

New York Times Running On Fumes - ashishk
http://www.alleyinsider.com/2008/10/new-york-times-nyt-running-on-fumes

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randrews
I wonder how much their situation would improve by opening up their archive
for free and removing the registration stuff? They'd get vastly more page
views, and thus more ad revenue.

For that matter, if they do go down, what happens to the archive? I hope that
something like Wikimedia or the Internet Archive gets access to it, so all
that information isn't lost forever.

~~~
timr
They'd probably die just as quickly.

The problem is likely twofold:

1) Print is expensive. 2) Internet ads don't pay like print ads used to pay.

Okay, threefold:

3) Craigslist has killed the classifieds market dead.

Newspapers around the world are suffering from these things. It's just acutely
sad that the paper of record is no better off than the rest....

~~~
ryanb
Craigslist has killed the classified markets dead x 100. This is huge for
newspapers and not to be overlooked.

~~~
smelendez
Don't forget about automotive and real estate ads...

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tyohn
I use to work for a newspaper. At the time (might show my age here) newspapers
were switching from traditional cut and paste/film-plate production to digital
composition. I had to push and push just get the newspaper to think about
stopping the use of knives to cut and paste content and start using digital
layouts. The management basically refused to change. Being inside the industry
I know they saw the digital age coming - and even though they knew it was
inevitable - just like the Trains business of yesterday that didn't realize
that they were transportation companies not just train companies - newspapers
took to long to understand that they are more than print. From my point of
view newspapers should have lead the drive to the online content world instead
they stuck to their print... Like I've heard before - its easier to kill a
business than it is to fix it.

~~~
brandnewlow
The quote I always hear about that from Rob Curley is something like this:

"We're in the newspaper business, and for too long people have been stuck on
the second part of that word."

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pmorici
They should sell their presses and go to a Print on demand model. They could
have special NYT dispensers at kiosks that allow you to choose which stories
you want to read and makes a custom newspaper with ads targeted to match for
each patron. Then over time it should learn each readers tastes and recommend
stories. Google news for the unwired world. Vendors would rent the specialized
printing machines from NYT for the privileged of being able to sell the worlds
premier news paper.

~~~
sethg
Setting up those kiosks, even in New York City alone, would require a massive
capital expenditure; the NYT company doesn't have the cash to spend, and this
is not exactly the best time to raise investment for such a project.

And a-la-carte pricing is actually _bad_ for newspaper profits. First of all,
if the customer has to look at each headline and think, "do I want to spend
another penny for this story?", the customer is likely to pay less. Second,
aggregation lets the newspaper profit from people who value different articles
at different rates, as Clay Shirky explains
([http://www.openp2p.com/pub/a/p2p/2000/12/19/micropayments.ht...](http://www.openp2p.com/pub/a/p2p/2000/12/19/micropayments.html?page=2)):

"Imagine a newspaper sold in three separate sections - news, business, and
sports. Now imagine that Curly would pay a nickel to get the news section, a
dime for business, and a dime for sports; Moe would pay a dime each for news
and business but only a nickel for sports; and Larry would pay a dime, a
nickel, and a dime. If the newspaper charges a nickel a section, each man will
buy all three sections, for 15 cents. If it prices each section at a dime,
each man will opt out of one section, paying a total of 20 cents. If the
newspaper aggregates all three sections together, however, Curly, Moe and
Larry will all agree to pay 25 cents for the whole, even though they value the
parts differently."

~~~
pmorici
If you did it right I think it would work.

iTunes makes money by unpackaging songs and selling alcarte why not news?

The POD device could offer other printed materials as well and you could sell
it to the news stands as a way to avoid buying a bunch of inventory that is
going to go stale in 1 to 30 days anyways.

What that article is really saying is that you could charge more for a
customized paper even if it had less content and people wouldn't care.

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iamelgringo
I've been fascinated by this question for a while, and my interest has been
piqued since hearing the Technology in Journalism session presentation at
DjangoCon.

I can think of so many ways that newspapers could monetize their content
online, but they really don't seem to get it. Newspapers have tons of great
long tail content that can be mined and monetized. They just don't know what
is possible and what can be done.

~~~
brandnewlow
Such as?

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Caligula
They wont go bankrupt. They are the closest thing to the worlds premier
newspaper. If the company was distressed they could sell it in a heartbeat.

Even if it ran at a loss it still has value due to its prestige. Newscorp
recently bought the WSJ for 6B when it was in a similar predicament.

~~~
gaius
There are a lot of papers who can reasonably make that claim (e.g. The Times
here in England). The problem, structually, is that newspapers in general are
retailers of wholesale product provided by PA, AFP, Reuters, etc etc. Their
value-add is in their original content, and that tends to be quite localised
i.e. it doesn't scale. I worked in Manhattan for a while, I still have friends
there, I enjoy reading that content in the NYT but I've no plans to go back
and I wouldn't pay for that content (tho' I will see ads which I will ignore).
Original content is expensive to produce. _That_ is the problem for
newspapers.

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adamsfallen
This is sad news, even more so since NYT is likely to be rated as junk by
Moody's... There aren't many ways out of this kind of mess.

[http://www.reuters.com/article/bondsNews/idUSN23458880200810...](http://www.reuters.com/article/bondsNews/idUSN2345888020081023)

~~~
chris11
Standard and Poor's just rated the bond as junk yesterday evening. Hopefully
they find some way to make money, NYT is basically the only newspaper I read.
[http://www.reuters.com/article/bondsNews/idUSN23535859200810...](http://www.reuters.com/article/bondsNews/idUSN2353585920081023)

------
sdurkin
Alright, time to strap on some plums. Dump the print division entirely, get
rid of registration for the front page articles, and start charging for
premium content.

~~~
netcan
Be the first non pornographic pay site to make money.

~~~
sdurkin
WSJ makes decent money from paid online subscriptions.

~~~
Prrometheus
WSJ has oodles of original content.

Also, if you're in finance and you don't read the WSJ, you're not going to be
able to communicate with your colleagues.

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s3graham
Seems like something Google should actually buy for the content-making-people.
Maybe there's just too much debt though, and they can just hire the people
directly.

~~~
hugh
I doubt the people are worth that much. Staff journalists don't vary _that_
much in quality (though editorial standards do) and there's tons of fresh meat
coming out of j-school every year.

The most valuable asset that the New York Times has is its brand. Well, that
and a big honking New York skyscraper.

~~~
s3graham
Interesting. I honestly don't really know how newspapers work, but I feel like
TNYT has something that's an order of magnitude better than most papers that
just republish AP crap. Maybe I'm just misled by the brand though.

I'm thinking along the lines of reporters who are funded for long enough to go
to a foreign country, genuinely spend time understanding what's going on, and
writing thoughtful, lengthy articles (that then of course get parroted all
over). Is that largely the responsibility of the editorial staff at a
newspaper?

I guess Google should get those people and maybe get them to throw in the
logo. :)

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patrickg-zill
"Mediasaurus" by Michael Crichton. Google it.

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redorb
I don't understand the business, it shouldn't take more than 50 writers to
write a paper, pay them 100k , that's 5mm sell 500k subcriptions at 50/yr
that's 25mm

And that's not counting ads (or printing cost) perhaps they cancel out though

~~~
anthonyrubin
The NYT has a circulation of 1,077,256. Delivery is anywhere from $3.35 per
week to $6.70 per week depending on frequency of delivery. Obviously many
people just buy single copies at newsstands. They employ 11,965 people
including 350 staff writers.

~~~
andreyf
How about this - fire everyone but the writers and a couple of great managers,
sell all of the office space. Meet at Starbucks, if you need to, and organize
everything over e-mail.

~~~
jm4
Do you know what those other 11,615 employees do? I don't, and this is just a
stab in the dark, but I'm thinking you're as clueless as I am. I don't know
how such an absurd statement gets modded up on a site like HN that tends to be
geared for the entrepreneur types.

How exactly would firing 97% of the workforce help turn things around? Let's
say you've got 350 writers and a couple great managers. Nevermind what your
massive layoffs do for morale or company image. Who is going to publish what
they write? Do you stay in the print business or do you take it online? Who
prints it? Who is going to distribute it? Who puts it online? Who is going to
do the investigation necessary to provide the writers with interesting things
to write about? Who is going to market the business? How are you going to
process payroll and handle day to day HR issues? Don't you also need a legal
department? Afterall, you are writing stories about people and they may not
always like what you write. You are going to have the occasional libel suit
even if you have covered your bases. Oh, and who is going to run your email
servers through which all of this will be organized?

Meet at Starbucks? Sheesh... This is the New York Times. They've been in
business since 1851 and have received 98 Pulitzer Prizes. That's more than any
other paper. In 1964 they took a case to the Supreme Court (Times v. Sullivan)
which further established freedom of the press. In 1971 they successfully
argued a Supreme Court case against the US government over a series of
articles which revealed the expansion of the Vietnam War at the same time
President Johnson was promising not to expand the war. There's no doubt they
have some major problems, but this is a very prestigious organization you're
talking about- not some crappy startup blog/amateur media outlet.

Your idea solves just about nothing and creates enormous problems. Running a
newspaper, or any business for that matter, involves a lot more than you've
taken into account.

~~~
andreyf
Good points. My post was moronic. I'd vote it down if I could.

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Alex3917
Serves them right for covering up the illegal wiretapping story to help Bush
win reelection. The sooner they are out of business the better. I personally
prefer to get my news from sources that don't conspire with the government to
promote genocide and the erosion of civil liberties.

~~~
jm4
Would you care to share any of those sources? I'm just curious. I've been
trying to get away from the Reuters/AP stuff myself and discovered The
Christian Science Monitor a while back. Despite the name it's not a religious
paper. Anyway, they employ their own staff of investigative reporters around
the world and do not rely on AP or Reuters. Their news is not updated as
frequently, but the content selection and writing is top notch. I was very
impressed.

Now to my point... I read up a little bit on the history of the paper. It was
founded in 1907 by a woman who had been targeted by the owner of the New York
World. By the way, this man goes by the name Joseph Pulitzer. She started the
paper so that she would have a forum to fight back. The lesson here is that
there is no such thing as a media outlet without some agenda. Sure, they may
not be conspiring with governments, but there is an agenda. It's important to
keep that in mind.

~~~
Alex3917
Personally I like Salon. They don't publish very often, but unlike newspapers
I don't find blatant errors in all the subjects I know anything about. Their
investigative journalism is pretty good too; they've covered everything from
NetHack to what really happened at Columbine HS. IIRC they even broke the
bridge to nowhere story and were the first to publish the Abu Ghraib photos.
It doesn't really have any agenda. The columnists tend to be socially liberal,
but it's clear the beliefs they're expressing are their own and not just what
they're told to write about. Think of it like Jon Stewart in newspaper form.

Anyway I don't think they are really ready to be a suitable replacement to the
NYT quite yet, but if the NYT goes bust and Salon were to scoop up some of the
talent and merge with a couple other independent outlets they might be able to
put together something good.

