Newspapers going away?

[navychop]

Well, with newspapers dropping like flies, and articles seemingly arguing about whether the last paper gets printed in 2012 or 2015, I thought it would be interesting to get the general feel of the community on the topic.

And another thought- when is the tipping point? Is there any use for those giant multi-ton rolls of newsprint that papers use? At some point, fewer papers equals less newsprint needed. Fewer suppliers, fewer economies of scale, higher costs for the paper. And, of course, fuel prices will be going up again. Could only 4 or 5 national newspapers survive, in print form, if all the others die off?

 

[riffjim4069]

Sadly, I think 2/3rd of today's newspapers will be yesterday's news. However, I think we'll see more of them morph into online only services.

 

[LonghornXP]

The downfall of newspapers has been the usage or should I say abuses of independent contractors. In most of the places I've lived around the country service has been shoddy at best. When companies don't give the contractors time to deliver the papers coupled with the fact most companies now are paying around 8 cents a paper daily while the contractor must pay all expenses including taxes. When all is said and done most people must have around 500 daily papers at the least to make any kind of money to pay the bills and make money. The problem is that in this system about a third of the papers these contractors deliver are delivered "late" resulting in massive customer churn and complains for those that remain.

In my area that I've lived in nearly all my life I've never had service issues while the company used employees with benefits and a decent wage. It was treated as a full time job not a part time job so you had the best people delivering the most amount of papers they could on time. I've noticed a rapid decline in service each year for the last five years or so since they moved from employees to independent contractors. I'm lucky I have a contractor that is one of the older ones from what I hear from other people who live near me so I don't have any service problems.

Beyond those few select routes everyone else I talk with is lucky if they get the papers 7 days in a row. Most complain about late papers and others complain about wet papers. I've followed this company though as more of a study and simply put I think the downfall of the St. Petersburg Times is because of one man named Paul Tash. All of these changes were his ideas when you understand his past and its the Paul Tash's of this country that have driven these companies into failures.

 

[Stargazer]

This is bad for the newspaper companies but good for consumers. This will lead more people to go online for their news and may lead the newspaper companies into providing news online or makin the news online better.

 

[Kevinw]

This is bad for the newspaper companies but good for consumers. This will lead more people to go online for their news and may lead the newspaper companies into providing news online or makin the news online better.

If they are not printing they will not do online.

 

[HD MM]

Despite some of the gloomy reports, my local paper (Cleveland Plain Dealer) recently reported that they are not in trouble.

Long live Print Newspapers!

 

[Ramy]

I have never subscribed to newspapers. I did deliver them for 6 years and it is one of the most underappreciated jobs in the U.S. Granted you don't have to teach anybody anything, save lives or anything like that, but you do have to work 365 days a year with no vacation and be in all kinds of weather depending on where you live. Where I live we have all weather conditions and are expected to actually deliver it no matter what, which the Post Office claims to do, but we know they don't.

 

[Paul Wozniak]

Detroit News and Detroit Free Press are going to three day home delivery at the end of this month. Just a matter of time till they end the print editions all together.

 

[HD MM]

When I moved into my first house, the very first thing I did before anything else was call the paper company and set up a subscription to deliver the newspaper every morning to my home.

I wanted to be able to wake up that first morning in my new house and walk outside to pick the morning paper out of my driveway.

Maybe there's something nostalgic about the newspaper, spreading it out like an ancient war map and reading it over a cup of coffee in the morning. Call me old fashioned, but staring blankly at a 12" LCD monitor just doesn't replicate the actual process of reading a physical newspaper. Needless to say, if this routine ever ended, I'd be completely lost.

 

[navychop]

Any comments on how much they'll be impacted by fuel prices increasing again? Costs of newsprint and ink?

I work next to a Washington Post printing plant. Very fancy, Very large and Very Expensive. They print a lot of advertising fliers and other papers in addition to their own. The land they occupy is very valuable. Moving such massive, multi-story presses is not likely. And the presses are only around 10 years old. At some point, they must see that they'll be ahead financially to dump the tree version and spend their money on people, not dead trees and fossil fuels. IIRC the only reason they made money last year was due to them owning Kaplan - the paper itself is a money loser. And they're a "national" newspaper!

I suspect once one of the large "national" newspapers shows a profitable business model without the dead trees, there will be a rather rapid succession of newspapers dumping their presses.

They've got to learn, they are in the information business, not the newspaper business.


- - - - - - -

Early in the history of aviation, the Steamship companies were approached to invest in aviation. They could have essentially bought into, and controlled, the "next big thing." Only they didn't. They laughed, and said they knew nothing of airplanes, they were in the business of operating steamships!

And we see where aviation is today, and where "steamships" are today.

You must always know what business you're in. You're not in the business of running a tool/means (e.g.- steamships), you're in the business of the end product (e.g.- transporting people and goods). Classic business school example.

 

[HD MM]

Any comments on how much they'll be impacted by fuel prices increasing again? Costs of newsprint and ink?

I work next to a Washington Post printing plant. Very fancy, Very large and Very Expensive. They print a lot of advertising fliers and other papers in addition to their own. The land they occupy is very valuable. Moving such massive, multi-story presses is not likely. And the presses are only around 10 years old. At some point, they must see that they'll be ahead financially to dump the tree version and spend their money on people, not dead trees and fossil fuels. IIRC the only reason they made money last year was due to them owning Kaplan - the paper itself is a money loser. And they're a "national" newspaper!

I suspect once one of the large "national" newspapers shows a profitable business model without the dead trees, there will be a rather rapid succession of newspapers dumping their presses.

They've got to learn, they are in the information business, not the newspaper business.


- - - - - - -

Early in the history of aviation, the Steamship companies were approached to invest in aviation. They could have essentially bought into, and controlled, the "next big thing." Only they didn't. They laughed, and said they knew nothing of airplanes, they were in the business of operating steamships!

And we see where aviation is today, and where "steamships" are today.

You must always know what business you're in. You're not in the business of running a tool/means (e.g.- steamships), you're in the business of the end product (e.g.- transporting people and goods). Classic business school example.

What's next?

Should we eliminate menus in restaurants? Maybe we should all just carry around a PDA so the waiter can upload a menu.

Some things, people just prefer the physical copy.

 

[bhelms]

...Some things, people just prefer the physical copy.

But what people is that? Adding to what navychop said above, knowing what business you're in is also knowing your customers and where their desires are headed. I'm close to being a sr. citizen and have grown up with hard copy newspapers. But as I said in the other thread on this topic, I've morphed to where I only get the Sun. paper in hard copy for several reasons, and the rest of the week I read whatever "news" I get on-line. I believe those of the younger generation who actually read the news prefer to get it on-line, as they do all their other communications like e-mails, IMs, blogs, facebook, surfing, music and video DLs, IPTV, etc...

So the question is - what business is the average newspaper in? Clearly the answer will vary by market but it will always be some flavor of delivering "news" to clients willing to pay for it and in the medium of their choice. As that medium swings evermore to the electronic options we'll continue to see the decline of the hardcopy option until it is no longer available anywhere. Sad perhaps, but I think inevitable. And along with that will come the loss of most local news outlets. All that will remain is national, syndicated stuff and a few local bulletin-boards for things like sports scores, obits, and police blotters...

 

[BigTimMN]

If they are not printing they will not do online.

Really? is that why the Seattle Post-Intel ceased printing and has gone online only.

 

[HD MM]

I believe those of the younger generation who actually read the news prefer to get it on-line, as they do all their other communications like e-mails, IMs, blogs, facebook, surfing, music and video DLs, IPTV, etc...

I'm 27 years old and I prefer the real print newspaper.

 

[bhelms]

I'm 27 years old and I prefer the real print newspaper.

You and I are probably both atypical of our age groups, and I believe you are in the minority for your age group, or perhaps more precisely, the "Gen Ys" are more prone to on-line media as the preference.

Interesting whitepaper here. It's a couple of years old, but illustrates my point. In this article, you are considered a "traditional" (print first) consumer; I am "non-traditional" (on-line version of printed media first). For your age group, the traditional readers were about 4:1 print vs. on-line newspaper reading whereas the non-traditional types were about 1:3. But the non traditionalists outweighed the traditionalists by about 4:3. For my age group ("boomers") it was 4:6 on-line to print. (In the traditionalists the ratio was about 5:1 (expected) and about the same 1:3 ratio as Gen Y for the non-traditionalists.) Reading the rest of the article gives a number of reasons for the observations, and those are in line with what I think we're all seeing. As that trend continues, printed media will have a very hard time serving the need. To be sure there will probably always be some demand for printed media, but will that demand be sufficient to justify the continued cost of producing that option?

http://www.mediamark.com/PDF/WP Media consumption pathways in an evolving world.pdf

 

[navychop]

What's next?

Should we eliminate menus in restaurants? Maybe we should all just carry around a PDA so the waiter can upload a menu.

Some things, people just prefer the physical copy.

You've never gotten a menu on your PDA/iPhone? If nothing else, you can surf and get the menu before you even arrive, and know what you want to order.

Anyway, menus can last for months or even years, and are only transported once. Newpapers are tossed each day, and the distribution alone is a major expense.

I can see the appeal of the physical newspaper. I still subscribe, but mostly because of the convenience of all the comics all together. When it's time to renew, and if my wife is reluctant again, we simply won't.

The point is, it appears that the writing is on the wall. Physical format newspapers are declining precipitously in popularity. Many have ceased printing or even all publication. Clearly, ever larger numbers of people no longer want the physical newspaper. The only question is: How far will it go? Will ALL physical newspapers vanish, or will a few survive? Or, conceivably, "many" survive or even stage a comeback in popularity?

 

[Paul Wozniak]

I'm 27 years old and I prefer the real print newspaper.

:up:up:up

 

[Bulldog]

I'm 27 years old and I prefer the real print newspaper.

I agree with you. I feel among newspapers the New York Times is the best for me, no matter where I live.

Local newspapers are like High School papers or Gossip generators just to attract readers.