and the traditional audiences became disenfranchised and left;
• Groupthink in top-heavy organizations created a generation of yes-men who implemented defensive strategies and didn’t question the status quote. In the 1990s, when newspapers needed bold ideas, they were being led by sheep.

Check out the lively discussion that follows. This blog post touched a nerve.