All Posts Tagged With: "detroit"

OK, so yesterday I tossed up a 100% unscientific poll to see what you thought would happen with the Detroit and Denver newspaper situations. Since we now know what the Detroit decision was (Thurs-Fri-Sun home delivery with papers for sale on newsstands only on other days), here are the current results. (Denver’s situation is in flux for another several weeks.)

The speculation ended quickly enough. Detroit newspaper executives announced today their plan to (they hope) survive the industry crisis with two newspapers intact by implementing the following in spring 2009:

• Print the Detroit Free Press (Gannett-owned) on Thursdays, Fridays, and Sundays.
• Print the Detroit News (MediaNews Group-owned) on Thursdays and Fridays.
• Paid digital-replica subscription service on other days (part of home-delivery subscribers’ accounts).
• Paid thinner editions sold on newsstands on other days.
• Talk of “expanding digital information channels that provide news and information to a variety of audiences when, where and how they want it.”

Full details are available at Romenesko.

My critique:

• Paid editions on the non-home-delivery days is a mistake. Younger people will not, for the most part, pay for these on the newsstand. So this does nothing to address the problem of newspaper print editions’ aging demographic (average age, over 50). The Detroit papers have a chance at reaching younger people (who will not subscribe for home delivery) if they make scaled-back FREE editions available at newsstands, coffeeshops, malls, libraries, colleges and universities, etc. That can increase overall readership of the off-day print editions, and serve as a strong marketing vehicle to get more traffic to the papers’ various websites.
• I think Martin Langeveld is right in suggesting that instead of a Sunday edition, the Free Press have a “weekend” edition published and made available on Saturday.
• The Detroit newspapers press release made much of a strategy to improve its websites and go after more niche markets on the web. That’s fine, but I spotted one tiny mention of mobile services. To hit the younger audience, mobile must be a huge part of the digital strategy. Smartphones (a la the iPhone) are about to become ubiquitous.
• I’ve never been a fan of digital-replica editions. Giving that away to home-delivery subscribers is fine, but I think most folks will just read the web or mobile editions, which are designed for their respective formats, while digital-replica for a computer screen is an annoying user experience. I don’t expect to see much in the way of non-print subscribers paying for the digital-replica editions.
• This plan is designed to have no layoffs in newsroom staff (but cost cuts in other areas such as production and circulation). I very much doubt the publishers will stick to that. I predict free off-day editions will come as a later decision; those will be thinner; and less staff will be required.

Overall, I view the reduction in home-delivered print editions as a necessary step in the evolution of newspapers in metro markets. But reading through the press release from the Detroit publishers, I don’t feel optimistic. Expect to see the announced plan tweaked fairly quickly, and the no-layoff pledge be temporary. (I hope I’m wrong.)

I’m looking forward to Tuesday, when Detroit’s newspaper executives apparently will unveil a bold new plan to save themselves. As the Wall Street Journal reports, “the leading scenario set to be unveiled calls for the Free Press, the 20th largest U.S. newspaper by weekday circulation, and the News to end home delivery on all but the most lucrative days — Thursday, Friday and Sunday. On the other days, the company would sell single copies of abbreviated print editions at newsstands and direct readers to the papers’ expanded digital editions.”

This will be significant, if that’s close to being accurate, in moving daily newspapers toward an era where digital is at the center and print is but one of the spokes on the distribution wheel. Of course, the Christian Science Monitor has already announced that it will do this early next year, publishing a print edition only once per weekend and going digital the rest of the week. But the Monitor is a national/international paper; Detroit would be the first major metro market where this might take place.

Plenty of folks are speculating and analyzing the plan’s chances, but we don’t really know if the scenario above is what’s been decided. I hope not, because I doubt that plan will work. Newsosaurus Alan Mutter seems to agree.

I think the predicted scenario is close to what should happen, but with some major flaws that keep the Detroit papers driving toward oblivion. (With the auto industry’s troubles, the Detroit newspapers are probably in the most perilous position of any major metros in the U.S.)

Here’s my prescription for what should be announced on Tuesday. (Much of this reflects my latest Editor & Publisher Online column, “My ‘Crisis’ Advice to Newspaper Company CEOs: 11 Points to Ponder.”) Specific to the Detroit situation:

1. Go with Thursday, Friday, and Sunday normal print editions; stick with paid home delivery (at discounted rates, of course). These editions should be larger than has been typical, as they (it is hoped) absorb more print advertising that went into other days no longer serviced in print.
2. Promote the hell out of website and mobile services in those editions. Don’t treat the Thurs-Fri-Sun editions as standalone print products. Aggressively push paid print subscribers to your core web and mobile services — both for supplementary content (e.g., videos and databases to accompany printed stories) and to reinforce that the News and Free Press remain a DAILY habit but now you need to get on a computer or your phone on the other days.
3. For the other days, publish a slim FREE edition and don’t deliver it to home subscribers. Forgo the rack and newsstand sales revenue in exchange for wider readership. Perhaps you can parlay that into a better advertising vehicle than if you tried to sell copies of a thinned-down paper that many people wouldn’t think is worth the price.
4. The slimmed-down off-day print editions would need to have a modest amount of killer content, so people will want to pick it up. (Comics? Most popular columnists?) Another possibility for these off-day, thin editions is to make each a niche publication, with mondo calls for readers to go online or use their phones for the news. Mostly, these smaller editions should be about steering people to online and mobile services by the papers. If you feel that you need to publish these print editions at all, then their principal purpose should be as a table of contents to the (dominant) digital services that offer the news those days.
5. Adopt the big cultural change: Announce that the Free Press and News are now digitally driven metro news and information services, which just happen to also publish print editions for those who still want that. Market this as the local news source for the digital era.
6. With fewer journalistic resources than before, don’t try to make the remaining print editions everything for everybody. Focus on the hard-hitting journalism, the watchdog and investigative projects, enterprise reporting. Make decisions about leaving out stuff that caters to younger people who aren’t reading the print edition anyway. Focus on your core journalism.
7. Make the website for everyone. For the older crowd that you are now forcing online, have that hard-hitting journalism front and center. Develop new online and mobile services for niches, which can become new revenue streams; many of them will be designed to attract the younger crowd.
8. Get rid of print-heavy compensation schemes for sales people. With this new digital dominance, your sales reps need strong financial incentives to sell new digital products and not fall back on the old print stuff.

There’s much more to a digital-first strategy. (Hey, I’m always open to new consulting gigs. )

But let’s see what gets announced on Tuesday. It’ll either be another stake in the heart of Detroit’s newspapers; a visionary reinvention that stands a chance of altering the rest of the newspaper industry; or somewhere in between: a flawed plan that has some elements of successful strategy that will need to be tweaked.

This will be interesting. Here’s hoping that whatever Detroit newspaper executives have up their sleeves, it doesn’t involve more journalists being laid off. It’s difficult to feel much optimism, however. More on Tuesday.