The problem of the daily newspapers

Newspapers are facing tough times.  The reasons why aren't necessarily tied to the content of the news and opinion. Justin Fox, a blogger at Time Inc., explains in a recent post why daily newspapers are facing the possible "utter destruction of their business model":

But it's not just the classifieds. Some newspaper buyers--like the Grossman family, apparently--have been getting it just for the comics. Others have been buying it for the supermarket sale ads, others for the stock market tables, others for those swell Cal Thomas columns on the op-ed page, others for the weather forecast, others for movie showtimes, others for sports scores, others for stories on national and world events, and yet others for the local news, sports, and lifestyle coverage. The size of that last group is anybody's guess, but it has to be significantly smaller than the total universe of newspaper buyers.

The local newspaper, in particular the big metropolitan daily, is a distribution channel--a series of tubes, if you will--for a whole bunch of stuff that its staff doesn't create, along with a little bit of stuff (articles) that they do. In most cities it was until recently a monopoly distribution channel, and therefore staggeringly profitable.

Now most of that stuff can be delivered significantly more efficiently online by people who have nothing to do with the local newspaper. The only possible exception is local news, sports, and lifestyle coverage. So newspaper owners and prospective newspaper buyers have been emphasizing that lately, and rightly so. But delivering local news to people who want it, either on paper or online, is never going to be anything close to the spectacular business that serving as a metropolitan area's chief distribution channel for information, advertising, and comics was.

Comments

[Joh Padgett]

I can almost hear it now from a newsroom near you:

"Those damn bloggers are ruining EVERYTHING! If they weren't so speedy with the delivery of news and commentary people would still wait until morning for us to give them their opinion on the subjects of the day we choose to give them!"