Last week, Sam Zell, CEO of Tribune, and COO Randy Michaels announced a set of deep cuts, saying that shrinking revenue left them no choice.
They said they would trim 500 pages of news each week from the company’s dozen papers, including The Chicago Tribune and The Los Angeles Times. Their aim is a paper with pages – excluding classified advertising and special ad sections – split 50-50 between news content and ads.
Zell’s plan is an accelerated version of what many newspaper companies are already undertaking in the hope of staving off the kind of huge dislocation that occurred in other industries, like the steel business in the 1980s or the domestic automobile business today. In those cases, the pressure came from legacy costs, labor and foreign competition. In the newspaper business, which struggles with those costs as well, the biggest threat is the migration of advertisers and readers to the Internet.
I think Zell is condemning his empire to the same mediocrity and failure as GM. What do you think?
Get over it.
It pains me to say it, but maybe Ballmer was right…
deep cuts and more advertising ? Sounds like the guy want printed web pages: little content per page, and cheapo redactors. Why pay for these ?
What I see as valuable ?
Redactors with real knowledge for one.
And enought of them to make a signicative picture of today world.
Dont sell the bullshit that interest X speeak for the gullible.
Let microfacts and chit-chat take few real state, we can get this in the web for free.
In less words, traditional media can beat the web in quality and density of information, but naturally cannot beat the web in variety, quantity nor prize.
>>If they don’t become more transparent and admit
>>their biased agenda, they are just whistling on the
>>way to their graveyard.
We’re not talking about right-wing rags with hidden agendas here, we’re talking about regular “main-stream” papers. They usually don’t HAVE an agenda. It’s that wing-nut shit like World Hate Daily that have the hidden agendas, but their subscribers will continue to pay no matter what the advertising ratio.
As someone who worked several years ago for a newspaper agency. Even in a college town. Students were very much getting away from printed news. Even then, the internet was just AOL and CNN. But the fact that the internet provided a news now availability started to set the tone for the news papers demise. I think we tend to not take the time to read a entire paper for news. We tend to be skimmers who pick and choose and rarely read complete articles unless they really interest us. I myself find sites that give me the highlights the best.
>>We tend to be skimmers who pick and choose
>>and rarely read complete articles
Yes, but it’s very easy to skim through an entire paper newspaper. Try skimming through the entire online Sunday NYT, or a daily online WSJ. Not so easy.
It really depends on what they get rid of. There is so much in the traditional newspaper that is pretty useless. Except for local sports ESPN does a better job than the [a[er can ever do. Is there really any reason to put stock prices in the paper? Get rid of the horoscopes, tv schedules, and advice columns and focus on the things papers actual do well? If they do that then it is a good idea. If they cut down on actual news reporting then this is a bad thing.
Electronic paper just can’t get here fast enough. And, no, Kindle is nowhere near being “it.”
RBG
The best scam on the planet, is getting people to buy propaganda and making a profit while at it.
Sheeple are so damned stupid. They actually pay for their own fleecing.
LOL!!!
Seems to me that 50% of the “news” is already a commercial. Sports news is just a huge commercial for sports franchises. Medical breakthru’s are mainly commercials for the drugmakers. And the always announce a “new study” about what’s good for you (like wine, coffee, or chocolate) whenever their sales are down. And my favorite, the latest crash test results, that mainly promote the largest, most expensive vehicles. Gas mileage and reliability, having become a dead issue (until now).
What these publishing mogal won’t consider is any reduction in their own salaries. If anything, I’ll bet the papers’ CEOs and top execs, will get another raise soon. Or more million dollar bonuses. The real reason that foreign competition is beating them is that their CEOs are being paid a King’s ransom. And the internet gets the same job done, without their overpaid butts being in charge.
I could live with 80% ads and 20% news if the news was worth reading.
The printed press has to give up on the “breaking news” thing and concentrate on in depth reporting. Or at the very least, good reporting and good editing (both have been lacking) in the printed press for a long time.
If I can’t get something decent to read, I’ll be stuck doing the sudoku and crosswords in the free papers forever….
I think your experience makes you a solidly qualified judge of mediocrity.
#11
> I’ve read the Times since I
> was in Junior High School back in the 1970s.
That’s the point. It’s an age thing. I’m probably a decade or more younger and I haven’t gotten a paper since I was in college. I had a friend in college that got the Times and I estimate that he read about two maybe three a week and the rest went right from his door to the trash. Most people in gen-X and especially gen-Y and later simply don’t have the time to be sifting through a brick of generally old news. Yes, it is nice every once in a blue moon to sit down with the paper but I cannot remember the last time I had that kind of time.
> They nearly lost me when they
> dropped the television guide,
Perfect example. TV Guide is worthless. I’d have to say it has been a good 25 years since I read a TV Guide. I’m a bit shocked it is still published. Cable and satellite systems have on-screen guides and broadcast TV is awful. In addition, you can also get TV information online so why would anyone need a TV Guide?
>>Most people in gen-X and especially gen-Y and later
>>simply don’t have the time to be sifting through a
>>brick of generally old news.
Yeah, playing X-Box 360, WoW, and posting on MySpace and FaceBook can be so time-consuming!
>>Cable and satellite systems have
>>on-screen guides
Yeah, and without exception, they suck. I don’t read TV Guide either (except when I’m waiting in the dentist’s office), but those on-screen guides truly bite the big one. If I really need to see what’s on TV, I look up the online guide. And I believe that #11 was referring to the television LISTINGS in the LA Times, not the “magazine” (or whatever it is).
>>I cannot remember the last time I had
>>that kind of time.
If you don’t have time to sit down on a Sunday morning with coffee and bagels and page through the New York Times, you need to re-think your priorities in life. I hear a lot about the busy-busy-busy lifestyle, and usually it just means people are frittering their time away on video games or other frippery. People had just as much to do 30 years ago as they do today, it’s just that too much worthless peripheral crap clogs up many people’s lives.
#33–Thomas==tell us, are you too busy to read a book? a magazine?
Did you read any books or magazines in college or get buy with summaries and bought papers?
Funny how you claim ignorance as a badge of honor instead of the deficiency you should recognize. How long does anyone talk to you before you reveal how shallow you are?
Read a book!
“Is that the newspaper you’re interested in buying?”
It’s been about 15-20 years since I’ve seen a major paper worth paying for. Old news…
#33 – “Most people in gen-X and especially gen-Y and later simply don’t have the time to be sifting through a brick of generally old news.”
As an exec I avoid hiring people in these categories as, in my experience, they are unproductive and unmotivated. Too busy? Right.
Let’s see…News paper sales are down because most people prefer to get their news from other sources . Most people do not like leafing through advertisements to get to the news that is in the papers. So instead of making the newspaper more desirable make it less desirable by adding more advertisements. Yep, that ought to do it…..Brilliant!
>>#33/35 Thomas==tell us, are you too busy to
>>read a book? a magazine?
Bobster, that has to be one of the stupidest arguments Tommie has ever made.
He’s “too busy” to pick up a book or newspaper that he can bring with him on a plane, train, or automobile, can bring it into the crapper with him, read in bed at night, or myriad other ways of portable reading.
Yet he DOES have time to sit glued to a computer screen, clicking on link after link after link, looking for stories of interest??
Or perhaps, he’s just as incurious as George (Dumbya), and prefers to get his information from condensed summaries given by other people who have the mental horsepower to read the original source documents.
#34
Shocking as this maybe, some of us actually work. So, I don’t see the point in MySpace or Facebook either. I don’t have an X-box but I certainly understand the escape and fun of video games.
RE: On-screen guides
You are clearly in the minority. Between TiVO and the onscreen guides, TV Guides are worthless. Some us are able to grasp that new fangeldy technology and use it to our advantage. Apparently it is still midnight in your house.
RE: Sunday paper
On rare occasions, I do have time to sit down and read a paper on a lazy Sunday afternoon. Usually I don’t because I’m trying to catch up on all the chores that I did not do during the week or would rather go out in the world.
#35
Books are different. I do read quite a bit at night before I go to bed although I do not always get the chance. However, with books I do not have to sift through BS to get to what I find interesting. Whereas newspapers I have to sift through a ton of BS to get to interesting stories and those that are interesting are too short. I get one technical magazine and I usually get a chance read about every fourth or fifth one. About the only time I read a regular magazine is while perusing a book store or waiting in the doctor’s office.
I’m not the only one that feels this way. All of the people I have encountered in my business that are younger than me have *never* subscribed to a paper but are up on everything going on because they read it online.
> Funny how you claim ignorance…
I made no such claim. I do keep up on current events I just don’t do it with antiquated solutions like newspapers. I do read articles from newspapers; I just do it online where I can get to the information that is interesting faster and quicker.
#37
So, you only hire people that are over 40? It is called being productive and sifting through a paper instead of getting the news quickly is called being productive. You should look into it. I hear it is good for profits.