What is the secret formula for reviving newspapers ?

Can Newspapers be saved? And should we attempt to save them? Obviously, the business model needs to be changed. But what should replace the traditional newspaper model? What follows is an excellent column by New York Times Media Writer David Carr about his own hometown newspaper (The Minneapolis Star-Tribune) and attempts to revive it. As part of your readings this week you will review the Atlantic article, "How to Save News." We have already discussed the fact that most the content on the Web is generated by reporters at newspapers. Given this fact, can we just say: good riddance to newspapers? What will be the impact on news? And what will be the impact on our democratic society if newspapers and serious reporting cease to exist? I would like for you to address these questions and look at both the costs and the benefits of newspapers. Review this column, the readings for this week and the corresponding video I have posted here relating to whether the government should get involved and bail out newspapers. Your post is due by next Tuesday April 26. - MT



By David Carr

NYT - In 2008, when I last saw Michael Klingensmith, he was sitting in a corner office on the 34th floor of the Time Warner building, one of three powerful executives who controlled Time Inc., the biggest magazine publisher in the world.

It was the only company that Mr. Klingensmith, an M.B.A. from the University of Chicago, had ever worked for. After three decades, including stops at Sports Illustrated and Time, he was on the short list to become the next chief executive. When the job went to Ann Moore, he hung in for a while as executive vice president in charge of strategy and acquisitions. “It was a real job, it just wasn’t a very fun one,” he said.

So in 2008 at the age of 55, he took early retirement. He could have gone to work at any publisher in Manhattan, but instead, after a short time as a consultant, he moved to Minneapolis to become the publisher of The Star Tribune.

It wasn’t a move to Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood. The newspaper had been through years of upheaval, churning through bankruptcy, publishers and lots of layoffs.

But what could have been a quixotic last fling has turned into something far more impressive: The Star Tribune is adding readers — the Sunday circulation grew 5.7 percent in the last audit and will most likely be up again a bit in the audit that will be out in few weeks — the business is making money and, get this, distributing money from its profit-sharing plan to its employees.

It helps that Mr. Klingensmith is a local boy. He grew up in “friendly Fridley,” a suburb of Minneapolis, and he is a serious Twins fan. He traded deeply paneled rooms with a view of Rockefeller Center and its fabled skating rink for a fourth-floor office festooned with Twins memorabilia and a view of the staff parking lots, one of which is decorated with a statue of Joe Mauer of the Twins, a local hero, and another of Lucy from Peanuts, reading a newspaper.

Even Lucy probably notices that it’s a smaller newspaper than it used to be. Once a reliable moneymaker for the Cowles family, The Star Tribune was sold to McClatchy for $1.2 billion in 1998. As the midsize newspaper business tumbled, The Star Tribune became a drag on earnings for McClatchy and it was sold to Avista Capital Partners for $530 million at the end of 2006.

The private equity firm loaded $500 million in debt on the property just before revenue dropped by almost half. There were extensive layoffs, interim publishers, and in January 2009 the newspaper, the nation’s 15th largest, filed for bankruptcy. Like Mr. Klingensmith, I grew up reading the newspaper and I found it gut-wrenching to watch.

The newspaper ended up in the hands of its creditors, including the investment firm Angelo, Gordon and Company, which also has stakes in the Tribune Company and Philadelphia newspapers.

By the time Mr. Klingensmith said yes to the publisher’s job at the start of 2010, $500 million in debt had been reduced to $100 million in the reorganization, costs were way down because of the cuts, and revenues from both advertising and circulation had begun to crawl back.

The reason the company had profits to share is that while ad revenue was down 9 percent in 2010, it was far less than the 15 percent that had been budgeted. According to David Brauer, who covers the paper for MinnPost, a local news site, the difference yielded more than $30 million in earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization in 2010. And daily circulation has remained essentially flat even though the price of the daily newspaper was raised to 75 cents from 50 cents in May. The Sunday newspaper, which did not increase in price, has gone from a low of about 477,000 in September 2009 to 504,600 in September 2010, according to audit reports.

“When I was talking to them about the job, I looked at the financials and thought it had a good shot,” Mr. Klingensmith said. “I actually thought that newspapers have a lot more life in them than they get credit for.”


http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/18/business/media/18carr.html

Time Warner Cable and Viacom Seek Ruling on iPad App

Editor's Note: This story is interesting on several levels. Remember how old media always had control of content? It told you what the news was and when you could read or view it. Then the Internet came of age. Now, we see new battlegrounds forming with some of the same old players. Technology has changed how media is delivered, but has it really improved the content we as consumers receive? And are media companies all that different from the past? The faces may be different, but the issues seemed to be similar. Most companies want to earn the biggest profits possible. Big profits often boils down to having something people want and then limiting access so you can control pricing. But to limit access you need to be in control of the technology or platform that delivers the content. It used to be TV stations or newspapers. In the case of the story that follows this comment, we are talking about access to the iPad. So even as technology advances and offers more opportunities are we bound to see new limits on what we can view, read, download or purchase? We seem to be going in a circle. Are we really ahead? - MT

NYT - Time Warner Cable and Viacom each filed lawsuits on Thursday that seek to resolve a stormy dispute in the television business over the right to stream channels to new devices like iPads.

Cable companies like Time Warner Cable say their existing contracts with channel owners like Viacom cover devices like iPads that can be turned into television sets. Some of the channels owners disagree, and they have been exchanging threats with Time Warner Cable ever since its TWCableTV app was released in mid-March.

When Viacom, Scripps Networks, Fox Cable Networks and Discovery Communications threatened legal action a week ago, Time Warner Cable temporarily removed their channels from the app. But it said it would pursue legal options, and on Thursday afternoon, the company filed a request for a declaratory judgment in favor of its app — and against Viacom — in Federal District Court for the Southern District of New York.

The company’s general counsel said Time Warner Cable was “asking the court to confirm our view” that the company has the rights to in-home viewing of channels on any screen.

Minutes later, Viacom said it had filed its own suit in the same court for breach of contract and copyright violations.

http://mediadecoder.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/04/07/time-warner-cable-and-viacom-seek-ruling-on-ipad-app/