Archive for the ‘Print Newspapers’ Category

Oriella PR surveyed 770 journalists from in 15 countries about their perceptions of the future of their media channels. More than half (52%) said their print publication, TV station or radio station might well be taken off the market, though they didn’t ask for a specific time frame. This was a sharp increase from the one in 3 who shared that view a year ago.

You can download a PDF of the study (free registration required).

An Ohio-based chain that owns 15 dailies and 32 weeklies — mostly in Ohio — has entered Chapter 11 as it proceeds with the sale of its assets to an unnamed buyer.

Brown Media Holdings Co. and Brown Publishing Co. filed Friday in U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Eastern District of New York, asking for approval of $2.5 million in financing to help the companies through bankruptcy, according to Editor & Publisher.

As with other media bankruptcies we’re seeing, this one apparently won’t be the end for the newspapers. Rather, they’ll shed their debt in the Chapter 11 proceedings and move forward with a smaller and, hopefully, more manageable investment.

Once again, the bankers won. After a long auction that pitted creditors against a local group of investors, the creditors emerged as the new owners of Philadelphia Newspapers L.L.C.

The media company owns The (Philadelphia) Inquirer, the Philadelphia Daily News, and Philly.com. The price of $139 million raised a few eyebrows, because it was more than most had expected.

Unlike the preplanned bankruptcies of major chains such as Sun-Times and Tribune, the people operating the news media put up a fight. The more typical route these days is to enter Chapter 11, turn over much of the company to the lenders, and seek to resume operations without the load of their heavy debt.

The new Newspaper Association of America’s yearbook is out. This chart shows the decline in classified advertising from 1997 to 2009. This used to be a lifeblood for newspapers. NAA report.

MediaNews Group – which owns The Denver Post, Oakland Tribune, San Jose Mercury News and Detroit News – has entered a prepackaged Chapter 11 bankruptcy with the intent of turning most of the company over to lenders and getting a fresh start.

Hearst will lose its $300 million investment from 2006, and Bank of America will forgive $765 million in debt in exchange for a nice chunk of the company.

MediaDailyNews has a nice story on the MediaNews bankruptcy filing, as well as an update on Tribune and other bankruptcies.

The newspaper industry shed nearly 15,000 jobs in 2009, but investors did quite well.

Erica Smith’s Paper Cuts blog, which does the best job in the industry of tracking newspaper job losses, counted 14,845 lost jobs in the newspaper industry during 2009. Keep in mind that her running count includes all jobs, including production and advertising.

On the positive side, stock prices for media companies turned dramatically upward in 2009, reflecting the general trend in the stock market. Rick Edmunds does a nice job of summarizing the results here.

Heartland Publications LLC, which owns 23 dailies and other publications, has filed for Chapter 11 in an agreement that includes giving its largest creditor — GE Credit — a 90% stake in the company.

Heartland owns media properties in Georgia, Kentucky, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia and West Virginia.

When your audience keeps shrinking, I guess it’s inevitable that your days are numbered. But it’s difficult to conceive a world without Editor & Publisher, which announced last week that it will cease publication after 108 years.

Nielsen, which purchased the magazine a decade ago and had been trying to sell it recently, gave up on it Thursday. I’ve seen reports that the web site had already been taken down, but it seems to be online. However, I haven’t seen any updates over the weekend.

The Christian Science Monitor was one of the first – and one of the best – experiments in largely abandoning print in favor of online news distribution. The Boston-based newspaper has always been small but widely respected. Unfortunately, respect doesn’t pay the bills.

Poynter’s Rick Edmonds followed up with an update on how the experiment is working out. (Before I get away from this, Edmonds needs to be on your reading list if you follow developments in the world of journalism. Nobody does a better job of covering the business side of media.)

• 93% of the CSM’s subscribers 43,000 subscribers agreed to subscribe to the publication’s new weekly news magazine, which now has an even larger audience: 67,000 paying the full rate of $97 per year, with another 18,000 at a reduced trial subscription rate. I keep saying (and hoping) that readers are looking for some depth and perspective to balance out the flow of trivia that bombards us each day. The Christian Science Monitor has always provided that, and apparently its weekly product continues that tradition well.
• Unique visitors to the web site, which carries the daily news load, are up 20 percent from April.

It is worth noting that half the Christian Science Monitor’s budget comes from an endowment and subsidy by the Church of Christ, Scientist. Their strategy might not translate to an environment that has to be self-sustaining.

Even with its circulation down more than 25 percent, the San Francisco Chronicle is making a profit. Well, some weeks. But that’s a step in the right direction, according to Editor & Publisher’s story on the newly released circulation figures. Its sister paper, the Houston Chronicle, is likewise focusing on a small core of readers, adapting to its 14% drop in circulation. In a separate story, the magazine reports that the Dallas Morning News’ circulation is down by 22%.

Increasingly, newspapers are turning prospects around be giving up the idea of serving the greatest possible number of readers. They’re printing fewer copies. Reducing the area in which they deliver. And in some cases, they’re charging the remaining customers more. This all adds up a more profitable print strategy, and it’s not really new. Rising energy prices make it more expensive to deliver to far-flung readers, making them unprofitable.