Big hurt: Washington Post's struggle

Media Life Magazine ^ | 3/17/06 | Barton Biggs

[LdSentinal]

It’s the plight of so many American newspapers: declining circulation, flat or declining advertising revenues, rising newsprint costs. But it's a plight that seems to be hurting The Washington Post more.

The Post announced just a week ago that it would be eliminating some 80 newsroom positions over the next year. That’s close to 10 percent of its reporters and editors.

In some ways, the move isn’t really a surprise. Cuts and layoffs are increasingly common elsewhere. Not a week goes by that some paper somewhere in America isn't announcing yet another round of newsroom cuts.

What's significant is who’s making the cuts. The Post is one of America’s most celebrated newspapers, a Pulitzer Prize winner times over, and also among the best-managed. Which raises the question: If one of America top papers is suffering so, what does it say for the future of all the rest?

Post management is downplaying the staffing cuts, pointing out that they will come through attrition and buyouts, not layoffs. They also insist that the Post is in better shape financially than many papers. It's positioning the cuts as part of a larger plan that will actually improve overall news coverage.

But the paper’s publisher is candid about the financial realities.

"During the past year newspaper revenues have flattened while expenses--particularly newsprint--have continued to rise," Boisfeuillet Jones Jr. wrote in an internal memo to staff.

The Post will not reveal circulation and ad revenue figures to Media Life, but data available elsewhere paints an alarming picture. Ad revenue is up just slightly over the past five years, to $783.5 million last year from $770.6 million in 2000, according to TNS Media Intelligence.

But circulation has tumbled, falling by 137,695 for the weekday paper in the past decade, from 816,474 for the year ended Sept. 30, 1995 to 678,779 for the six-month period ended Oct. 2, 2005. That's a decline of 17 percent. That's according to numbers from the Audit Bureau of Circulations, the latter of which has not been audited yet and is based on publisher statements.

If the Post must struggle to hold onto readers, other papers must be in real trouble, or so it would seem.

Analyst John Morton says what the Post is experiencing is in some ways typical, the result of online publications taking a bigger bite out of print newspapers. He does not see that changing.

“Generally speaking, their circulation will continue to decline,” Morton said yesterday. “I don’t know that there’s any solution.”

What makes the Post unusual is that its circulation is sinking faster than that of many other newspapers around the country.

And there are several reasons for it. One is sheer size. With such a huge circulation, among the largest in the country, the Post's subscriber losses will be that much greater in total numbers.

Another, as Morton points out, is that the Post has enjoyed a deeper household penetration in its market. So as the city and the region change, as the ethnic mix shifts, the paper faces even greater challenges in maintaining those penetration levels.

Too, the Post faces increasing competition, and not just from the internet. It now competes against two other dailies, the Washington Times and now the Washington Examiner. There are then a whole slew of free papers and magazines.

“Big city newspapers are feeling it more because there are more choices in big cities,” says Morton. “There’s an awful lot of competition.”

It’s still unclear how much the new, free, Washington Examiner is cutting into the Post’s readership. But Morton says that anytime you get a new entry into the market it’s bound to increase the pressure.

Post management insists they will not cave into the pressures by compromising their high editorial standards, or allowing the overall quality of the paper to decline. But, if there’s a lesson in the Post’s woes, it’s that quality does not neccessarily hold the key to salvation.

It certainly doesn't hold the key to halting the Post’s declining circulation numbers.

So, how low could they eventually go? “I don’t have a clue,” Morton says. “And neither does anyone else.”

[DCPatriot]

May the circulation and finances of the Washington Compost continue to decline at an accelerating rate.

May a molotov cocktail....oh, nevermind!

[Grampa Dave]

Well, look at this little disclosure. One of the most expensive stocks in America appears to have the Enron Virus which leads to Enroning/cooking the books.

The Post will not reveal circulation and ad revenue figures to Media Life, but data available elsewhere paints an alarming picture. Ad revenue is up just slightly over the past five years, to $783.5 million last year from $770.6 million in 2000, according to TNS Media Intelligence.

But circulation has tumbled, falling by 137,695 for the weekday paper in the past decade, from 816,474 for the year ended Sept. 30, 1995 to 678,779 for the six-month period ended Oct. 2, 2005. That's a decline of 17 percent. That's according to numbers from the Audit Bureau of Circulations, the latter of which has not been audited yet and is based on publisher statements.

Warning to all Freepers. You should check your mutual funds to see if they are supporting these left wing dinosaurs: WPO, NYT and TRB. If so, you might want to trade those funds for those without the Enron virus/time bombs, aka, cooking their books.

[Tribune7]

ping

[tiki]

They are committing suicide but they want to blame others for their murder.

If they just printed the news as it is and not how they wanted us to see it, people would buy their paper. Why would anyone pay to read lies and half-truths and opinion presented as the truth on the front page?

[Miss Marple]

Well, I hope one of those laid off is Dana Milbank, whose entire responsibility at the newspaper seems to be writing snarky anti-Bush columns.

Another one who should go is their odious fashion critic, who seems to spend all of her time making up insults about how Republican women dress.

I hate the Washington Post, and I hope they are caught up in a huge Enron-like scandal and have to close their doors.

[Nick Danger]

[NautiNurse]

[devolve]

[defenderSD]

"Think they'll ever get a clue?"

I don't think so. They did this to themselves by condoning the heavy left-leaning political bias in their newspaper. The left-leaning bias of the MSM, along with the rise of internet media, is fragmenting the news market into a full spectrum of old and new media covering the entire range of political views. The MSM has already lost half of their market and in a marketing sense they're positioning themselves as left-wing media, which means they will lose another 25% of their customers in the next ten years.

I love it, the way these obviously biased, leftist newspapers are losing customers and influence at a rapid pace. Go Rush Go! Rush, Sean, Hewitt, and Medved are taking their customers.

[defenderSD]

"Another one who should go is their odious fashion critic, who seems to spend all of her time making up insults about how Republican women dress."

LOL. You'd think the liberals at the Post would be more concerned about the operession of women in the Middle East. But no, they can barely see beyond our Atlantic coast, and I sense they have little interest in anything happening between the eastern city line of Los Angeles and the western city line of Pittsburgh. We here in Arizona are viewed as these dangerous, gun-toteing bumpkins by the educated, "cultured" (and thoroughly dumbed-down) writers at the Washington Post.

[defenderSD]

Indeed, the WashPost has burned their bridges with conservatives in the American heartland.

[Liz]

Heheh----Enron Virus and the WashPo's got it.........nice zinger.

[TASMANIANRED]

Appears that there are fewer consumers of liberal propaganda.

[Interesting Times]

“Generally speaking, their circulation will continue to decline,” Morton said yesterday. “I don’t know that there’s any solution.”

What makes the Post unusual is that its circulation is sinking faster than that of many other newspapers around the country.

Ooooooo.

Pinch me.

[righttackle44]

"That’s close to 10 percent of its reporters and editors."

All right, everybody! Sopranoes and tenors to the right,
Altos, baritones and basses to the left.

Okay, if you would, please, a c7 chord in E-flat, after four.

One, two, three, four.

AAAWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW.

[Interesting Times]

"We are mystified about how this could be happening."

[Interesting Times]

Unholy glee ping.

[righttackle44]

". . .the paper faces even greater challenges in maintaining those penetration levels."

Is he talking newspaper circulation and market share, or rape?

[alrea]

IBD has a great editorial today about the decline of the old media...

"A ritual narrative developed: Social tensions and economic disparities always arose from an unregulated zone of life. The world's problems could always be laid at U.S. foreign policy. Top prizes went to stories premised on the need for tighter political control or a more "sophisticated" acceptance of other nations' statecraft.

This set of ideas, though unacknowledged by the craft's practitioners, came to be known as "liberalism." The philosophy had a good run, from William Paley's building of CBS through the Sulzberger dynasty at The New York Times. It remains in evidence at NBC, ABC and CNN, as well as at the expanded McClatchy empire and the still-dominant Gannett chain."

[zot]

Unholy glee ping.

Revenge is a dish that is best served cold, but gloating is tasty at all temperatures.