The shape of thing to come?

The overall trend is ghoulish, appropriately enough, on this Halloween 2009. Newspaper circulations are hemorrhaging readership worse than a slasher movie victim hemorrhages blood. The Washington Post explains the details.


But the essence is that almost everybody is seeing huge and fatal losses in circulation that can't be sustained more than a couple more years unless stopped.


But those few exceptions suggest which print newspapers may survive.


First off, the only large daily to see a gain was the Wall Street Journal. This suggests that a print newspaper with high quality house-generated content might survive in a few knowledge-based niches. The WSJ for finance, but are there other niches where this kind of model might work.


The other newspaper seeing gains are all smaller dailies that cover small and medium-sized cities. In many cases these cities have no other regular media covering them -- not even TV. This could be considered another niche market where there's enough demand for the information that people are willing to pay for it, and a restricted supply of quality news providers.

Sinking ships

The latest circulation figures are beyond grim with most major papers seeing double digit annual drops in circulation, including big names such as the New York Times.

In particular, the Boston Globe saw an 18% drop in circulation. Obviously that kind of precipitous drop can't be sustained very long, At some point advertisers will lose faith that anyone is seeing their ads and at that point it will be time turn out the light.

We're in the endgame here. There will be a massive wave of closures over the next 12 months, led by newspapers like the Globe that have a legacy debt that there's no way they can hope to repay.

Gray Lady tightens her belt

So the New York Times will eliminate about 100 newsroom jobs.

If the NYT can't hold the line on cuts, it's hard to see who can. This represents about an 8 percent cut, which will definitely result in some noticeable content changes.

Count me as a skeptic

Rumor has it Apple will soon unveil a new "tablet" device that will "save" print media.

It will be interesting to see, but I suspect that the "saving" involved will not be the kind of saving the media expects and wants.

I already get the AP feed and New York Times on my Kindle. I find it very convenient and generally cost-effective. (I have dropped the NYT for now, though) That said, the key point I need to make about my Kindle is, as much as I like it, I have yet to see anyone else with one.

I'm sure there are major metro areas and college campuses where they abound, but I'm not in some desert or cave either and the fact that I don't see Kindles around makes me suspect that this kind of device will not be the wholesale salvation of newspapers.

Hard figures on newspaper declines

Circulation figures don't tell the whole story, because in large measure the biggest problem for newspapers is not lost subscribers but lost advertisers.

This report indicated that year-over-year newsprint production is down more than 27%. This is significant because it reflects not just circulation declines, but less advertising as well. Papers are getting smaller.