Newspapers: death or new business models?
Posted by Jean Yves Chainon on February 16, 2007 at 2:52 PM
Online magazine Slate reports on an op-ed written by investment tycoon Steven Rattner in the Wall Street Journal about newspapers. He concludes that the case is hopeless and "perhaps it's time to think about new models for the news business." Not so fast about hopelessness.
Rattner offers new models, such as nonprofit newspaper operations (St. Petersburg Times), tax subsidized operations (BBC) or simply philanthropic (Joan Kroc's $200 million gift to NPR).
Granted these new models aren’t all replicable. Granted some aren’t economically viable, at all.
“Shouldn't Rattner, who is the managing principal of Quadrangle Group LLC and "focused on the firm's $2.9 billion media and communications private equity business," be advising newspaper companies on how to make money and not how to surrender elegantly?” wrote Slate magazine.
Then, Slate writer Jack Shafer proceeds to his own diagnosis, in light of newspaper tax subsidies, that “if dailies can't make it on their own, they deserve death.”
Not so fast. First, Slate is owned by the Washington Post. Second, Shafer offers a balancing view to Rattner’s words.
He proposes to have “have the FCC suspend its newspaper-broadcast cross-ownership rules so that dailies can purchase television and radio stations in the markets they serve. If we really expect the self-pitying newspaper industry to compete for audience and advertisers, it should have the same access to customers that the competition has.”
That alone is a crucial – and feasible – proposition, which doesn’t feed off a vague assessment of a whole industry.
Shafer also recalls an article by Washington Post reporter Paul Farhi, which puts the whole newspaper industry’s decline in perspective. Cable news, local TV and radios are also struggling. Newspapers have better, more loyal customers than these other media. Large newspapers also enjoy the most established credibility, and they are ideally positioned to cater to local markets.
It’s far from being hopeless. It is time to find new business models though. Ones that work, step by step. And not writing editorial disclaimers about an alleged industry’s downfall.
Source: Slate
Granted these new models aren’t all replicable. Granted some aren’t economically viable, at all.
“Shouldn't Rattner, who is the managing principal of Quadrangle Group LLC and "focused on the firm's $2.9 billion media and communications private equity business," be advising newspaper companies on how to make money and not how to surrender elegantly?” wrote Slate magazine.
Then, Slate writer Jack Shafer proceeds to his own diagnosis, in light of newspaper tax subsidies, that “if dailies can't make it on their own, they deserve death.”
Not so fast. First, Slate is owned by the Washington Post. Second, Shafer offers a balancing view to Rattner’s words.
He proposes to have “have the FCC suspend its newspaper-broadcast cross-ownership rules so that dailies can purchase television and radio stations in the markets they serve. If we really expect the self-pitying newspaper industry to compete for audience and advertisers, it should have the same access to customers that the competition has.”
That alone is a crucial – and feasible – proposition, which doesn’t feed off a vague assessment of a whole industry.
Shafer also recalls an article by Washington Post reporter Paul Farhi, which puts the whole newspaper industry’s decline in perspective. Cable news, local TV and radios are also struggling. Newspapers have better, more loyal customers than these other media. Large newspapers also enjoy the most established credibility, and they are ideally positioned to cater to local markets.
It’s far from being hopeless. It is time to find new business models though. Ones that work, step by step. And not writing editorial disclaimers about an alleged industry’s downfall.
Source: Slate
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"Newspapers: death of a business model" sums up the new direction of papers, especially in the US. It is period of disorientation and not an era of "the sky is falling" that we are always hearing about.
Circulation is down and some have folded, especially afternoon newspapers, but newspaper more than any other media stil had the mainstay in crediability and authority. Newspapers still report in detail and demagraphics. TV and radio report a few facts and buzzwords then on to the next story.
Newspaper have not seen their "golden era" in history. They are competing with alot of different media, but the fact remains they still are stronger than what they realize.
All I hear is about the 20-somethings that get their news from ipods and other electronic gadtery. What happens when they get in their 40s and their eyes start to fail? Their only recourse: eyeglasses and newspapers.
No one can stop the aging process, newspaper should know that. After all they are older and wiser than TV, radio, internet, motion pictures combined.
Danny L. McDaniel
Lafayette, Indiana
USA