Tag: Boston Globe

Going lean and green with GlobeReader

Our new front page
Our new front page

Tomorrow morning, for the first time in more than 30 years, we won’t be looking for the Boston Globe on our front walkway. Last night I took a rather momentous step — I canceled home delivery of the Monday-to-Saturday print edition, leaving us only with the Sunday paper.

Why did we do this? It’s been inevitable since early this summer, when the Globe made a couple of important changes in its distribution model. First, it unveiled GlobeReader, an electronic paper that’s a faster and easier read than the Web edition. Second, it raised the price of its print edition.

Seven-day home delivery of the Globe now costs $46.56 a month in Media Nation. With advertising in what may be a permanent decline, readers are going to have to pick up more of the cost, so I certainly don’t fault the Globe for charging more. But our family is not immune from economic pressures. For us, it makes sense to go with paper on Sundays and use GlobeReader the rest of the week.

By canceling the daily Globe, are we contributing to the paper’s financial woes? We thought long and hard about that before making our decision. The Globe remains the most important news organization in Greater Boston. Civic life would be much poorer without it.

We would not have canceled the paper if the only alternative was to read it on the Web. Like virtually all newspapers, the Globe is struggling with its decision some dozen year ago to offer its content online for free. At one time, newspaper executives assumed that advertising revenues would eventually justify that decision. It didn’t happen — it may never happen — and the way out of that morass is unclear. We were not about to contribute to that pain.

But Globe executives presumably had their eyes wide open when they unveiled GlobeReader in the midst of a recession and made it available to anyone with Sunday home delivery. Clearly, the idea was to preserve the Sunday edition at all costs. I’ve been told that the Sunday paper accounts for as much as 60 percent of the paper’s revenues. So no, I don’t feel guilty about taking advantage of the Globe’s new business strategy.

Although this was not an overriding factor, it’s also true that electronic delivery is far better for the environment.

Is our move to GlobeReader permanent? Not necessarily. Mrs. Media Nation, whose affinity for old-fashioned print is stronger than mine, is interning at a school library this fall as she works her way toward a master’s. Once that’s over, depending on her schedule, we may resume print.

But if the folks at the Globe are going to offer a variety of electronic-distribution options (not just the Web and GlobeReader, but the Kindle and a mobile cellphone edition, too), we’re going to take advantage of them. I can only hope that they know what they’re doing.

Getting ready for the stretch run

In Theo Epstein-like fashion, the Boston Globe is getting ready for the stretch drive by bolstering its sports staff.

Peter Abraham, who covers the (gasp!) Yankees for the Journal News, which serves the Lower Hudson Valley, is joining the Globe to cover the Red Sox for the paper and Boston.com. “I’m sure some of you will accuse me of being a traitor because I’ll be covering the Red Sox,” Abraham writes on his blog. Yet the comments are surprisingly kind.

And speaking of refugees from Yankee country, Matt Pepin of the Times Herald-Record [now fixed] of Middletown, N.Y., has been named the sports editor of Boston.com. He’ll join the staff on Oct. 5, just in time for the playoffs. Adam Reilly has the details.

Chasing the missing e-mails

Two quick comments on the growing controversy over the missing City Hall e-mails:

  • The Boston Globe has done an impressive job, both in uncovering the fact that Michael Kineavy, a top aide to Boston Mayor Tom Menino, had deleted the e-mails, and in following up. In particularly like the story in today’s paper about the forensics of e-mail recovery.
  • Attorney General Martha Coakley’s quote in the Boston Herald today strikes me as the first misstep of her Senate campaign. “Particularly understanding this is the middle of a [mayoral] campaign, we get lots of complaints from folks who are adversaries who have a particular agenda,” Coakley says.

Whoa. Though it’s certainly true that the e-mails — public records — may prove to be no big deal, it’s also true that they may be related to the criminal probe of former state senator Dianne Wilkerson. Coakley’s going to have to do better than that.

Arthur and Janet’s $70 million question

Here’s the latest edition of On the Record, an e-mail circulated to employees of the New York Times Co. by chairman Arthur Sulzberger Jr. and president Janet Robinson. A copy was obtained by Media Nation. Enjoy.

On the Record … From Arthur & Janet

Vol. 3 Our Circulation Strategy

September 14, 2009

To Our Colleagues,

A reader recently wrote, “I feel that the importance of The Times is so great that I would pay $70 million for access to the most important paper in the free world.”

We appreciate the thought but while things are difficult for newspapers, they haven’t reached that point.

As our advertising revenues have declined, we have asked our readers to bear more of the cost of our journalism, as many other newspapers have done with their readers. They have demonstrated a willingness to do so. As a result, in the first half of this year we have seen gains in circulation revenues at The Times, the Globe, the Sarasota Herald-Tribune, the Santa Rosa Press Democrat and some of our other regional newspapers. In this issue of On the Record, we’ll talk about our circulation strategy and how it has improved our financial results.

Let’s start with our underlying premise. We believe that we provide very high-quality news, information and entertainment to our readers. We also believe that our premium quality journalism warrants a premium price. This is why we have experimented in the past with online subscription models. It’s also why we continue to explore ways to derive more revenue from our digital content than we get from the advertising and other secondary revenue streams we have today. We plan to discuss that in a future issue of On the Record.

Today circulation revenues make up a greater percentage of the Company’s revenues than they did in the past. Five years ago, advertising accounted for 67 percent of our total revenues and circulation made up 27 percent. In the second quarter of this year, advertising totaled 54 percent of our revenues and circulation was 39 percent. Circulation revenues have grown to the point that last year they were the highest they have been in our history.

We don’t mean to suggest that there have not been any cancellations or that circulation volume hasn’t declined. It has. But there have been far fewer cancellations from price increases than we expected at both The Times and the Globe. The reader retention rates for The Times and the Globe are enviable — for subscribers of two years or more, the rate is roughly 90 percent for both papers. In fact, The Times has more than 830,000 readers who have subscribed for two years or more, up from 650,000 in 2000.

Some of the volume declines at our newspapers are attributable to our deliberate strategy of focusing on individual readers who pay to get their paper rather than discounted copies, such as those distributed at hotels, conventions and other venues. Advertisers value these individual readers since they are deeply engaged with our newspapers.

Why do readers continue to embrace print? The reason newspapers have endured for more than 400 years is because they work. People understand how newspapers are organized — if a story is above the fold, it’s more important than below the fold. If it appears on the front page, it’s more newsworthy than one inside the paper. Readers enjoy the serendipity of finding something new that they didn’t realize they were interested in but discovered in the pages of their paper. Newspapers are portable. They offer a point in time assessment of the news.

In order to get The Times in the hands of even more readers, we are working with organizations across the country to print and distribute the paper. Most recently we announced a new agreement to print The Times in Nashville, enabling us to expand newsstand and home delivery to readers in the area and to better serve our current readers in Tennessee, northern Alabama, northern Mississippi, eastern Arkansas and western Kentucky. Today The Times is printed at 26 locations across North America.

We expect the print editions of The Times, the Globe and our regional newspapers will be around for years to come. But we are a news company, not a newspaper company. We are committed to offering our consumers our content wherever and whenever they want it and even in ways they may not have envisioned — in print or online — wired or mobile — in text, graphics, audio, video or even live events. Because of our high-quality journalism, we have very powerful and trusted brands that attract educated, affluent and influential audiences. These audiences are a true competitive advantage as we move into an increasingly digital world.

We hope this is helpful in understanding our circulation strategy. If you have any questions on this or other issues, please send us an e-mail at: arthur_and_janet@nytimes.com.

Arthur & Janet

The latest on the Times Co. and the Globe

New York Times Co. chairman Arthur Sulzberger Jr. and president Janet Robinson met with employees of the Boston Globe yesterday. And it appears there is nothing new to report.

According to stories in the Times, the Globe and the Boston Herald, Sulzberger said the Globe is still for sale, though an improving financial picture means there’s no hurry.

It also sounds like folks at the Globe remain angry over the way they were treated earlier this year, when the Times Co. threatened to close the paper if the unions failed to approve $20 million in concessions.

I could go on. But you get the idea. Ralph Ranalli has more at BeatthePress.org.

Another bump for Stephen Taylor

Boston Herald business reporter Jay Fitzgerald talks with newspaper-industry analysts who say a group headed by Stephen Taylor — a member of the family who sold the Boston Globe to the New York Times Co. in 1993 — may be emerging as the leading candidate to buy the Globe from the Times Co.

That would fit with the Globe’s own recent reporting, which identified the Taylor group and a California-based real-estate investment company, Platinum Equity, as serious contenders. All things being equal, Times Co. chairman Arthur Sulzberger Jr. would presumably rather sell to a newspaper guy than to an out-of-state company that may be more interested in the property than the news.

Optimism amid the newspaper gloom

espnboston_20090828Two pieces of news prompt this post. First, the Associated Press reports that newspaper advertising was down 29 percent in the second quarter of 2009, a devastating decline that is sure to renew questions as to how much longer the traditional newspaper business can hang on. Second, the Boston Globe’s main football writer, Mike Reiss, is leaving for a new ESPN Web site to be called ESPNBoston.

What do these two events have in common? They are further evidence that media organizations whose business models are relatively healthy have an opportunity to invade the turf traditionally occupied by newspapers. That doesn’t offer much hope for newspaper publishers. But it’s certainly cause for optimism among those who want to see journalism survive — and something worried journalism students should take solace from as well.

ESPNBoston, which has not yet launched, is not to be confused with the radio station of the same name — an also-ran with two bad signals, now reduced to spectator status in the sports-talk battle between WEEI (AM 850) and WBZ-FM (98.5). ESPNBoston, writes the Globe’s Chad Finn, is part of a strategy by the parent company to launch regional Web sites in the most sports-crazed parts of the country.

Disney-owned ESPN, among other things, operates wildly successful cable channels, publishes a magazine and produces a Web site that, according to Quantcast.com, attracts between 14 million and 20 million unique visitors each month. I don’t pretend to know what ESPN’s business strategy is for the new local sites, but it seems logical that company executives would be willing to subsidize them for quite a while if they help cement brand loyalty.

Reiss is not the only local sports reporter to leave for sites operated by non-newspaper companies. Previously, the Boston Herald lost Rob Bradford to WEEI.com, and Globe baseball writer Gordon Edes decamped to Yahoo. The Globe and the Herald have always had good sports sections, and their coverage has helped drive a lot of circulation. Their sports sections are still good, but now they must compete with online coverage produced by companies with fewer financial problems than the newspaper business is experiencing.

And sports is just one example. Tom Palmer retired from the development beat at the Globe last year and kept right on doing his thing for McDermott Ventures, a public-relations firm — a relationship that may raise eyebrows among journalism ethicists, but that is sure to becoming increasingly common.

Also in 2008, Boston.com political blogger James Pindell left to head a national network of state political sites called Politicker.com. The project was ahead of its time, and it folded in the midst of last fall’s economic crisis. But the idea lives on: Pindell is now trying a similar project on his own in New Hampshire.

Finally, and not to repeat myself, but one of the more interesting projects under way right now is the redesigned WBUR.org, published by Boston’s public-radio powerhouse, WBUR (90.9 FM); the site combines local and NPR news into a quality online newspaper. Public radio has not been immune from having to make recession-related cuts. But, unlike newspapers, both its distribution model (commuters stuck in their cars) and its business model (listener contributions, corporate underwriting and grants, supplemented with a small amount of taxpayer money) remain intact.

If the next owner of the Globe keeps on cutting, it’s easy to imagine WBUR.org morphing into a real alternative. And, of course, there’s nothing to stop the city’s television news operations from pumping up their Web sites, though they, like the newspaper business, are experiencing tough economic times.

We often hear that if newspapers die, there will be nothing left but amateur citizen-media sites that, for all their strengths, lack the capacity to do the sort of public-interest journalism a democracy needs to thrive. In fact, there is reason to be a lot more optimistic than that. I hope newspaper companies can find a way of combining their print and online operations so they can thrive for years to come. But if they can’t, it won’t be the end of journalism.

Times Co. executives to visit Globe

New York Times Co. chairman Arthur Sulzberger Jr. and president Janet Robinson will visit the Boston Globe on Sept. 9, according to an e-mail sent to Globe staffers that was obtained by Media Nation. The full text of the e-mail follows:

Please mark your calendars!

Arthur and Janet will visit the Globe on Wednesday, September 9th to hold business update meetings that are open to all employees.

The meetings are scheduled for 10:00 AM and 2:00 PM. Each meeting will be held in the Link.

All employees are encouraged to attend. There will be time for Q&A’s.

[Globe publisher] Steve [Ainsley] will begin the meeting with a brief overview of The Boston Globe and Boston.com business plan.

No doubt the number-one question on most folks’ minds will be the status of Times Co. efforts to sell the Globe, Boston.com and the Worcester Telegram & Gazette.

Update: For what it’s worth, Media Nation has received a revised e-mail stating that Ainsley “will hold a series of separate employee meetings in mid-September” in order to “ensure that all employees have ample opportunity to both meet with and
ask questions of Arthur Sulzberger and Janet Robinson.”

Globe’s Kennedy series drives Web traffic

The Boston Globe’s Web site, Boston.com, received more than 8 million page views yesterday by 5 p.m., according to Zachary Seward of the Nieman Journalism Lab — a surge driven by the death of Sen. Ted Kennedy.

And though Seward doesn’t have specific numbers, he notes that Boston.com was (and still is) giving prominent play to its multimedia series on Kennedy’s life that was published last February. As I wrote then, the package was likely to serve as an important resource for some time to come, especially giving that Kennedy was nearing the end of his life.

Interestingly enough, Seward learns that the text had been taken down for a while at the request of Simon & Schuster, which published a book based on the series, and was only recently restored.