Media General Inc. (MEG)
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MEG Forum Topics
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- General Discussion on MEG
- Newspaper Ad Revenues Gaining Downhill Momentum; Online Struggling Too [view article]
- 9 Questions on Newspapers' 2Q Reports [view article]
- Bad Week (and Decade) for Newspapers [view article]
- Help Wanted: Newspaper Classified Ad Sales Continue to Slide [view article]
- A Silver Lining in the Newspaper Crisis [view article]
- Wall Street Breakfast: Must-Know News [view article]
- What Do You Buy When You Buy a Newspaper Company? [view article]
- Rethinking Newspapers vs. the Internet [view article]
- Newspapers' 'Near Death Spiral,' Courtesy Web 2.0 [view article]
- Memo to Print: It’s the Multiples [view article]
- Ballmer on Newspapers: Wrong Again [view article]
- Microsoft's Ballmer Kills Print [view article]
loading ...Recent MEG Articles
- Newspaper Ad Revenues Gaining Downhill Momentum; Online Struggling Too
- 9 Questions on Newspapers' 2Q Reports
- Bad Week (and Decade) for Newspapers
- A Silver Lining in the Newspaper Crisis
- What Do You Buy When You Buy a Newspaper Company?
- Wall Street Breakfast: Must-Know News
- Whistling 'Taps' For Media Stocks
- Few Print Readers Use Local Newspaper Websites
- Rethinking Newspapers vs. the Internet
- Yahoo and the Newspaper Publishers: Playing with Fire
- Full List of Articles »
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Newspaper Ad Revenues Gaining Downhill Momentum; Online Struggling Too [view article]
getting rid of the neighborhood delivery teen did not help. ReplyNewspaper Ad Revenues Gaining Downhill Momentum; Online Struggling Too [view article]
As a 20 plus year veteran of the Newspaper industry...as an Advertising Management professional (Daily and Weekly, Shoppers, Family Owned, and Corporate Owned) I have an insiders opinion.Newspaper revenues have been self inflicted wounds. Family owned newspapers in smaller markets are in much better shape than newspapers in markets owned by corporations or large groups. Many of the problems can be repaired, or at least the declines arrested.
The main issues can be laid at the feet of top executives and publishers. Therefore, the problems can be corrected by examining them, and probably removing most of them.
The problem....lack of long term vision, and the wrong skill set to correct them. Corporate newspapers have valued only the immediate months' Operating Profit, and designed compensation programs accordingly. Corporate directors receive bonus payments based on either annual or divisional factors. This system has focused on the very short term performance financially.
Virtually no focus is placed on the fundamentals of the business. Adding to this, high level managers at the local and corporate level have changed in professional fields of expertise. Over the past 10 years, most local publishers and higher corporate types are now financial managers- accountants- not Editors, Advertising, or Circulation types. Think of that for a moment, and you can begin to see a large part of the long term problem.
Newspapers have traditionally attracted people interested in reading news that is important to them. Advertising was strong, because local advertisers could rely on both strong readership of their ads, and affordable ad rates that reflected return on investment. Both have been seriously eroded, and may be too late to correct.
Readership has been eroded, because senior management directed focus on short term bonus' for themselves. Examples...the refusal to invest resources and time for local Circulation managers to build home delivery services of newspapers. Instead, a practice of artificially "puffing" circulation is the focus. Almost all newspapers now have NIE departments (Newspaper In Education). Sounds good on the surface, however, the main reason the departments exist, and the main responsibility, is getting large bulk sales to schools paid for by businesses. That is then called "paid circulation" and reported as such to the ABC (Audit Bureau of Circulation). Another practice is to "wrap" a newspaper with a "jacket" of newsprint with ads on it. That "jacket" is paid for by advertisers, then dropped at hotels etc, perhaps at major league sporting events or concerts. Then, that entire pressrun is counted as "paid" as well. Using a newspaper to help reading programs is not really the circulation Advertisers are counting on. Nor is a free newspaper at the hotel desk. Home delivery is the most important, with paid single copy sales next.
The problem? Real newspaper circulation is far less than stated. The consequence is that ads don't reach real readers, and ads don't work as well as in the past. This "puffed" circulation is the basis that ad rates are sold to advertisers.
Why does this matter? Many publishers receive bonus based on circulation increases, not the type of circulation. Ad rates have also faced similar issues. Circulation goes down, ad rates go up, and results for those advertisers go down as well. In the online area, Publishers refuse to re think the model. Classified ad rates were raised artificially and forced online, with no infra structure to give that online ad a chance to work. It was done simply to add revenue. Results for the customer were not considered. That inflated price gave rise to Craigslist, Monster, and many others that have eroded Classified ads.
Display advertising is no different. Less real circulation, yet higher rate. What other industry does that? Give you less, but charge you more. Very poor execution of the online revenue model. Many publishers try to count online pageviews as extra circuation. Marginally true, but the print advertiser gets NO benefit of it, and the online only advertiser gets no benefit from the print. So, not completely accurate to "spin" online pageviews as circulation to advertisers
In the newsroom, the head counts have been drastically slashed. The only reason anyone even buys a newspaper is to read the news. The problem is not so much the cuts, as WHO has been cut, or quit. The more tenured and experienced the newsperson, the more likely they are to be be gone from today's newsroom.
At some point, there will be an executive in one of the companies that will state the obvious, and make some bold decisions. If the CEO does not fire them immediately, the changes needed will be done, and the newspaper industry will recover in some form. Until then, the death spiral will continue. The market will crush many of them, and only a few will survive. Local family owned newspapers have a better chance of survival, because they tend to make better long term decisions.
Think of it this way...an NFL team cuts it's best quarterback, running backs, line, and defense, but KEEPS the rookies and third stringers! Then expects the team to win the Superbowl, and expects you to pay the full ticket price to watch em! Then, the executive is surprised by an empty stadium!!
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Newspaper Ad Revenues Gaining Downhill Momentum; Online Struggling Too [view article]
it can be true even if we dont like it. newspapers can go the way of the buggywhip.most kids that i know are not interested in the news,nevermind the newspaper.in my day,last century,most kids at least read the paper for the cartoons.there is no future for print with most of todays kids & they are the future.the world will survive. ReplyNewspaper Ad Revenues Gaining Downhill Momentum; Online Struggling Too [view article]
this and also telephone book ad decline is just as steep and t.v. news ads are way down. tech is changing everything and it's not an advertising recession when it comes to some of this. newspapers will not recover substantially nor will the phone books or t.v. news.the only spot left is the web and the recession IS the impact there. Reply
Newspaper Ad Revenues Gaining Downhill Momentum; Online Struggling Too [view article]
I maintain models of (NAA) ad expenditures trends and I must say I was totally surprised by the Q2 results for online. The $777 million is in the zero percentile in a one period ahead series. I was forecasting the 2008 aggregate expenditure to be $39.4 bilion and 2009 to be $34.6 billion. It's going to be worse than that. Additionally, for some time now, newspaper ad exps have been disconnected from macroeconomic indicators. These recent trends are not cyclical. ReplyNewspaper Ad Revenues Gaining Downhill Momentum; Online Struggling Too [view article]
Amazing decline. Do you have a sense of the breakdown in online between classified and display? I see a ton of display inventory flowing through main pages on newspaper sites, which continue to be healthy, so is classified the culprit, or are the ad rates driving down on display? Reply9 Questions on Newspapers' 2Q Reports [view article]
To answer question 9, the short answer is "not much if any". A trend line model (ARIMA) and forecast (Monte Carlo) show a decline of 13% in 2008 and an additional 12% in 2009. Interestingly, when I build the last three recessions into the model, there is only a slight change in the expected values. There are going to be major realignments over the short term...and a very rough ride for some. ReplyDispundit
Bad Week (and Decade) for Newspapers [view article]
Newspapers and traditional media compete via litigation not by inovation. It's their culture.... That is why the legal budgets for news exceeds the editorial budgets.What is worse is that the national news media in the USA is still predominantly a monopoly controlled by the associated press...and we all know how they feel about the internet. Reply
9 Questions on Newspapers' 2Q Reports [view article]
No, other's will take Google's ad model and do it one better. But as a dominant market facilitator they do have time and have done wonderful preparing for the future mid and long-term. Just like K-Mart became less dominant then Wal Mart or Yahoo less dominant for Google. Was Google so wizbang or did it do something so simple and powerful to save a web-surfers time?Online ad vendors are crooked in general. Fraud is rampant and Google was not fully except from this behavior. See Google's class action lawsuit. They are cleaning up there act fast and they should, search is about the only decent performing sector of online ads.
Consolidation of major companies such as Omnicom combined with online ad networks like Ad.com and then throw in data companies like Alliance and your form some pretty serious competition. Right now, like Google for the short term and mid-term, we'll have to see what the longer term brings in economic correction that effects the entire ad market across the board.
I have no position in Google but am in Consumer Healthcare/Online Marketing, Clinical Trials etc. Reply
Bad Week (and Decade) for Newspapers [view article]
Newspapers really have a lot of opportunity to lock in current customers and gain new ones, especially the young adults that read online.1.Stop hardcopy print and buy all current and future customers computers.
2. Have the IT dept control and lock in the Newspaper for the default home page.
3. Have the IT dept run a screen saver with clients’ ads 24/7 that are clickable.
This would allow ads to run 24/7 in millions of homes and the locked-in home page would be priceless. These tasks can be done through coding. This would give the newspapers a fighting chance. Reply
Bad Week (and Decade) for Newspapers [view article]
what would the world be like without the ny time??? ReplyBad Week (and Decade) for Newspapers [view article]
Half right. Many newspaper/media companies were hot on the trail of their online futures from 1998-2001. The inflection point was the perfect storm of 9/11, dotcom crash, and economic downturn of late 2001-early 2002. Old media guys in senior management freaked out and went into wagon circling mode; new product development went out the window, and it became the cost-cutting show. What you see is the results. Replyfredrickson
9 Questions on Newspapers' 2Q Reports [view article]
It is sad what has happened to newspapers around the country. Every day the stock price of all the publicly owned companies goes deeper into the tank. The real estate mess and job boards have siphoned huge cash flow for newspapers, and that business is not coming back.Will Google own the world, and all that is reported in 10 years? Reply
Bad Week (and Decade) for Newspapers [view article]
Good piece, no sugarcoating."The newspaper industry is notorious for copying each others’ design, circulation and advertising tips..." seems to be the current strategy for "escaping the complacency of the past four decades." The bad thing is, they don't have anybody to copy. Reply
fisayo
Help Wanted: Newspaper Classified Ad Sales Continue to Slide [view article]
We have got money to lend out to serious and prosprctive customers and all kind of business firms.Email:vinfinanci... Reply