Why the New York Times Won't Cease Printing

The end of the world is nigh! Or the end of the print edition of the NYT (NYT), anyway, at least according to Michael Hirschorn, in a piece which has been generally well-received by the blogosphere. For me, however, the article makes very little sense: Hirschorn seems to think that given a choice between defaulting on debt payments and stopping its print presses, the Sulzbergers might choose the latter. But they wouldn't: For one thing that's not a decision the NYT's lenders would actually want, and for another thing the New York Times Company has any number of assets it could sell off, especially in Boston, before taking such a drastic move.

Hirschorn also seems to think that the newspaper might soon be up for sale, if it isn't already, and reels off a familiar list of potential buyers: Geffen, Bloomberg, Slim, Murdoch (NWS), Google (GOOG), Microsoft (MSFT), CBS (CBS). But even they can't save the print edition, he says:

At some point soon -- sooner than most of us think -- the print edition, and with it The Times as we know it, will no longer exist. And it will likely have plenty of company.

The second part is right: Many smaller newspapers will close their print editions, which have lost the classified-advertising bread-and-butter revenue stream upon which they've historically relied.

But The New York Times is not a small newspaper. It has an enormous display-advertisement inventory, and sells most of it at high rates. It's also incredibly well placed to go national, as smaller papers close, and become a replacement for people who've lost their local paper and who shudder at the prospect of ever reading USA Today.

Hirschorn, by contrast, is thinking small: He calls the Huffington Post "the prototype for the future of journalism", and singles out the NYT's DealBook blog as "a cash cow for The Times". I'm not sure what Hirschorn's idea of a cash cow is, but that characterization just looks strange coming, as it does, in the wake of Hirschorn's easy dismissal of the extremely-lucrative T Magazine as "lifestyle fluff". I can assure Hirschorn that DealBook's email ads make a lot less money than T's luxury gloss.

And then, to top it all off, there's this:

As of December, its stock had fallen so far that the entire company could theoretically be had for about $1 billion. The former Times executive editor Abe Rosenthal often said he couldn't imagine a world without The Times. Perhaps we should start.

Er, no. The NYT has two classes of stock, as Hirschorn knows full well: The secondary-market price of the non-voting stock can't simply be extrapolated to get the amount that someone would need to pay for voting control. And in any case, $1 billion is still a lot of money. To put that number in perspective, over the past four quarters, the New York Times Company has lost about $30 million. I think it's pretty safe to say that the NYT is going to continue to exist in its present form for quite a long time yet.

Comments

[Marc Wein:]

Anyone who does not believe that NYT could stop printing probably also believed that keeping money with Bernie Madoff was a sure thing. Sometimes, the might fall!

Jan 07 12:52 PM

[E Thomas St.:]

The other side of that coin believes in the inevitability of the Times not printing another edition on paper.


On Jan 07 12:52 PM Marc Wein wrote:

> Anyone who does not believe that NYT could stop printing probably
> also believed that keeping money with Bernie Madoff was a sure thing.
> Sometimes, the might fall!

Jan 07 01:54 PM

[speculari:]

boo hoo

Jan 07 09:23 PM

[Smarty_Pants:]

The internet is taking big bites out of the print news business. Economically it's a whole lot cheaper to 'publish' a blog than print a newspaper for distribution. Advertising on a blog is a lot cheaper too.

With a low cost of entry and virtually no cost of publication a well run web site can easily rival a major newspaper for customers without charging anything. Think Drudge and WorldNetDaily among many others.

In addition, it is apparent to anyone that major newspapers have become little more than political cheerleaders. The 'free press' has in large part abdicated its role as a political watchdog for the public and instead functions more as a defacto propaganda arm of the power centers than anything.

How many established major newspapers questioned the Bush administration's ever-changing reasons for invading Iraq? Every 'reason' put forth was heralded by the MSM without critical thought, until the blogoshphere poured forth so many facts that the falsehood couldn't be denied.

At that point, the administration would claim a different reason was the deciding factor all along, and again the MSM parroted these statements without question only to see the entire process repeat. From backing 911, to harboring Osama, to WMD, to getting the evil Saddam, to spreading democracy, not a single critical thought from the MSM, either in broadcast or print. Rah, rah, go Executive branch, go!

Which major newspaper has bothered to do a meaningful piece on the FED's role in causing the current credit crisis, or even presented a factual analysis of how modern fiat backed fractional reserve banking fuels asset bubbles? Or the gross conflict of interest with Paulson and the GS bailout, which is apparent to even the casual observer?

None that I am aware of, they all toe the line and drone on in support of the Keynesian theory that you can borrow your way to wealth and that the Treasury "HAD" to bail out bankers who got caught with both hands in the cookie jar.

The fact is that what the NYT claims it is providing in the way of news isn't what the public really wants or needs. It can get thoughtful material for free on the internet without much effort and that's what it is doing in ever growing numbers.

Remove the social information like fashion, art, literature, theatre, crossword puzzles, or street closings, and there's not much left that passes for actual "news" which can't be seen as horridly biased.

As for the NYT ability to weather losses, to paraphrase one of our elected officials, "$30 million here, $30 million there, pretty soon you're talking real money." But hey, there's always the TARP. Maybe the NYT can convert to a bank holding company in order to qualify for a bailout.

Jan 08 09:51 AM

[Mick Weinstein:]

see Rick Edmonds in Poynter on this
www.poynter.org/column...

Jan 08 12:49 PM

[notsosmart:]

the coming generation has no interest in the nyt.dead paper walking(printing)..

Jan 08 04:03 PM

[Gisi:]

Despite how NYT has been doing on its balance sheet, I do still believe they have a large market. Yes, companies are buckling up on advertising costs, which makes up a bulk of the NYT profits. On the other hand, while the Internet is a completely accessible and easier-to-read news source, many people are still loyal to the actual newspaper. It's not just about the news, or the fashion, magazine, crossword, etc. that Smarty mentioned. When you're commuting somewhere, how would you get access to the Internet, for example? Not everyone is connected everywhere... yet. I think that until the Internet can replace the newspaper in that sense (complete omnipresence), then the NYT will be facing a crisis.

Jan 10 12:12 AM

[Gisi:]

Excuse me, typo in my last comment. I meant that until the Internet can replace the newspaper in that sense, then NYT will be fine.

Jan 10 12:13 AM

[Brad Christ...:]

The New York Daily News, The new York Post and the few other assorted daily papers have been on their "Death Bed' many times by the media and so called media experts. The New York Times will out live you, me and the experts who are now predicting it's demise. Time will tell, no pun intended!!

bc~

Jan 14 06:40 PM