Tag: Boston Globe

Boston Globe Media eyes expanding into TV, films, broadcast and radio

Public domain photo by Circe Denyer

Boston Globe Media Partners produces more fourth-quarter memos than I realized. I’ve posted most of them as they waft in from trusted sources.

This one strikes me as interesting because it outlines BGMP’s plans “to develop projects for television, film, podcasts and radio, and other media: we seek to amplify the remarkable stories found across all of BGMP’s newsrooms [The Boston Globe, Stat and Boston.com] by giving them new lives in these media formats beyond the print and digital word.”

The memo, written by Dan Krockmalnic, executive vice president for new media and general counsel, points to a few examples — most significantly “Gladiator,” the Spotlight series on Aaron Hernandez that was simultaneously released as a podcast and is now being developed as a television series.

“Not every New Media project can or will have the phenomenal reach of ‘Gladiator,’” Krockmalnic writes, “but success for us is getting our journalism out in new forms that reach new audiences where they are.”

I realize some of these memos are very inside, but that’s part of what Media Nation is for. So here is the full text of Krockmalnic’s message:

New Media Department Update — Q4 2021

Dear Colleagues,

Thanks for reading my Legal Department update a few weeks ago. Today I’m excited to share with you highlights from the work of the New Media Department over our first year as a standalone group within the company.

What is the New Media Department, and why start one?

As others have noted, BGMP has been expanding from a newspaper into a modern multimedia company. Many of the stories told in the journalism the Globe has produced — and those stories from STAT and boston.com, too — are well-suited to be told in other mediums — be they about a larger-than-life personality, a you-can’t-believe-it’s-true crime story, or a world-leading medical breakthrough. Spotlight was a remarkable film that did wonders to establish our name and our brand in this space. That was a film about us; we wanted to lean into the business of regularly making projects that are by us.

And so now, the New Media team leads our efforts to develop projects for television, film, podcasts and radio, and other media: we seek to amplify the remarkable stories found across all of BGMP’s newsrooms by giving them new lives in these media formats beyond the print and digital word. Done right, this increases our exposure and appreciation by reaching new viewers and listeners with our journalism. It also adds separate revenue streams as we seek to diversify our business.

This ground has been trod by others: I look admiringly at the New York Times’ achievements in this space that include many groundbreaking and award-winning documentaries, The New York Times Presents show, the 1619 Project-related media, the scripted Modern Love series, The Fourth Estate documentary series, and their growing podcasting and audio empire.

Who is the New Media Department?

I started off alone on the business side, with Scott Allen in the Globe’s newsroom as an essential partner right from the jump. Linda [Henry, the CEO of Boston Globe Media] had the immediate good sense that the vision required expert help, and so after a lengthy interview process, Ira Napoliello joined us this past March as Director of New Media. Ira was exactly what we needed, having spent the better part of two decades as a film producer in Los Angeles before moving to Boston to be close to his wife’s family.

How do you spend your time?

Our days are split between working with our colleagues at BGMP and dealing with our entertainment partners. They include our agents at UTA and Aevitas; Hollywood film and television studios and streamers; podcasting companies; the creative talent like writers, directors, actors and producers; and talent agents and managers.

Ira joins various newsroom staff meetings and stays in regular contact with editors and reporters to ensure that we are aware of upcoming stories and investigations. He also spends time scouring the Globe archives to try to find stories from the past that might be right for adaptation. As ideas begin to take shape, we schedule and lead an alarming number of internal and external meetings and calls to shepherd the projects from concept to reality.

We listen a lot and we read even more. We’re looking for the stories that make you want to share them with a note: “You need to read this one.” Sometimes they are so unbelievable as to sound… not believable. Think: the comedic tale from Neil Swidey about a 25-year war between two neighbors in Beverly, or Shelley Murphy’s sweeping Finding Lisa piece about a woman’s genealogical search for her family revealing that the man she thought was her father was actually a serial killer.

We don’t need to look far to point to what success looks like: Spotlight’s remarkable Gladiator series on the tragic life of Aaron Hernandez was a groundbreaking six-part series that was smartly coupled with the simultaneous release of a chart-topping podcast series created in partnership with Wondery. The podcast’s runaway success caught the eyes (ears?) of executives at the FX network. And so earlier this summer, FX announced that Gladiator will now have its third life as a scripted, limited-run series on its television and streaming channel as American Sports Story, part of Ryan Murphy’s American Crime Story franchise. The show is currently being written and will be filming next summer and is set to debut in 2023. Our Spotlight team is working now with the show’s creatives to ensure that the series remains truthful to the original reporting.

By the end of its run, Gladiator will have led to thousands of new Globe subscriptions, over 10 million podcast downloads, and its own season-run show. That means subscription, advertising, licensing, and production revenue — a perfect example of what we aspire to when we talk about a modern media company. And all founded on the truly exceptional journalism for which we’re known.

Not every New Media project can or will have the phenomenal reach of Gladiator, but success for us is getting our journalism out in new forms that reach new audiences where they are. We succeed when we make smart calls on projects: as Brian has put it, each such project is a bit of a lottery ticket, and we’re looking to tip the odds in our favor with decisions that allow us to de-risk our investment — just like the gang behind the Cash WinFall scheme did with the Massachusetts State Lottery in the remarkable 2011 story from Andres Estes and Scott Allen.

What have you accomplished so far?

We’ve had some early successes in our first year:

We are thrilled to be finalizing an agreement with one of the most prestigious streamers to produce two parallel projects — a multi-part documentary and a multi-episode podcast series — about a well-known Boston true-crime story. The documentary will be directed by an award-winning documentarian and the podcast will be the streamer’s first-ever foray into original investigative journalism. More to come on this soon.

We helped close a deal to license STAT’s first feature-length documentary, Augmented, to GBH’s Nova to distribute and air. Augmented tells the story of Hugh Herr’s new way of performing amputations that will allow bionic limbs to move and feel like the real thing, decades after his own legs were amputated in a mountain-climbing accident.

In the “older” media realm of book deals, we are working with Black Dog & Leventhal to publish a book on the history of the Boston Red Sox as told through the Boston Globe. (Here’s their analogous book with the New York Times and the Yankees; fortunately, it hasn’t needed much updating in the last 20 years…).

A few other stories we are actively working to develop include:

The murder of Tiffany Moore: 12-year-old Moore was a victim of a 1988 gang crossfire shooting. Her death became a symbol of the depravity of gang violence and led to the conviction of the wrong suspect thanks to overzealous, unethical law enforcement that wrongfully charged and prosecuted Sean Drumgold. Globe reporter Dick Lehr’s work led to his exoneration decades later. We are working with Dick to revisit the crime with an eye to something more: identifying the real killer and getting justice for Tiffany.

The Boy in the River: in April 1972, 13-year-old Danny Croteau was found dead in the Chicopee River. He was killed by blunt force trauma and left floating, face down, in the water. His murder was unsolved for almost 50 years. In May 2021, former Catholic priest Richard Lavigne confessed to the murder from his death bed. We will work with Novel, the award-winning and London-based podcasting company, to produce a documentary podcast featuring our own Kevin Cullen that explains how crucial institutions including the police, prosecutors and the Church failed Danny and allowed Lavigne literally to get away with murder.

Sparkies: the largest arson ring in U.S. history — including Boston police and firefighters — set over 160 fires in the early 1980s in the stunningly mistaken belief that these public dangers would somehow convince the city to restore cuts to police and fire services. One arsonist, a Boston Housing cop who called himself “Mr. Flare” to the media, threatened to keep setting fires “till all deactivated police and fire equipment is brought back.”

Camp Q: Inspired by Zoe Greenberg’s viral story from this summer, we are developing a character-driven scripted comedy about an eventful couple of days at a New England summer camp where seemingly everything went wrong.

We work on each project to ensure that, whatever the medium the story is told in, it is worthy of having the Boston Globe Media name attached to it. As we’re always on the lookout for new stories, please drop us a line with any interesting ideas that you feel could make for a great project. We’re excited to make it happen.

Happy holidays,
Dan

Dan Krockmalnic
Executive Vice President, New Media & General Counsel
Boston Globe Media Partners, LLC

 

Bina Venkataraman to step down as the Globe’s editorial page editor

Bina Venkataraman. Photo (cc) 2019 by TED Conference.

Less that two weeks after sending out a memo to her staff looking ahead to the new year, Boston Globe editorial page editor Bina Venkataraman has announced that she’s leaving. She posted a thread on Twitter within the past hour that begins:

Her departure isn’t entirely unexpected, as she took a leave of absence during the fall in the midst of the Boston mayoral campaign. Nevertheless, it’s stunning that her tenure lasted such a short time. It’s also at least a temporary setback for the Globe’s efforts to diversify; having a woman of color as one of the top two journalists (along with editor Brian McGrory) reporting to Linda and John Henry sent a powerful signal.

Venkataraman isn’t leaving completely. She’ll remain as an editor-at-large, which she says will involve writing for the Globe and advising The Emancipator, a racial justice digital publication that the paper is launching in collaboration with Boston University.

Unlike the news side, where McGrory has been a fixture since 2012 (he actually helped recruit Henry to buy the Globe from the New York Times Co.), the opinion side has been in flux for a long time. Ellen Clegg replaced Peter Canellos as editorial page editor in 2014, less than a year after Henry completed his purchase. Clegg served until her retirement in 2018, followed by business columnist Shirley Leung on an interim basis. Venkataraman arrived in 2019. (Clegg and I are now research and podcast partners.)

Venkataraman was an unconventional hire — a science journalist and author who didn’t come from the politics and policy side where most opinion editors cut their teeth. It will be interesting to see what direction the Globe heads in next.

The Globe reports that paid digital-only circulation has hit 226,000

Photo (cc) 2011 by libertyandvigilance

Every time I open a window, in floats another end-of-the-year memo from a Boston Globe Media executive. This one is from Tom Brown, vice president for consumer revenue, who reports that the Globe’s digital-only subscriptions now stand at 226,000 — a remarkable accomplishment given that the Globe was at just 95,000 in mid-2019.

For those of you who keep telling me that the Globe is going to drop its print edition, let me call your attention to this observation by Brown: “The print paper remains at the core of what we do and at 55% of consumer revenue, the largest component of revenue.”

That’s true even though print circulation according to the most recent report filed with the Alliance for Audited Media was just 128,000 on Sundays and about 73,000 on weekdays. The Globe, like other newspapers, will shut down its printing presses once costs exceed revenues — but not a moment before.

Also, I thought it was interesting that the Globe’s paid digital circulation kept rising this year even as overall traffic shrank following the end of the Trump era. (It’s over, right? Please tell me it’s over.)

“We had a strong start in 2021, but in the post-election/post-inauguration spring news audiences around the country began to wane,” Brown wrote. “We saw about a 25% decline in our non-subscriber audience during this period — something that was widely seen throughout the industry, yet our overall subscriber numbers grew modestly.”

The full text of Brown’s memo follows.

Dear Colleagues,

The past two and a half years have been a period of exceptional subscriber growth at the Globe. In mid-2019, we were thrilled to have the leading digital subscription business among major metros with 95,000 digital-only subscribers. From the launch of Globe.com in the fall of 2011, it took us over 7 years to get to that number of digital-only subs. It took less than a year to more than double that number as we continued to refine, invest, and innovate to develop the sophisticated approach that we have today.

This note is intended to share an update of how we have evolved since that time and what the current state of our subscription business looks like.

The consumer team has disciplines in:

    • Analytics
    • Testing
    • Pricing
    • Database/campaign management
    • Email operations
    • Customer insights and market research

We work with so many of you across the organization on a wide array of projects. Our main focus is growing subscriptions and related revenue. Our team is in service of the incredible journalism that is created here every day. We feel a responsibility to recommend and enact strategies that help to continually attract new subscribers and retain existing subscribers. We focus on analytical techniques and approaches that can improve our ability to draw in, acquire, engage, retain and maximize yield of subscribers. We believe in the rigorous testing of new ideas and letting the data and analytics guide us as we refine our approach.

A Brief history – mid 2019

With support and guidance from leadership we set out to accelerate the growth of our digital subscription business. After a period of testing that began in the fall of 2018, we embarked on a major shift in our acquisition strategy in mid-2019. Encouraged by the early results of the testing we switched the core introductory offer (the offer most commonly seen on the paywall and in email). The rigorous outreach, tracking, sampling, and testing combined with our consistently excellent journalism led to our acquisition rate increasing by more than 500% and remarkably, engagement increased and the retention rate stayed the same. This propelled a sharp increase in subscribers beginning in the summer of 2019 — we passed the 100,000 subscriber mark in mid-June 2019! As 2019 continued, so did the strong results, and we felt more encouraged with each passing week that we had tapped into a new audience that saw great value in a Globe subscription once they had a chance to spend time with our content.

The effect of the pandemic on subscriptions

As the pandemic began in March 2020, we became even more relevant to our subscribers and to new readers. Many of the subscribers already acquired on the new offer were moving off their introductory rate in the early days of the pandemic, which caused an increase in retention. At the same time we were acquiring new subscribers at a record pace. Going into 2020, we planned for a record year with growth to 178,000 subscribers by the end of the year. This goal was surpassed in early April. By early May we had over 200,000 digital only subscribers. While it took over 7 years to grow to 100,000 we had added the next 100,000 in less than one year!

Earlier in 2021

We had a strong start in 2021, but in the post-election / post-inauguration spring news audiences around the country began to wane. We saw about a 25% decline in our non-subscriber audience during this period — something that was widely seen throughout the industry, yet our overall subscriber numbers grew modestly.

Where are we now — Q4 2021

Over the past 5+ months traffic has increased and so have subscriptions. We have reached a new all-time high of 226,000 digital-only subscribers.

We are a leader among U.S. major metro newspapers and one of only a few that have surpassed 100,000 digital only subscribers. Our strategy is being widely adopted across the industry and we are proud to be innovators in this approach and thrilled that it is even possible thanks to the incredible journalism, investment across the company to consistently improve what we do, and the support of the entire organization.

New England is the core for digital subscribers, accounting for 76% of total subscribers, but there are subscribers in all 50 states and more than 3,000 international subscribers!

A sampling of what we have planned for 2022

    • Continue to monitor acquisition results and test other offers to make sure we are always following an approach that nets us the best results for the long term health of the business.
    • Testing of new acquisition approaches and getting more dynamic with our subscription offering.
    • Working with the Product Development and Engineering teams to implement new tests and a redesigned checkout flow.
    • Taking a data driven approach to increasing engagement and retention through a series of initiatives designed to address churn both proactively and reactively — working closely with Marketing and Customer Service.

Home Delivery

The print paper remains at the core of what we do and at 55% of consumer revenue, the largest component of revenue. While print subscriber volume has declined as more people choose a digital option, we still have a dedicated base of home delivery subscribers. We are continuing to invest in Home Delivery acquisition and will increase that investment in 2022. Our Home delivery subscribers consist of a very loyal base with an average tenure of over 20 years! We continue to use analytics to make sure we can deliver the best experience possible to every subscriber.

Print newsstand sales

Another important piece of the consumer business is the revenue generated from sales of single copies on the newsstand. The single copy business was hit hard at the beginning of the pandemic as the foot traffic to stores, especially in the city of Boston, collapsed suddenly. 2021 has been a bounce back year though and sales have remained relatively flat year over year since the spring, indicating that there is still a consistent demand for print single copy.

I hope this gave you a good glimpse into our consumer business. Please feel free to reach out with any thoughts or questions to any of us on this entrepreneurial consumer team.

Thank you!

Tom Brown

Globe editorial page editor outlines 2021 highlights in end-of-year memo

Bina Venkataraman. Photo (cc) 2019 by TED Conference.

On Thursday a trusted source sent me an internal memo from Boston Globe editorial page editor Bina Venkataraman offering her take on the opinion section’s accomplishments in 2021. (Thanks, source!)

Probably the newsiest part of the memo is that The Emancipator, a racial justice collaborative involving the Globe and Boston University that’s been slow to get off the ground, is ramping up and “will begin publishing regularly” in the near future. Venkataraman also takes note of the paper’s 2020 editorials on housing in Newton, which won a Pulitzer finalist nod.

Her full memo follows.

Dear BGMP colleagues,

It’s a delight to be able to share with you some updates from the Globe Opinion team as we near the end of the year.

Thanks to our leadership, the company has made significant investments in growing and diversifying the Opinion team and the editorial board since 2019, helping us launch a pioneering partnership with Boston University, and allowing us to to do truly digital-first, innovative projects like our endorsement of Joe Biden and our editorial series Future-proofing the Presidency. This has raised the profile of our work nationally, where Globe Opinion content and voices are often featured in major broadcast venues, and has deepened our connection with local and regional communities. The growth has also allowed us to have a closer eye on and hold accountable the institutions and political leaders in Greater Boston and New England responsible for serving the public interest.

2021 has been busy and productive in Opinion and Ideas. Here are a few of the highlights that made our year extraordinary:

*Editorial board meetings with mayoral and municipal election candidates across Greater Boston, which culminated in our publishing a spate of endorsements.

*A significant and innovative project, the aforementioned  “Future-proofing the Presidency,” extensively covered in national broadcast media, influenced proposed Congressional reforms.

*Our ongoing op-ed series on longevity, in collaboration with MIT’s AgeLab, which sparked a conversation about Boston’s role as a city for innovation in aging.

*A Pulitizer finalist nod for our 2020 series on a Newton housing battle and housing choice reform.

*The launch of a hot new Ideas newsletter that already has thousands of subscribers and is engaging readers and driving them back to our section.

*The announcement of a new non-profit publication, The Emancipator, our groundbreaking collaboration with BU to reimagine 19th-century abolitionist newspapers for today’s conversation on racial justice. We started with the hiring of a great editor-in-chief and the launch of the Unbound newsletter.

*Globe Letters packages featuring our readers’ voices on the major issues of the day, from geoengineering to Mass. & Cass to Thanksgiving-season gratitude.

*Our popular Op-Talk event series and Now What? (formerly known as Don’t Look Back) newsletter, which offer new entry points to our journalism and expand our reach.

*Ideas features on artificial intelligence, race and mobility, the future of work, and urban schools led the conversation online and in the community.

* Columnists’ ongoing smart takes on pressing local, regional, and national topics — often featured in local events and on national broadcast, raising the profile of Globe Opinion.

*A new social media strategy featuring different voices of our editorial board and innovations such as  Instagram cards and reels, that has significantly grown our online audience and presence.

*Expert opinions weighing in on the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Glasgow and the threats to America’s democracy via the war on voting rights.

Looking ahead, The Emancipator will begin publishing regularly under the leadership of its co-editors in chief, Amber Payne and Deborah Douglas, while growing their editorial team and launching a new Web presence. Ideas will be publishing an exciting package on reenvisioning the US Constitution on the anniversary of the Bill of Rights. Our pandemic and political coverage will continue in editorials and op-eds, with a special focus on the gubernatorial election. Globe Opinion also aims to look back at some of the Globe’s coverage of communities of color to reckon with the past as the paper celebrates its 150th birthday. Watch for new ways we’ll engage with letter writers, more point/counterpoint op-eds, further experiments with our social media presence, and new deep dives in Sunday Ideas.

We’re always eager to find new ways to showcase evidence-based opinion and break through polarized, simplistic debates with original, reported, and nuanced perspectives. We welcome your ideas as we scan the horizon and are grateful to collaborate with our colleagues across BGMP on many of these efforts. Let us know if you see a way we might conspire in the new year!

All the best,

Bina

Bina Venkataraman
Editorial Page Editor
The Boston Globe

Sponsored content helps drive 10% boost in ad revenues at the Globe, says internal memo

A recent memo from Boston Globe Media’s chief commercial officer paints a rosy picture about advertising at the Globe. According to the memo, from Kayvan Salmanpour, ad revenue will increase by more than 10% in 2021 as compared to 2020. I’d like to see a comparison with 2019, the last pre-pandemic year, but growth is growth.

Much of Salmanpour’s message, provided to me by a trusted source, concerns sponsored content — that is, story-based advertising produced in collaboration with the Globe’s sales staff. Such ads send some media critics reaching for the smelling salts, but they don’t bother me as long as they’re properly labeled. The Globe’s sponsored content comes with multiple disclosures.

I also chuckled at Salmanpour’s reference to the Globe’s advertising partnership with the Red Sox. I’m pretty sure the paper has an in with the Sox; I’ll get back to you if I find out otherwise.

Still, this is good news for the Globe and, thus, good news for readers. Along with its success in digital subscriptions, the paper is growing and hiring. And it recently achieved labor peace as well.

The full text of Salmanpour’s memo follows.

Dear Colleagues,

I’m excited to share some of our year-end advertising highlights and achievements with all of you. Before I dive into the specifics, the most important and meaningful observation I can share is that Boston Globe Media is a truly special media brand. We have a unique ability to tell powerful stories in creative ways, and our clients value the deep connection we bring with the communities that we serve. More and more brands are noticing the work that we’re capable of producing and are proactively reaching out to engage us. Over the last 24 months, the advertising team has witnessed a remarkable turnaround, culminating in a pivotal feat: In 2021, the Globe will grow advertising revenue by more than 10 percent year over year.

Honestly, we’re not sure the last time this happened at the Globe — our memories don’t go back that far. But we do know this success is the product of a herculean effort from the sales team, and the result of a smart strategy that has brought the Globe’s advertising business much closer to top players in the media industry.

As we all know, the advertising marketplace has been radically disrupted.  Amazon, Google and Facebook together take up 64% of all digital advertising spending in the US. Many advertisers have shifted to programmatic buys — an automated auction of internet advertising inventory that’s sold at a steep discount. Add in more and more channels and constantly evolving technology like ad blockers,, and you can understand why advertising revenue has been declining.

The entrepreneurial team in the Globe Sales department found a way to adapt and thrive after doing some intense market analysis, innovative planning, investing in the team, and then deploying bold new strategies.

After a deep analytics audit of our advertising business, we calculated that 42% of our clients accounted for just 4% of revenue. On the other side of the spectrum, 65% of our revenue came from just 12% of our clients.  The lesson? We were spending too much time servicing small deals, and we were spending too little time building resources for larger deals. To tackle this, we reorganized our local, corporate, marketplaces sales teams to a system that is aligned with how much an advertiser was spending.  We invested in new technology and structured our advertising strategy around the following:

Tier 1 – Smaller advertising buys/high-volume: We are deploying an efficient, automated process to serve our smaller advertisers at scale and provide a great user experience at optimum pricing. We’re investing in a self-serve platform that will allow for a seamless transition for these advertisers.

Tier 2 – Mid-dollar advertising buys/mid-level volume: We’ve created compelling and complementary advertising opportunities for clients in danger of leaving their Globe mid-tier print spend for good. We are transitioning many of them to newsletter sponsorships, where revenue has increased by 77% over last year. We rolled out paid social posts as a new product and brought in direct sponsorships for newsroom projects. Our long-standing themed print sections have rebounded through clever print/digital combos.

We have created a system that has proved that we can grow revenue, not just sustain it.

Tier 3 – High-dollar amount/low volume: This is the pricing tier that will ultimately be a big factor in our future success. More media advertising departments are functioning like storytelling agencies with a guaranteed audience (they are serving fewer but larger clients and employ a more consultative approach with clients). Many of our deals in this tier are “bundled” multimedia products, so we’ve invested heavily in supporting the sales team with the resources to put these packages together.

Since implementing this structure and investment, the team has closed a number of impressive deals, including a multi-year deal with Harvard Pilgrim, in partnership with the Red Sox. This was the first of many collaborative deals with the Red Sox, as sponsors/advertisers want to be more than just sponsors,  they want to be mission-driven storytellers like us.

I have seen firsthand how impressed the Red Sox team has been with the work that comes out of the Globe’s creative ad dept, Studio B. Every day, we surprise people with our creative branded storytelling (a huge factor in our continued success); Studio B has grown branded content products  by more than 55% year over year, and is poised to grow even more next year. This will be a large factor in Globe.com sales success, as sponsored content makes up more than 63% of the revenue for that platform.

Finally, the ad department and the events team are in sync more than ever, as more of our deals become bundled multimedia packages that involve media, branded content, display, event sponsorships, and email. It has not only allowed us to increase our deal sizes, but also showed to the market how we can adapt to a client’s needs. Events has grown from a lower volume, smaller deal size enterprise to an operation in which the programming, sponsor collaboration and revenue has us playing with the majors.

Events revenue grew 81% over last year as previous clients returned to do more with us while 68% of event revenue this year is from new advertisers.

One of the best parts, however, is that 75% of this revenue came from events featuring our journalists — the heart of what we do as a news media company.

You may have noticed what’s not in this memo so far — any mention of the pandemic. Yes, the economic impact of Covid-19 dramatically impacted our print business, as it did across the industry. Our goal for 2022 is to hit our original budgeted number of 2020 (again, growing year over year), and yet the composition of that number will be so much healthier than it was back then.

Ultimately, I am most proud of this department’s mindset shift, especially under intense pressure of the revenue challenges of the local news industry. There are too many people to thank here, but a big credit to the sales executive team who are such exemplary leaders, the sellers who are such a great representation of our department and brand, and the sales support team who work so tirelessly everyday to make sure the train is running ahead of schedule.  

We are, without a doubt, a mission-driven team, and we are driven by the fact that we are contributing, through revenue, to the world-class journalism produced by the Globe newsroom.

Thank you to our editors and newsroom for keeping us inspired to do our work.

Best,
Kayvan
—
Kayvan Salmanpour
Chief Commercial Officer

Guild approves contract with Boston Globe Media, ending nearly three years of strife

After nearly three years of increasingly fraught negotiations, the Boston Newspaper Guild and Boston Globe Media Partners have finally reached agreement on a new three-year contract. The Guild is the union that represents newsroom employees at the Globe as well as several other departments. Staff members at Boston.com and Stat News are included as well.

Don Seiffert has the details in the Boston Business Journal, reporting that about 85% of Guild members approved the contract proposal, which calls for raises, a signing bonus, a new parental-leave policy, the continuation of overtime pay and unspecified protections against outsourcing.

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The Globe has been growing in recent years, as its paid digital subscription drive has led to profitability (at least before the pandemic) and new hires. William Turville wrote in the U.K.-based Press Gazette last week that digital-only subscribers have settled in at about 225,000, as the paper has retained most of those who signed up at a big discount during the height of COVID-19.

Still, there are warning signs for owners John and Linda Henry, as Seiffert notes. The contract talks grew increasingly contentious over time. In September, Sens. Elizabeth Warren and Ed Markey pulled out of a Globe-sponsored event in order to show their support for the union.

“There’s definitely a sour taste lingering in our mouths,” an anonymous union member told Seiffert. “I doubt any of us will trust our owners as much as we once did.”

Such feelings are understandable but can be overcome with time. The best way to do that is to put out a great newspaper.

Here’s a statement from management, as reported by the Globe:

A Globe spokesperson said the contract “provides strong protections and economic benefits for Guild members and we will immediately start working together on its implementation.”

“The Globe remains committed to journalistic excellence and a relentless focus on providing the best possible service to our region,” the spokesperson said in a statement. “We will continue to invest and innovate in order to ensure that the local, independent journalism that our community has relied on for nearly 150 years will thrive and be sustainable for many years to come.”

And here’s a statement from the Guild, provided Friday night by a trusted source:

Dear Guild members,

Following the tabulation of today’s vote, we are pleased to announce that Guild membership has voted to ratify the three-year tentative contract agreement between the Boston Newspaper Guild and Boston Globe Media Partners.

Together, the two parties have reached an agreement that will benefit the approximately 300 members of the Guild while also providing the company some of the operational flexibility it desired to chart a path for the company’s future success.

As soon as the contract is officially ratified by both parties, which will happen in short order, Guild members will receive a $1,000 signing bonus and a 3 percent raise on their base salary. At the start of year two and year three of this agreement, members will receive 2 percent raises. After nearly three years of difficult negotiations, it is nice to know that our members will have some extra money coming in during the holidays.

Additionally, this agreement will help codify crucial employee rights that were at risk during many stages of these negotiations. All employees will be protected by the Guild’s powers of grievance and arbitration in matters of discipline, termination, and any attempt by the Globe to create new company policies. The Guild also ensured that strong fences have been put around the company’s ability to subcontract work to outside providers, a crucial compromise that protects the integrity of our newsroom. This agreement also retains the successors and assigns clause from our prior CBA, which means that the vast majority of Guild members will enjoy all of the rights afforded by this contract in the event that the Globe comes under new ownership.

This contract would not have been possible without the time and effort of so many of you who chose to fully engage, show up, and do the hard work required, despite the demands of your own busy lives. Through your words and actions over the last three years, we have reached an agreement that stands in stark contrast to the one we were first offered back in 2018. Over the next three years, we hope that every member will continue to stay involved and be vocal about policies you believe will create a better, stronger Boston Globe.

In solidarity,

The BNG Negotiation Team

Scott Steeves
Jenna Russell
Kevin Slane

Details emerge on Globe contract

Don Seiffert of the Boston Business Journal has some details on the proposed contract settlement between the Boston Newspaper Guild and Boston Globe management, news that I broke here on Friday afternoon. This is a huge step forward for the Globe, as three years of talks had become increasingly contentious.

As Seiffert notes, the two big takeaways are that management won on seniority and the union won on a clause that keeps the contract in effect in case the owners, John and Linda Henry, sell — although I think he’s on target in observing that management “may have used the threat of taking away that provision mostly in order to obtain other concessions from the union.”

A three-year union contract impasse at The Boston Globe may finally be ending

The Boston Newspaper Guild’s seemingly endless negotiations with Boston Globe management may finally be coming to a conclusion. According to an email I received from a trusted source, the two sides have reached a “full, comprehensive tentative agreement” that will most likely be put to a vote in mid-November. Union members have worked without a contract since the end of 2018; the proposed agreement would be for three years.

“This has been a long and difficult struggle,” according to an email sent to the membership. “Thanks in part to the vocal and active support we received from many of you, we have succeeded in holding onto some of the most important rights and protections the company sought to remove.”

I am not going to quote any further from the email. It’s a confidential document, and it’s newsworthy only to Guild members. Besides, it presents only one side’s assessment of the pros and cons of the agreement.

Nevertheless, this represents a huge step forward for Globe staff members and for the news organization itself.

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Are newspaper endorsements fading away?

Following The Boston Globe’s odd decision to run its Michelle Wu endorsement in the Saturday print edition rather than in the big Sunday paper, I discussed newspaper endorsements with Michael Jonas of CommonWealth magazine. Are they fading away? Are they still relevant? When and why do they matter?