Tuesday, April 27, 2010
Newspaper message massage
Posted by Max Brantley on Tue, Apr 27, 2010 at 6:21 AM
Noted: Article in Arkansas Democrat-Gazette today is headlined that the D-G gained subscribers last year in the six months ending March 31 while newspapers nationally were losing readers.
On the jump, you got the rest of the story. The D-G gain (weekdays only -- there was a drop in Sunday circulation) was due to 15,000 subscribers added by subsuming -- essentially acquiring -- the former Stephens Media newspapers in Northwest Arkansas. The newspaper suffered losses in its core readership roughly equivalent to the national loss.
The D-G loss is an even more sobering message, really, than the national numbers. Why? Because the Democrat-Gazette is generally: 1) bigger than comparable daily newspapers (more information); 2) has a larger staff; 3) has held circulation prices down; 4) endeavors to home deliver the paper in even remote and lightly populated places; 5) "protects" its print franchise by charging for a great deal of Internet content; 6) is the state's largest single supplier of local news, a web niche not as developed as, say, international, political and national sports news. With all this going for it, the newspaper couldn't buck larger societal shifts in newspaper reading habits. The question remains: What's going to happen to newspapers?
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“The question remains: What's going to happen to newspapers?” The bigger question is what’s going to happen to America if newspapers totally disappear? The current ignorance and apathy in a country where only 54% of eligible voters bothered to cast their ballots during the last four decades of presidential elections is appalling enough. It’s not just newspapers that a dumbed-down, disconnected, reality TV-obsessed America is rejecting these days: In the past year, CNN has seen a 41% decrease in viewers, down to 727,000, and MSNBC has lost 24% of its audience, down to 864,000 nightly. As the ArkD-G’s Michael Storey noted last week, CNN, MSNBC, and Fox News viewers total 4.29 million --- not as many as watch a typical episode of SpongeBob SquarePants. WTF does THAT say about the people of this country? For those who claim that they’ve already seen everything online that’s in today’s paper, well . . . you can go right on fooling yourselves if you wish, but the joke’s on you. PS: Just for the heck of it, I’ll add this. Once upon a more-enlightened time there was a little old tomato, corn, and okra grower down in Warren, Ark. He didn’t get to finish high school. But he was an avid newspaper reader. Although dollars were scarce around his house, he subscribed not only to Bob “Fig” Newton’s Warren Eagle Democrat, but also to the Pine Bluff Commercial, the Gazette, and the Democrat. And, Grit, I might add. You name it, this old fella could talk with authority about it all day: The international scene, state and federal government, politics, business, sports, even the advice Ann Landers was dispensing. Turned out that he was one of the “best educated” guys I ever knew, thanks to newspapers. OK, enough of this for one morning. I gotta go make some coffee and read my ArkD-G.
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We're all hoping and expecting you won't shuffle off that mortal coil for years and years, Mr. B., and in the same key, some of us are hoping the dailies hold on for many moons as well. We need the depth, light and substance you both provide. Is that breaking news about your partly hanging it up in coming months? ARK. BLOG: I've talked about my plans for a long time (if somebody had asked on one of the ask-the-blog nights I'd have said it then). But I don't know that it's "real" news until there's a date and events certain. My plan is to end my time as editor of the Times sometime around my 62nd birthday, in June 2012. I hope to keep working on the blog after that time. That's the plan anyway. But man proposes ....
>>they have failed to prepare adequately for the future.<< It's here. We are in the time we've been talking about. Kindle and Ipad replaces books. It's happening. I downloaded my first ebook about 5 years ago and a few since, all to my computer and now the books rest on a memory stick and in the comp. I can take them on my laptop (not a kindle-iPad user) or read them on this 26" screen in large type. All of that is to say that newspapers should have been looking at these new ways of distributing their media at least 10 years ago. Newspapers have been in decline well before 40% of Am. households got web connections 10 yrs ago. TV replaced newspapers and the main news source decades ago. Now you have a choice of watching TV or watching your hand held digital device. I will be skipping the movie house tonight too. My wireless arrangement allows me to beam a movie into a 44" TV set at a sound level I want. When I need to go pee I can pause it. Markets are very specialized today. Well, they have been for a long time. The web allows penetration like never before and that's what most advertisers seek. If Walter was smart his software would note which online areas I visit most often and have my online paper tailored for me when I log on. There would be less need for me to wander and surf. But, other than figuring out a break-even paywall, he's not very savvy and deserves the demise. .
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