'Several Cities' Could Have No Daily Paper As Soon As 2010, Credit Rater Says

[CoffeeCat]

Source: Editor & Publisher

CHICAGO Newspaper and newspaper groups are likely to default on their debt and go out of business next year -- leaving "several cities" with no daily newspaper at all, Fitch Ratings says in a report on media released Wednesday.

"Fitch believes more newspapers and newspaper groups will default, be shut down and be liquidated in 2009 and several cities could go without a daily print newspaper by 2010," the Chicago-based credit ratings firm said in a report on the outlook for U.S. media and entertainment.

Fitch is generally pessimistic across the board, assigning negative outlets to nearly all sectors from Yellow Pages to radio and TV and theme parks. But the newspaper industry is the most at risk of defaulting, it says.

"Much of the business risk for the media sector is likely to continue to be concentrated within the newspaper sub-sector," the report says. "Fitch expects newspaper industry revenue growth will be negative for the foreseeable future as both ad pricing and linage will be under pressure within each of the four main components of newspaper companies' revenue streams: circulation and local, classified and national advertising. Newsprint costs could rise, and it could be difficult to offset revenue declines with cost cuts."

(more)

Read more: http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003918781

[marmar]

1. I work in the newspaper biz (although thankfully I'm about to get out).......

..... and I can tell you, it's very bleak.

[CoffeeCat]

3. Are the main problems...

...less ad revenue and fewer subscriptions?

[marmar]

4. Yes and yes.....and the inability to translate the increased use of their websites into ad dollars.

Ad revenue has really gone into the crapper this year.....If you want to see a stressed group of employees, walk into a newspaper ad sales department. Retail and classified have plunged.

[gauguin57]

31. I got out several years ago ... and my former colleagues are all nervous as hell these days.

It is VERY bleak.

[ogneopasno]

29. I got out in August. Good luck to you!

[TrogL]

2. Hope we're one of them

The dailies here are worthless. They can't even be used for birdcage paper - they're so full of shit they won't absorb any more.

[Soylent Brice]

11. !

:rofl:

[TrogL]

13. Here's the choices

The Edmonton Sun - rightwing crap, pinup girl (fake boobs), fundie religion and hooker ads on the same page

The Edmonton Journal - used to be a good paper, but now it's just the Sun without the pinup girl

The Edmonton Examiner (it's actually a weekly) - racism, fundie crap

24 - reprint of Sun crap

there's another daily that's a reprint of Journal crap

[Soylent Brice]

24. wow. you weren't kidding.

:yoiks:

[bulloney]

5. Radio advertising's in decline. Newspapers are dying out.

It's pretty obvious where people are currently getting their news and information.

The local paper in my community used to have a staff of reporters and did a respectable job of covering the local councils, school boards, county offices, etc. Now, in the name of cutting costs, it just essentially reprints minutes from the secretaries of these public agencies. There's no depth and elaboration on the coverage. Might as well not even buy the paper. And that's what's happening.

[Uben]

6. We don't need the newspapers anymore

They are outdated. We are in the computer age. Newspapers use up valuable natural resouces and they are slanted politically in their reporting. In short, they are virtually worthless.

Let them die a quick and horrible death!

[Mudoria]

7. And news on the internet isn't just as slanted?

:crazy:

[Buck Laser]

8. Some of us depend on the daily comics page for insight...

And, like it or not, the newspapers do provide different kinds of background stories on what's happening than most other newschannels do.

[LanternWaste]

9. Well, being a guy without internet access at my plac

Well, being a guy without internet access at my place (and also not being aware of any politic/news websites that aren't slanted just as bad if not worse), I happen to like reading the Sunday paper, clipping coupons, getting a TV Guide, flipping through the garage sale sections, etc.

[Lautremont]

10. It is very difficult to clean my monitor after I do the crossword.

[Dark]

28. Where do you think most of the news comes from? Bloggers?

Most blogs actually take news stories from newspaper web sites and provide commentary.

There's a few that are doing well. The rest, however, failed.

Newspapers' death = no oversight.

[Old Codger]

12. Yup

Dropped my subscription a year or so ago, haven't missed it a bit. Paper was so right wing slanted that as far as news was concerned always right wing was right. Getting info from internet is a fun thing, you are pretty much forced to go to all the main sites at least and pull whatever info is available then have to research further to find out what the truth really is if possible.. I was told a long time ago by an old timer,"Don't believe anything you hear, anything you read in the newspapers, and only half of what you see" That seems to have worked pretty good for me.

[Alcibiades]

14. Most newspapers are horrible

I mainly read the newspaper for the editorial page, and here it's just garbage. The Durham News is a nasty little right-wing screed that's out of touch with the community, and the News and Observer is no better. McClatchy continues to run Bush administration press releases unedited.

Everywhere you go, there are the same three of four syndicated columnists--George Will, Charles Krauthammer and Thomas Friedman. Supposedly to balance the "liberal" editorials written by the editorial staff, which are never actually liberal to begin with. This past Sunday's paper had nothing but editorials and letters slamming Obama and Democrats.

Someone could do well to print a liberal version of USA Today, but that would never occur to the newspaper industry. They have managed to take an industry with fairly high profit margins and run it into the ground, all because they all seek to imitate some right-wing version of Pravda.

[ohio2007]

15. media going green,save a forest and landfill space at the same time nt

[Juneboarder]

16. Don't you love it???

I like to see when things change for the positive. Yes, it does pose a problem for those that don't have internet access at home, but you can always get free access at the public library... Better to not be wasting the trees on right wing propoganda!! :)

[HopeHoops]

17. I'm sorry, but the laptop just isn't a good substitute in the bathroom. I want my newspaper.

Edited to add:
Besides, I find I'm more likely to take the time to read an article in depth if it is in print. I'll scan the paper much like I do the net, but go back and seriously read the print version later. TV "news" is a total waste of time. And another thing, even with the online editions I find there is far more local news to be had in the print version. National and world news are easy to come by and duplicated to the point of stupidity online, but local news is the domain of the regional paper. And, as report recently in my local paper, 80% of newspaper finds its way into the recycling stream. That left me wondering how 20% could escape it.

[juno jones]

18. I think the other 20%

is in a house I know of in Springfield, Il. The papers fill the porch and form a 6 foot tall hedge maze in the rest of the house which the inhabitants negotiate like hamsters in a habit trail.

Maybe I got it all wrong and they've been saving those papers knowing that they'll e-bay for millions as collectors items after the crash of print media.

[RUMMYisFROSTED]

27. Really?

[Tesha]

39. Time to move to an iPhone! They're easily portable into the bathroom! (NT)

[Oak2004]

19. In the end they won't die

I suspect the end result will be a positive transformation back to community owned and operated newspapers, possibly published less often than daily, possibly daily. As long as people find a use for information not readily obtainable elsewhere, newspapers will exist to provide that information.

I don't think "newspapers" are failing so much as I think the news industry is failing.

[Judi Lynn]

20. So where do people turn for serious information regarding their city, state governments?

They won't be able to catch that on cable news, or network news, and god knows local tv news is shallow, pointless, barely "news" at all.

We are informing our municipal politicians it's easy sailing for them, if they, by hook or crook, can make it to infuential spots in city or state government. No oversight, no sense of any need whatsoever to be answerable to the public day by day. Free rides for everyone. Every day will be like a _Bush birthday for your hometown politicians.

I can only hope this will create a rapid need for a new, tougher kind of local journalism like the world has never seen, once the people realize how mangled their "democracy" will become once there's no public accountability for all aspects of government.

[ramapo]

22. Not to be cynical

But few look for this type information

[surrealAmerican]

32. Exactly. This will create a void in local reporting that ...

... will not be filled by other media.

[ramapo]

21. It has been a long time coming

I love newspapers and I worked for a large North Jersey paper early in my career (early 1980s). Even then there was talk of the demise of newspapers and many had gone out of business. Many cities became one newspaper towns where once there had been thriving competition.

I remember when NYC had a bunch of papers and we'd get a few Sunday papers.

We almost lost a major paper here in NJ a few weeks ago, the Newark Star-Ledger. A cut in staff gave it a reprieve. The decline in classified advertising is stunning. Our daily has just a handful of pages, a sharp drop.

Their costs go up, revenue declines, readership declines. Neither of my kids so much at glance at the paper that comes to our home everyday. I can't start my day without it.

All have created an internet presence but do any make any money there? I see myself transitioning to a Kindle and subscribing to a paper or two. I'm sure the NY Times and similar will survive in some fashion but I do think the good old printed page is going to become scarce. It's a shame but that's "progress".

[bemildred]

23. People pay for DU, and for lots of other sites on the Internet, voluntarily.

There is money to be made. There is a market for news, for content, but nobody is going to pay to be fed bullshit and propaganda and marketing crap. It's a whole other business, it's going to have to be demand driven, or it will not fly in the internet age ...

The problem is that the old style news organizations have lost their true market, which was advertising, and they now have to adjust to the new market, which is readers of news and commentary.

I first came to DU for news, I still do, and I make a contribution at least once a year.

You have the whole world to attract. But it's very competitive. Anybody can compete. It's globalism on steroids.

[pitohui]

25. pet parakeets highly concerned about lack of sanitation facilities EOM

.

[Doctor_J]

26. This sucks

Where is my dog going to pee?

[niceypoo]

30. What will I read....

....while taking a dump?

[KamaAina]

36. oops wrong place

delete

[FriendlyReminder]

33. I canceled my subscription long long ago when I realized it was nothing but

conservative propaganda. I switched to a community oriented paper that covers just our little area of the county.

[NashVegas]

34. Gannet Just Released About 60

In Nashville at their Tennessean outlet + surrounding towns.

[KamaAina]

37. 51 here at the Honolulu Advertiser

believe it or not, we're still a two-paper town; the rival Star-Bulletin has added a new "Schadenfreude" section.

http://www.starbulletin.com/news/20081204_51_to_leave_Advertiser_but_union_unsure_who.html

[daleo]

35. Newspapers put all their eggs in the Conservative basket

So, people are losing interest. Conservatives already know the drill, so why buy a paper? Liberals and other progressives are tired of only hearing their opponents' viewpoints, so why buy a paper, and why financially support people who hate you?

I just cancelled my subscription today to my local daily, over its slanted coverage of the Canadian parliamentary dispute. I have donated the money I am saving to the progressive parties here (Liberal and NDP).

I am using a Canadian example, but I imagine the same thing applies in the United States.

[riverdeep]

38. Hopefully, this won't be the end of journalism, only the delivery system.

Papers started going downhill in the 80's when the merger boom took off. Used to be you'd have two or three major papers in a large city, and then several smaller papers. Rupert Murdoch didn't help things either, bringing his brand of 'journalism' into mainstream papers.

The thing is, the internet provides a natural solution for newspapers, but they haven't figured a reliable way to make money off of it. If they can crack that nut, they have a good chance in transitioning. Bloggers don't typically do the legwork of journalism, and sometimes even when they do, the reporting is shoddy. At least going to journalism school put some kind of requirement on how to do basic stories.