Sailing towards an iceberg

For the past couple of years, I have been fiddling with various RSS homepage feeds for my PC and mobile devices. Probably, consistent with many people, only a small minority (1 or 2) of the feeds comes from major newspapers. Sure, I do enjoy a good NYT or WSJ read, and, to keep up with my smart friend Larry, I have to read the NY Post's P6. Nonetheless, keeping up with the news, and in the dialog, has little to do with newspapers (or broadcast news).

All Things Digital, carries a synopsis of the speech given by The NY Times CEO, Arthur Sulzberger, Jr. He sees the paper sailing towards the iceberg but does not know which way to turn to avoid the upcoming collision. The full speech is worth reading on NY Times corporate site here. It reads like someone advertising for a CEO, relieving him of the execution burden, while he focuses on strategy and pleads why the the paper is still relevant.

John C. Dvorak, of PC Magazine, weighs in with his acerbic, yet right on two cents. His view of the newspaper industry's decline, and possible salvation is here.

GM, Chrysler, and Ford greatly contributed to their problems by producing terrible products and reveled in creating a culture where they, and their dealers, were so happy to screw their customers. Though I may not agree with many of the editorial opinions, I do respect the integrity and commitment of organizations such as The NY Times, WSJ, and others.

I fervently hope that what inevitably supplants these institutions has sufficient critical mass to maintain the tradition of the Fourth Estate and keep our democratic institutions vibrant and accountable.

Annus horribilis?

As the newspaper industry is suffering its 'Detroit' period, a recent report highlights the difference between soaring demand, and being able to build a proper business from the demand.

Nielsen recently published a study detailing the traffic results for the top 10 newspapers in the US. Year to year traffic was up 16%, to over 40mm unique visitors. The embattled NY Times is nearly 70% larger than its nearest competitor, USA Today, with an industry leading 18.1mm uniques. Fastest growing is the NY Daily News, which nearly doubled its uniques to 5.9mm.

Nine of the top ten newspaper sites experienced positive online growth. The frequency of visits jumped too, with the total number of visits growing 27% to over 252mm.

Traffic and frequency of visit are usually leading indicators for site prosperity. In this industry, where the value of an online viewer (free) is a small fraction of the worth of a 'brick n mortar' customer (paid) it seems like a Herculean mission to properly allocate scarce resources between the two competing efforts.

However painful it is, strategic focus is a necessity to properly deploy now scarce resources.