Will the Internet drive newspapers out of business? It looks like newspapers can flourish only where the Internet is not widely used. So the New York Times is suffering while the Straits Times is flourishing in Singapore where there are only 39.2 Internet users per 100 inhabitants, according to the World Economic Forum's Global Information Technology Report 2007-2008.
Rupert Murdoch's New York Post reported on Friday:
The New York Times' newsroom is preparing for a bloodbath…
The word from inside is that approximately 50 unionized journalists have accepted the buyout proposal, and only another 20 non-union editorial employees have gotten on board.
That means the ax could fall on as many as 30 editorial people in the company's first-ever mass firing of journalists in its 156-year history.
Executive Editor William Keller had said originally that he was looking to cut 100 people from the Times staff in response to the dismal newspaper advertising environment…
Tuesday was the deadline for employees choosing to accept buyout packages, which offer three weeks of severance for each year worked.
The job cuts follow a slump in revenue. The Associated Press reported on April 17:
The New York Times Co. lost $335,000 in the first quarter as advertising revenues slumped, the newspaper publisher said Thursday in a report that fell far short of Wall Street estimates.
The loss worked out to less than a penny per share, versus net income of $23.9 million or 17 cents per share a year ago.
Revenues fell 4.9 percent to $747.9 million from $786 million a year ago on a 9.2 percent slump in advertising revenues. Classified ad revenues were the worst hit, declining 22.6 percent.
Compare that with the rosy financial outlook for the Straits Times in Singapore.
The Straits Times' parent company, Singapore Press Holdings (SPH), reported on April 14 a net profit of $100 million Singapore dollars ($73.4 million) in the second quarter. It said:
Print advertisement revenue rose by an encouraging 11.3% to $179.8 million (Singapore dollars).
The Straits Times’ Saturday editions run to well over 200 pages, bulked up by classifieds. Last Saturday’s issue was a 296-page behemoth.
Maybe advertisers in Singapore have only two serious choices – newspapers and television — because Internet use is low. And there are only four English-language newspapers to choose from:
- The Straits Times (circulation 388,500)
- The downmarket tabloid New Paper (111,400)
- The Business Times (30,400) (all three are owned by SPH)
- The freesheet Today (in which also SPH has a minority stake; daily readership:584,000).
(All figures are from the publications’ websites.)
With figures like that, the conclusion is inevitable:
Newspapers flourish best in pre-digital markets where there is little competition.
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