I was sorting through some of my father’s belonging recently and came across the 1941 souvenir edition of the Honolulu Star-Bulletin (Jan 8, 1941), “The March of Hawaii.” Its lead story was the reorganization and strengthening of the Pacific Fleet and the appointment of Admiral H.E. Kimmel to head it.
My father acquired the paper while stationed in Hawaii with the Army Air Corps. Eleven months later the U.S. was at war, with Kimmel taking heat for having the bulk of his capital ships anchored in Pearl Harbor during the Japanese attack.
I was reminded of the find this week while reading the news that Gannett has agreed to sell the Honolulu Advertiser to the Star-Bulletin. The two have a 130-year history of competition, somewhat muffled until they escaped their relatively difficult marriage in a joint operating agreement between 1960s and the millennium. Now the smaller paper is buying the bigger paper, if it can comply with or skirt antitrust provisions.
We are now in the last throes of consolidation of the newspaper industry, brought on by audiences shifting to television, cable channels, and the Internet for news and information, and advertisers following audiences. The consequence is the newspapering has become a monopoly business in more than 1360 cities and towns and big city papers—even when they are monopolies—are having difficulties competing for advertising dollars. Only two percent of cities have competing dailies.
This change calls into the question the traditional view that a competing press is the foundation of democracy. If competition among perspectives on news and information is necessary for democratic functions, we have to think of it beyond the printed press and begin recognizing the important functions provided by other providers of news, information, and commentary.
Rather than constantly challenging their abilities to carry out functions in the same way as the press once did, we need to find ways to support and improve their activities—whether they be broadcast or Internet based. And we need to find ways to ensure that the papers remaining in place reevaluate their democratic functions and find ways to provide service to the spectrum of observations and ideas that has been diminished by the newspapers monopolies that now dominate our land.
Showing posts with label joint operating agreements. Show all posts
Showing posts with label joint operating agreements. Show all posts
Saturday, February 27, 2010
Tuesday, March 10, 2009
THE DEAD AND THE DYING
Judging from the continuing panicked commentary by big media journalists and commentators, newspapers are dead and dying. They are comatose, the family is gathering at the bedside, and quiet discussions are taking place about whether to disconnect them from life support.
Walter Isaacson writing in Time Magazine last week told us that “the crisis in journalism has reached meltdown proportions” and that we can save newspapers by starting to make micropayments for articles we read online.
http://www.time.com/time/business/article/0,8599,1877191-4,00.html
David Carr, writing in New York Times, this week tells us that a “digitally enabled free fall in ads and audience now has burly guys circling major daily newspapers with plywood and nail guns.” We need to start charging for news, forcing aggregators to pay, turn away from ad support, and start thinking about new ways of collaboration even if they require a new antitrust exemption.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/09/business/media/09carr.html?emc=eta1
Jonathan Zimmermann writing in Christian Science Monitors tells us “The American newspaper is dead.” And that we can save its functions by having professors write for the public.
(http://news.yahoo.com/s/csm/20090309/cm_csm/yzimmerman)
Nickle and dime-ing readers like the airlines? Special treatment from the government? Relying on professors to tell us what's going on? Have journalists gone mad?
It some ways they have. They are panicking at problems in big city media and ignoring the fact that most newspapers are relatively stable and reasonably healthy. The only newspapers experiencing serious competitive difficulties are those in the top 25 markets (about 1 percent of the total) and these are joined in suffering by corporate newspaper companies whose executives have made serious managerial mistakes.
Journalists are sometimes their own worst enemies, and this is one such time. Through overly pessimistic outlooks and sweeping generalization, they may be hastening the obituaries of some weak papers by making readers and advertisers think their serve no purpose today.
Discussion of the newspaper industry’s situation is confused because many observers do not separate its short-term problems with the economy from the challenges of long-term trends. Then they compound that problem by using papers as examples of industry developments that are unrepresentative because of their market situations and managerial errors.
Most newspapers continued making profits up to the current financial crisis and many papers whose parents went into bankruptcy were doing likewise. They will make profits again when the recession ends as they have done in the past.
The Rocky Mountain News did not die because the newspaper industry is in trouble, but because it was the secondary paper in the market and the joint operating agreement was not enough to save it. Several other JOA papers are on their way to oblivion for the same reasons. The Journal Register Co. and Tribune Co. went into bankruptcy not because its newspapers were unable to survive but because its management took on far too much corporate debt.
Clearly, large metro papers are suffering from the effects of competition from television, cable, and Internet. But that same pain is not being felt by most of the nation’s papers that operate in small and mid-sized towns and are the primary or only significant provider of news in their communities. They will continue to survive for many years because their content is unique and because their local advertisers are not well served by other media options.
What we need is a dose of realism in the discussion of the journalistic situation today. Most papers are NOT in the hospital, let alone comatose. The dead and the dying may be there and if so it is because they can't figure out how to give readers something worth paying for.
Walter Isaacson writing in Time Magazine last week told us that “the crisis in journalism has reached meltdown proportions” and that we can save newspapers by starting to make micropayments for articles we read online.
http://www.time.com/time/business/article/0,8599,1877191-4,00.html
David Carr, writing in New York Times, this week tells us that a “digitally enabled free fall in ads and audience now has burly guys circling major daily newspapers with plywood and nail guns.” We need to start charging for news, forcing aggregators to pay, turn away from ad support, and start thinking about new ways of collaboration even if they require a new antitrust exemption.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/09/business/media/09carr.html?emc=eta1
Jonathan Zimmermann writing in Christian Science Monitors tells us “The American newspaper is dead.” And that we can save its functions by having professors write for the public.
(http://news.yahoo.com/s/csm/20090309/cm_csm/yzimmerman)
Nickle and dime-ing readers like the airlines? Special treatment from the government? Relying on professors to tell us what's going on? Have journalists gone mad?
It some ways they have. They are panicking at problems in big city media and ignoring the fact that most newspapers are relatively stable and reasonably healthy. The only newspapers experiencing serious competitive difficulties are those in the top 25 markets (about 1 percent of the total) and these are joined in suffering by corporate newspaper companies whose executives have made serious managerial mistakes.
Journalists are sometimes their own worst enemies, and this is one such time. Through overly pessimistic outlooks and sweeping generalization, they may be hastening the obituaries of some weak papers by making readers and advertisers think their serve no purpose today.
Discussion of the newspaper industry’s situation is confused because many observers do not separate its short-term problems with the economy from the challenges of long-term trends. Then they compound that problem by using papers as examples of industry developments that are unrepresentative because of their market situations and managerial errors.
Most newspapers continued making profits up to the current financial crisis and many papers whose parents went into bankruptcy were doing likewise. They will make profits again when the recession ends as they have done in the past.
The Rocky Mountain News did not die because the newspaper industry is in trouble, but because it was the secondary paper in the market and the joint operating agreement was not enough to save it. Several other JOA papers are on their way to oblivion for the same reasons. The Journal Register Co. and Tribune Co. went into bankruptcy not because its newspapers were unable to survive but because its management took on far too much corporate debt.
Clearly, large metro papers are suffering from the effects of competition from television, cable, and Internet. But that same pain is not being felt by most of the nation’s papers that operate in small and mid-sized towns and are the primary or only significant provider of news in their communities. They will continue to survive for many years because their content is unique and because their local advertisers are not well served by other media options.
What we need is a dose of realism in the discussion of the journalistic situation today. Most papers are NOT in the hospital, let alone comatose. The dead and the dying may be there and if so it is because they can't figure out how to give readers something worth paying for.
Saturday, January 10, 2009
POST-INTELLIGENCER SALE SHOWS JOINT OPERATING AGREEMENTS AREN'T EFFECTIVE
The announcement that the Seattle Post-Intelligencer is being put up for sale—a legally required step before shutting down the paper because it is in a joint operating agreement—has stunned many of its journalists. Their reactions, in news stories and their own blogs, reflect the continuing state of denial that their profession exists within a news business affected by financial and economic forces. Or, at least, their belief that it should be immune from them.
It should comes as no surprise that Hearst Corp. is seeking to end publication of the P-I. Its joint operation with Seattle Times has been an unhappy marriage and it has not been financially effective for many years. Changes made in the agreement in recent years have been insufficient to turn the operation around and the paper and JOA operation have continued to be a financial drain on its participants.
A similar offer-for-sale-before-shutting-down process is underway in Denver, where the Rocky Mountain News is likely to cease publication because E.W. Scripps Company is no longer willing to continue bearing its losses.
Joint operating agreements have been seen by many in the industry as a way of keeping two newspapers operating within the same city, but JOAs have been a continual failure since they were authorized in 1970. The biggest problem is that JOAs ignore the basic economics of newspaper publishing and merely provide benefits from a newspaper antitrust exemption that allows collusion on advertising and circulation prices, market division, and other acts prohibited by federal law. Those benefits were never enough to “save” papers in the long run, but allowed publishers to gain a limited period of time to try to squeeze more money out of the operations.
The vast majority of troubled papers in the past 4 decades were never able to get the leading paper in their towns to enter a joint operating agreement and they ceased publication without one. Even the majority of those that entered JOAs saw one paper cease publication. Only 9 JOAs that publish two papers still remain in force and it looks like it will soon be 7.
Two years ago I published a scholarly article on how JOAs end and I warned that Seattle exhibited many of the negative conditions that were likely to lead to its demise. And that was before the economic downturn. Sometimes I hate getting things right.
_________________________
Link to article Natural Death, Euthanasia, and Suicide: The Demise of Joint Operating Agreements http://www.robertpicard.net/PDFFiles/JOADemise.pdf
It should comes as no surprise that Hearst Corp. is seeking to end publication of the P-I. Its joint operation with Seattle Times has been an unhappy marriage and it has not been financially effective for many years. Changes made in the agreement in recent years have been insufficient to turn the operation around and the paper and JOA operation have continued to be a financial drain on its participants.
A similar offer-for-sale-before-shutting-down process is underway in Denver, where the Rocky Mountain News is likely to cease publication because E.W. Scripps Company is no longer willing to continue bearing its losses.
Joint operating agreements have been seen by many in the industry as a way of keeping two newspapers operating within the same city, but JOAs have been a continual failure since they were authorized in 1970. The biggest problem is that JOAs ignore the basic economics of newspaper publishing and merely provide benefits from a newspaper antitrust exemption that allows collusion on advertising and circulation prices, market division, and other acts prohibited by federal law. Those benefits were never enough to “save” papers in the long run, but allowed publishers to gain a limited period of time to try to squeeze more money out of the operations.
The vast majority of troubled papers in the past 4 decades were never able to get the leading paper in their towns to enter a joint operating agreement and they ceased publication without one. Even the majority of those that entered JOAs saw one paper cease publication. Only 9 JOAs that publish two papers still remain in force and it looks like it will soon be 7.
Two years ago I published a scholarly article on how JOAs end and I warned that Seattle exhibited many of the negative conditions that were likely to lead to its demise. And that was before the economic downturn. Sometimes I hate getting things right.
_________________________
Link to article Natural Death, Euthanasia, and Suicide: The Demise of Joint Operating Agreements http://www.robertpicard.net/PDFFiles/JOADemise.pdf
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