Howard_T

What's the Boston Globe Worth? About a Buck

If the Globe could somehow convert itself into an "all sports pages" newspaper, it would likely recover much of its circulation and reduce costs significantly. Say what you might about the rest of the newspaper, its sports pages are excellent. Here are found some of the best sports writing and reporting in the US, and the talent pool runs deep. As has been pointed out above, the left-leaning editorial stance and reporting bias have cost the Globe much of its readership. The movement away from the near suburbs to the exurbs over the last 50 years has removed some of the incentive to buy the paper (any newspaper). "Back in the day" you could take a bus to the nearest MTA stop and read the paper during your daily commute. It's not easy to read the paper while behind the wheel of your automobile at 65 on route 128. Now a newspaper is attractive only to relay the news of what's happening in your local region, to get the grocery store ads, and to keep up with local government. National news is too easily available in the 30-second sound bite variety on your TV, or in greater depth (though with much more fog to penetrate) on your computer. A large metropolitan newspaper cannot satisfy the local angle without having to publish many regional editions. The Globe has tried this with little success and great expense.

I guess what I'm saying is that the days of the metropolitan daily are just about done. The reason for the success of the Globe's sports pages is the size of the regional attraction of the Boston-based sports teams. Everyone in the area wants to know what the Red Sox have done last night. If someone could come up with a business model that unites the local papers and their local news gathering operations with the sports, national news reporting, and editorial writing (without the bias) of a metropolitan daily, he might have something profitable.