Local rags

A few days ago, I read and loved but had little of use to add to this post from Athenae about the New York Times' consideration over charging for online content. I mean, what does one add to this?

Instead of being happy with their $237 million, which may or may not be the total across multiple newspapers but STILL, the Times wants to alienate its online readership with a stupid, counterproductive $5-per-month online subscription charge that is so small as to convey to those who pay it that said content is only worth $5 per month so why bother.

Which move would likely drive current page counts down through the basement all the way to at least the second circle of Hell, and as a consequence alienate the very online advertisers presently providing that $237 million in an effort to reach the Times' readership.

I used to think the problem with our current newspaper conversation was that the people talking had no idea how the Internet worked. In the past six months I've come to understand that they don't know how newspapers work. You use the size of your audience to sell people on reaching that audience. The bigger your audience, the more you can charge people for access to it. Publishers are pimps, that's all. All the changes in technical whatsits have not altered this formula one bit.

I thought I'd throw that up there now, though, because this month's ANTIGRAVITY features a full-page commentary from Leo McGovern on the business of print. You can download the full issue here in PDF, or better, just pick one up at your local coffee shop or other hipster hideaway. Leo has a several points worth mulling over but, in the interest of tying it together with Athenae's post, I wanted to draw particular attention to the following bits I have cut out.

Newspapers are failing right now for a number of reasons. It’s partly
because Craigslist eats up a great chunk of classified ads that daily and weekly papers relied on as a revenue stream. Also contributing, obviously, is the general economic situation, which has made spending money on advertising difficult for businesses. Part of the problem is circulation going on a downward spiral, meaning print readership in general is dwindling. Part of it is that as media ownership rules were de-regulated, corporate entities bought up newspapers (and radio stations, but that’s a different op-ed piece all-together), so as circulation and therefore ad revenue decreases those conglomerates have chosen to cut staff and page counts to meet a new (and lower) bottom line rather than, you know, focusing on quality and trying to drum up new readers by putting out a product people might actually want to read. The Times-Picayune is turning into a downright depressing read, in terms of quality and thickness (I know, the old saying comes up: “The food was horrible, and there was so little of it, but the two are related).

And then a bit later (yes, I know this is a lot of cutting and pasting)

Google “Who owns the Times-Picayune” and you’ll be led to Newhouse Newspapers. Google “Newhouse Newspapers” inturn and you’ll find a MediaOwners.com listing as the top result (what Google lists as the actual Newhouse Newspaper website, newhouse.com, seems to be the website for the National Federation of Republican Women), which says that Newhouse Newspapers is owned by Advance Publications (the CEO of which is someone by the name of Samuel I. Newhouse Jr.), which publishes The New Yorker, Vanity Fair, The Cleveland Plain Dealer, Parade and more. A murder’s row of publications for sure, but it’s sensible to wonder how far down Advance Publications’ list of priorities a shrinking newspaper in a small market can be. It should be noted that, as far as I know, every major monthly or weekly publication in the New Orleans area is locally owned.

Like I said, there's a lot in Leo's commentary I'm leaving out, including some interesting speculation as to what might make for a better T-P both in print and online. But the operative question here is, to what degree is the T-P's ownership structure a detriment to the quality of the paper it puts out? I'm pretty sure it explains why NOLA.com is such a crappy website but am unsure about how it has influenced some of the unfortunate recent decisions regarding the print edition. And there have been several of those; shrinking the Monday opinion page, dumping some favorite columns, reducing the Food section to near nothing, running a pointless and nationally focused "People" feature on the front of the Living section, just to name a few. How would you go about fixing this?