Into the perfect storm of Internet competition, spiraling newsprint costs and the decline of classified advertising has come a fourth factor: probable worldwide recession. It couldn’t happen at a worse time for the beleaguered newspaper industry.
Newspaper advertising revenue is expected to decline a record 11.5% to $40.1 billion this year , the Newspaper Association of America says. The organization does see light at the end of the tunnel; it’s predicting that the nosedive will level off a bit in 2009. But such forecasts should probably be taken with a grain of salt, considering that no one knows the full extent of the current financial crisis or the likelihood that worldwide government interventions will succeed. Also consider, at Tim Windsor points out in a comment on the E&P blog, that the NAA initially forecast just a 1.2% decline in business this year .
The 11.5% revenue drop would be the largest the association has seen since it started tracking ...
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Layoff log: Buyout binge on the BayFrom: feeds.feedburner.com
Post Date: 2008-03-04 06:01:53
There are so many cutbacks to report that we have to spread the news across two posts.
Bay Area Blues
The big news comes out of the Bay area , where some 1,300 employees at San Francisco-area newspapers were offered buyouts . The San Jose Mercury News offered packages aimed at shedding nearly 200 non-union employees and also said it would cut an unspecified number of union jobs. Bay Area News Group-East Bay, which includes the Tribune, the Times and 14 other newspapers, offered all 1,100...
more Revival meetings: execs and pundits debate strategiesFrom: feeds.feedburner.com
Post Date: 2008-03-02 07:03:19
Your obedient editor has been traveling for much of the last week, but the death watch doesn’t stop. Catching up on a few ongoing stories:
Zell Hell
The Tribune Company’s new owner is making his presence felt, and he’s making a lot of people uncomfortable in the process:
Zell visited the Washington bureau of the LA Times and said its 47-person staff is “bloated.” As Ken Reich tells it , Zell “suggested it should be smaller than the Times’ O...
more Layoff log: Cuts spread to Newsday; LA Daily News axes 20% of newsroomFrom: feeds.feedburner.com
Post Date: 2008-03-05 05:55:43
The Boston Globe plays it straight in covering the news of its buyout-based staff reduction . As reported earlier, 60 jobs will be axed at the Globe and 20 at the Worcester Telegram. That’s on top of the 125 jobs cut at the papers a year ago. The amazing tidbit in this story is this line: “ Globe employees who received lifetime job guarantees in the early 1990s will be given three weeks pay for each year of service, capped at two years’ pay.” Lifetime job guarantees?
N...
more Vignettes: Biz sections hit hard; Disney PR exec give industry “five years to live”From: feeds.feedburner.com
Post Date: 2008-03-06 04:06:12
Vignettes from the field
Our RSS reader picks up occasional commentary by newspaper readers and former journalists that provide a glimpse into how the newspaper industry collapse is affecting ordinary people:
A Bay Area book enthusiast laments the Chron’s decision to fold its stand-alone book review section into the weekly news analysis pages.
A Twin Cities consultant lists the reasons he’s canceling his newspaper subscription. There are several. Like many readers, he simply...
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