TELECOM Digest OnLine - Sorted: Re: NY Times Plans Major Job Cutback

Re: NY Times Plans Major Job Cutback

Wesrock@aol.com
Sun, 14 Jan 2007 20:46:56 EST

In a message dated 13 Jan 2007 12:52:30 -0800,hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com
writes:

> I don't know all the reasons, but I would submit some reasons are:

> 1) People drive to work instead of transit and they aren't reading the
> paper on the train/bus as they used to.

But the loss also occurs in smaller places with no public
transport. However, there is no doubt that in most cities public
transport is not much used. (I believe the highest percentage is in
New York, 17 per cent. So the NY Times should be least affected by
this reason.

> 2) Both parents work these days (assuming there even is two parents)
> and there is little time left over to relax and read the paper at
> night. Mother isn't home during the day to pause and read it and in
> the evening Father has his chores to do and can't read it.

Afternoon/evening newspapers have disappeared in most places.
The number of cities with both morning and afternoon papers in the USA
can be counted on one hand.

> 3) Far more people live in the suburbs and just don't care about the
> big city issues anymore, the stuff that was the bread 'n butter of a
> city newspaper. Suburbanites without any city connection -- as many are
> today -- don't care about City Hall or inner city issues.
> Unfortunately, it's a lot harder for a newspaper to cover every tiny
> town meeting of the suburbs, where many towns can be just a few square
> miles.

But many are trying to do so, recognizing this as a significant
factor.

> 4) The cost of covering a much larger developed area and distributing
> the newspaper to said area is considerably more.

> 5) If you compare a newspaper today to one say of 1974, you'll find
> the 1974 edition much smaller. Over the years they've added many
> features to the newspaper that weren't there in the past. This is a
> cost.

Additional sections and features are normally added as sources of
revenue, to attract more advertisers for the specialized interests
represented by those sections and features. The basic support of
newspapers is advertising revenue, and they seek to maintain or
increase their subscription base to attract more advertising revenue.

> 6) TV always was the enemy of print. With cable, there's so much more
> on TV now (though mostly garbage*) and people watch instead of read.

Probably some truth in this, but newspapers tried to allow for
that by starting TV stations, usually the first station to be
established in the market. The FCC and the Congress put a stop to
that in that name of providing "more voices." The result has been in
most places that the newspaper-owned station was the quality station
in the market and prided itself on that quality. With newspapers
required to divest their TV stations, those stations descended to the
level of the other stations in the market.

Wes Leatherock
wesrock@aol.com
wleathus@yahoo.com

Post Followup Article Use your browser's quoting feature to quote article into reply
Go to Next message: : "Re: Article: T1 Connections Provide Unparalleled Data Transfer"
Go to Previous message: Mark Crispin: "Re: NY Times Plans Major Job Cutback"
May be in reply to: Reuters News Wire: "NY Times Plans Major Job Cutback"
Next in thread: Garrett Wollman: "Re: NY Times Plans Major Job Cutback"
TELECOM Digest: Home Page