Newspapers Reveals Biggest Ad Revenue Plunge in More Than 50 Years (dinosaur media deathwatch)

editor and publisher ^ | 3-28-08 | Jennifer Saba

[Ogie Oglethorpe]

The really funny part is the little promo graph at the end of the story:

E&P Editor Greg Mitchell's new book is "So Wrong for So Long: How the Press, the Pundits -- and the President -- Failed on Iraq" (Union Square Press). It includes a foreword by famed war reporter Joe Galloway and a preface by Bruce Springsteen and has been hailed by vets leader Paul Rieckhoff.

This follows an article decrying the huge revenue loss in print media - they still absolutely refuse to get it.

What delicious irony...

[bert]

.....The drop-off points to an economic slowdown .....

They have a wonderful excuse. The believe their own economic crisis stories that tell of a nonexistant recession.

I though ads increased in down turns? To gin up business and energise customers to buy.

[PSYCHO-FREEP]

Haven’t subscribed to a newspaper in 8 years. My Home page (Townhall) comes in as fast as I can hit the “on” button and it updates every hour, unlike the dinosaur print that was obsolete at 5:00 0’clock A.M. after it was inked and rolled off the press.

[newnhdad]

That's pretty much what we do. We would make more money from offering advertising opportunities in those non-subscriber specials, than it costs to print and distribute the special pub.
It's worth it for the local markets and autoparts/hardware stores to get their flyers in the hands of people that don't get the Sunday paper.

We have a local rag that does this here. I actually read all the local fishwraps online so there's no need to subscribe.

[DesScorp]

How long until calls for government subsidies?

[abb]

ping

[Calvin Locke]

Isn’t E&P so far left, that the Slimes or AJConstipation seems neo Nazi by comparison?

[IrishCatholic]

A very well thought out post. I agree 100%.
Thank you for stating it so eloquently.

[Milhous]

Isn’t E&P so far left, that the Slimes or AJConstipation seems neo Nazi by comparison?

All the left's liberal fascists look the same to me, be they Nazis or Communists. :) The European Nielsen Company, adjudicator of American celebrity, operates E&P as a subsidiary.

[lonestar]

After I moved from Houston I got a bill from the Chronicle--to my Houston address. I called to tell them I had moved out of town and I had never subscribed to the Chronicle--I was a Post reader.

Some time later I read that the Chronicle had been found to be hiking their advertising costs by inflating the numbers of their subscibers. I assumed they listed me as a subscriber--who never was.

[Milhous]

Thanks for the opportunity to repost a golden oldie litany of fishwrap scandal...

Newsprint Circulation Scandals

Denver papers use liberal rules to boost circulation - 08/08/2005
Advertisers Sue 'Minneapolis Star Tribune' Over Circulation Inflation - 06/29/2005
Arrests made in Newsday circulation scandal - 06/16/2005
Belo Begins Refunding Advertisers Over Inflated Circulation Figures (Texas) - 05/02/2005
Newsday, Hoy publishers retire amid circulation scandal - 07/19/04
Tribune Company (LA Times parent) Admits Inflated Circulation Numbers At Two Papers - 06/23/2004

The Audit Bureau of Circulation recently lowered the bar.

An agreed proposal at ABC's March meeting means that publishers can now charge as little as 1c for their newspaper and still count them towards paid circulation. And they can opt in weekend subscribers to the daily edition without permission, as long as there is some way to opt out if the householder actually doesn't want it (how thoughtful!). Previously anything less than 25% of a declared full price just didn't count and subscribers had to actually want more newspapers in order to receive them.

Lowering the bar enables the entirety of dinofishwrap to ape the circulation practices of USA Today AKA "the nation's doormat." Post 16 illustrates the effectiveness of USA Today's business practice.

[Chode]

[RayChuang88]

Did you notice on that chart that the papers with the least losses are the conservative-leaning New York Post and the business-oriented Wall Street Journal? Does that say something about the editorial content of most of the newspapers in the USA?