Looks like Pinch Sulzberger is facing some stiff carping from the NYT's shareholders and there are rumors of the dynastic family being pushed to move the paper's Internet migration at a faster pace. The Telegraph reports "outside investors" are also trying to loosen the iron grip the long time owners have had on the Gray Lady. The feelings of these outsiders is that the Times will fail if it doesn't realize that the times they are a changin'.
The Sulzberger-Ochs family has controlled what is arguably America’s most influential newspaper since 1896. Next month outside investors will try to make the family loosen its grip. It is shaping up to be a spectacular battle.
Of course the reason is that the NYT is lagging too far behind in their attention to the Internet. Some of you may recall the abject failure the paper's premium content program was, this being an example of its failed Internet ideas. As the Telegraph reports: "Dissident shareholders and other critics say Sulzberger is moving too slowly into the digital age and putting one of the world’s great news brands in jeopardy."
The Telegraph also reports that one former NYT executive said, "The prevailing philosophy of the place is that we are the Times and as long as we carry on doing what we do, the money will come." This arrogant, short-sighted assumption held by the NYT rings a death knell if there ever was one.
Jeff Jarvis, an Internet analyst, warned the Telegraph that the NYT better act to change their business model... and quick.
“The New York Times thinks it’s a temple - and in some senses it is. But it needs to radically rethink how it does business,” said Jarvis. He said Gannett, owner of USA Today and chains of local papers, had been more proactive in its online strategy.
The Telegraph report also said something else that is very interesting:
"That place is more like a government agency or a tenured university system than a business,” said one former employee. “Their opposition is the government, not other media companies."
Now this comment rings entirely true. The NYT imagines itself somehow guaranteed its spot as the highest profile newspaper in the country, if not the world. It assumes such an air of entitlement that it seems to imagine that profit is unimportant. And it certainly has no interest in serving the public -- only in engaging in it's ideological warfare with traditional America.
Of course, we have all seen this coming, haven’t we? As the NYT drifts further off the cliff of liberal dogma and shows its disdain for American values more every day, who could bet surprised that the NYT is beginning to find its once grand status starting to crumble?
The Times is still making good money, of course. But revenues have been falling and growth has absolutely stopped. If the Times expects to stay on the top of the heap in the world of information, it had better follow the sage advice it is offered by these "outside investors." Or else the gray lady will soon enough become the dead lady.
Editor at Large
Comments Policy
I will be delighted
March 1, 2008 - 21:56 ET by kch50428To read the old Gray Lady's obit. The sooner the better.
It makes no difference what
March 1, 2008 - 22:22 ET by ncstevemIt makes no difference what the NYT or any newspaper does in the future because they will be extinct in the next 10 - 15 years.
Let me first say that I'm somewhat familiar with the industry because I used to sell ink to newspapers - by the tank truck load. We knew back in the mid to late 1980's that newspaper's days were numbered - long before the internet became a factor.
That's because back then the readership stats showed something like 15% of the under 30 crowd read a newspaper daily. The industry knew that if people didn't make a habit of reading a newspaper in their teens or 20's they never would.
The internet has only hastened their demise. The only consistent readership of newspapers now is the 60 and over crowd. Unless you're selling adult diapers or Geritol, advertisers have little interest in this age range. So display ad rates are way down. Besides readership, classified ads are also being lost to the internet. So the three main revenue streams (subscriptions, display ads & classified ads) are dwindling.
There will finally come a point where it is no longer profitable to operate a newsroom, printing press, mail room and a fleet of delivery trucks to deliver the news. The cost of delivering the news via the internet is far less.
Newspaper websites won't save them either. Whereas printed newspapers pretty much had no competition in their respective markets, newspapers face a bunch of competition on the internet. The income they will generate from operating a website will pale in comparison to what they earned in their heyday. Most will be a shell of their former selves if they don't completely disappear.
Couldn't happen to a nicer crowd.
The End of Local Newspapers not the Big Ones
March 1, 2008 - 23:39 ET by PopularTechI know someone who is a local newspaper delivery contractor and they say that subscriptions keep going down year after year because their subscribers are literally dying off. I agree that the readership of local papers is largely over 60 but the big papers (The New York Times, USA Today and The Wall Street Journal) draw a good amount who are over 40. So their print demise will be slower because these people will not switch away from them in any large numbers only the very technical of the over 40 crowd will substitute their online versions. All the big names have a good web presence. IMO it is possible to leverage online advertising with the big names to make up for the lower subscription rates since the online versions have an even larger audience and you now reach new markets you could never hope to before. It is the local papers that will suffer the most, since no one not in the local area would care to read them and those who did are not computer literate.
BTW sites like this and the MSM help fuel the online readership of the big papers and effectively help stimulate their web advertising market.
The Anti 'Man-Made' Global Warming Resource
I stopped subscribing to the
March 2, 2008 - 04:53 ET by ahusserI stopped subscribing to the WaPo. My local paper, The Frederick News Post (Frederick MD), while I like reading the local news tries to out liberal the big boys. I now hear the Washington Times is turning to the left with the exit of Wesley Pruden as editor. I am sure the demise of print news big and small is a combination of factors with the internet probably being in the forefront. If I happen to go to the library after school hours I rarely see kids reading or studying, they are all surfing the net and look to be surfing mostly on you tube and my space or the like.
Hey PT
March 2, 2008 - 13:48 ET by ncstevemI've been away from the industry for a number of years so I'm not positive on the numbers but from what I hear, newspaper websites generate miniscule ad revenue when compared to the revenue of display and classified ads for the print version.
You have any info that shows otherwise?
»→ Hey, PopTech
March 2, 2008 - 14:13 ET by Cool Arrow"I know someone who is a local newspaper delivery contractor"
Well sonny, back in my day we called 'em paperboys.
Sorry, I couldn't help it.
♣ a seal
Even their investors are clueless
March 1, 2008 - 22:37 ET by Republican_by_DefaultYeah, they're behind on using new technology and the new media. Their problem is their content and the liberal bias of the publisher and their editors.
Oh, well, maybe this will be the shake-up that causes the company to start listening to investors and subscribers instead of a a clueless publisher with a liberal agenda.
Dems Will Fund HER!!!
March 2, 2008 - 00:58 ET by planetrepublicanWell maybe the Dems in congress can fund her with our tax dollars. After all she is the propaganda arm of the DNC, no? They fund NPR and PBS with public funds so why not another liberal mouth piece? I can hear it now..."an American classic, Mr. Speaker, must be saved for our children's prosperity...", and so on. Don't be surprised.
I think the outside shareholders...
March 2, 2008 - 03:07 ET by Parker1227...are just using the Times' Internet/money problems as an excuse to try to force Pinch (the Leftist ideologue) out, and bring in someone who is interested in steering the Gray Lady back toward the task of objective and skeptical journalism, turning it into a respectable reporter's paper - instead of the propaganda rag it is now.
The biggest audience is in the center (ever look at a Bell Curve?). Right now, the NY Times is narrow-casting to the 20% on the far-Left. You can live off these kinds of numbers using the efficiency of the net (and a small staff), but if you are running a huge physical international enterprise with staff around the world and printing presses chugging at break-neck, you need the numbers that only exist in the ideological middle. That means you don't go out of your way to piss off the middle (and the Right) every chance you get!
That said, if the Times wants to play martyr to its lame brain cause - then so be it. I will eat popcorn and watch with fascination.
These are great times we live in. The net is rocking the world in a million different ways - and NB is part of it!
It's a just world after all.......
March 2, 2008 - 05:29 ET by riff_raffIt's just like the "Buick buyer syndrome". Their loyal customers are slowly dying off and not being replaced.
The same thing is happening to the NY Times, the LA Times, Time magazine, etc. Can't say I'm sad to see it happen though.
Just to rub it in, check out how my Exxon/Mobil stock has been doing compared to the New York Times Co.:
http://finance.yahoo...
New York Times Suggestion
March 2, 2008 - 07:26 ET by P.J. GladnickHello New York Times! I know you folks read NewsBusters so here is a constructive suggestion for you. Why don't you open up your vast archives for on-line viewing WITHOUT charge? I read that such newspaper archives generate very little paid revenue. However, if your archives were free, it would bring you much more online traffic and would provide you revenue via ads. Such an archive would be a boon for researchers of all stripes such as students, writers, etc..
Oh, and don't forget to credit NewsBusters if you do take this suggestion. Hee! Hee!
There is only one problem
March 2, 2008 - 11:29 ET by dscottThere is only one problem with that PJ, then the NYT would have to hire a whole building full of Winstons (1984 reference) to revise the past articles to conform with today's party line. Quite frankly, most of their stuff is so PC ladden, their articles are worthless for accurate information as far as research purposes. Otherwise it is a very good idea. Lord Sidious / Darth Vader 2008 Long Live the Empire! Come to the Dark Side, it is your Destiny.
They've Opened Some of Them
March 2, 2008 - 15:20 ET by Del DolemonteLast fall, the NYT opened a portion of their archives for free access. Unfortunately, it's their archives from 1851 to 1922.
"If the Times expects to stay on the top of the heap. . "
March 2, 2008 - 13:39 ET by FastEdI was thinking that they are the heap, and most of it is could be considered "gray water". ;)
There is no sense in being stupid, if you can't prove it! - my dad V
First of all, the demise of
March 2, 2008 - 14:12 ET by jdhawkFirst of all, the demise of the drive by media is way overdone. It is thriving. And, it is overwhelmingly larger than new media and the slice that conversatives claim for themselves.
In regards to the NYT, there is no chance that they will be taken over or dissauded from their present course. The reason is that they have two classes of stock. The first class of stock is owned by the family and ensures that they can appoint 9 of the 13 directors that sit on the board. Yes, it is true that there is a company that has enough shares of the second class of stock to capture the other four director seats, but so what? That leaves them with little to do, but whine. They will not set the course of the company, not direct the key committees within the board, etc. The NYT is more than safe from doing what it has been doing for some time now, attempting to mold America to its far left ideology.
And, it's working. If it gets printed in the NYTs, it leads on the nightly news, newspapers around the country and around the world. If you don't believe me, pick up a copy or browse over to it on the Internet. Then, tune into one of the drive by media channels that evening, to your local paper, or a paper on the Internet in Europe. The stories they create and I do mean create, get told and retold around the country and around the world.
By the way, the poster above is right. By constantly posting the liberal bias of these drive bys, including the NYT, you just drive more people to their web sites and increase their web revenue.
Meantime, the damage wrought by their "news" stories have already been done. Despite our indignation and anger that their "stories" are not true. By the time we conservatives have a suitable retort, it is too late. The damage has been done. And, the miniscule means of getting a rejoinder out to the world means that most of the world will never hear of it.