The New York Times is now saying that the drop in subscribers by major newspapers like the Times themselves or the LA Times is by choice.
As the newspaper industry bemoans falling circulation, major papers around the country have a surprising attitude toward a lot of potential readers: Don’t bother.
The big American newspapers sell about 10 percent fewer copies than they did in 2000, and while the migration of readers to the Web is usually blamed for that decline, much of it has been intentional. Driven by marketing and delivery costs and pressure from advertisers, many papers have decided certain readers are not worth the expense involved in finding, serving and keeping them.
“It’s a rational business decision of newspapers focusing on quality circulation rather than quantity, shedding the subscribers who cost more and generate less revenue,” said Colby Atwood, president of Borrell Associates, a media research firm.
That rational business decision is being driven in part by advertisers, who have changed their own attitudes toward circulation.
Yeah, right. Tom Peters, in his book The Circle of Innovation, said “You can’t shrink your way to greatness!” If greatness could be achieved that way, these newspapers and their companies would be great newspapers today.
They seem to miss another financial metric about corporations. Even prior to the stock market drop of late, newspaper companies' share prices have been tumbling. Less people want to invest in them. If investors were convinced this tweaking of subscribers and advertisers was going to work, they'd be flocking to the stocks. I'm not seeing that mad rush.
-Colonel Steve
I'm sure a lot of the newspaper companies took on their crushing debt loads as part of the same brilliant strategy.
Posted by: David Adams | November 01, 2008 at 11:37 AM