This will break your heart
.....................................................
Big hurt: Washington Post's struggle
Media Life Magazine ^ | 3/17/06 | Barton Biggs
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.” |
