Readers and Viewers

In a recent e-mail chat about the future of their business, several young New York Times reporters concluded with dismay that most of their friends don't subscribe to the newspaper. At the San Jose Mercury News, hardened news hawks facing staff reductions have begun eyeing public relations jobs they once would have disdained. In Philadelphia, a news photographer who has "loved every minute" of his...

Most executives in the beleagured newspaper industry tend to believe they have a product problem and not an image problem, and attempt to address it accordingly. Newspapers are pouring billions of dollars, euros, and yen into addressing the tangible with little to no results to show for it, according to a new report titled "Newspaper Outlook 2006: Managing Perceptions." What newspapers are not...

Newspapers must refocus all their energies on revenue growth and circulation growth if they are to reverse perceptions that are clouding the industry's future, according to a new report titled "Newspaper Outlook 2006: Managing Perceptions." Such a focus would be a departure from the newspaper industry's current defensive posture that is producing lost market share for readers and advertisers. The...

Here's the scoop on the newspaper industry. Publishers have announced more than 1,000 job cuts this year at big metro dailies, inside the newsroom and on the business side. And once again, editors and reporters wonder if their journalistic mission will suffer at the hands of Wall Street's demand for profit margin improvement amid slumping ad revenue. Newspaper executives don't have it easy, either...

The decline in newspaper circulation figures and the tepid growth of subscription, single copy purchase, and advertising revenues between 2005 and 2009 is a global phenomenon, says PricewaterhouseCoopers’ Global Entertainment and Media Outlook: 2005-2009. No matter where in the world the newspaper business is located, the story repeats itself. The Outlook defines the newspaper publishing market as...

It is being seen as a move not quite in tune with the times ? the decision of the New York Times to put its columnists behind a paywall has not made it very popular on the Web. At a time when newspapers are going out of their way to accommodate citizen journalists on the websites, and making way for blogging channels on their online homes, NYT has launched TimesSelect and made its most read...

The New York Times Web site began charging for some of its content this week, and so those students who wake up too late for the paper copy may miss out on articles they want to read. The new system, called TimesSelect, will limit access to op-ed columnists and other online content to customers who subscribe to the paper edition and who pay the online fee. Tufts students, who receive free paper...

THE NEW YORK TIMES CO. ran more online display ads last month than any other advertiser in the consumer goods category, according to recent data from Nielsen//NetRatings' AdRelevance. Online ads for consumer goods accounted for 5 percent of all online display ads last month; the total estimated ad spend for consumer goods display ads was $28.7 million. The Times Co. was responsible for 9.2 percent...

The New York Times started charging readers for online access to its most popular columnists, the newspaper's parent company also announced it would shed 500 employees, or 4 percent of its workforce. By the end of the day Wednesday, the company's stock was trading at just $29.96 -- a new low for the year. Of course, the timing is coincidental -- the decision to place columnists behind a paid wall...

On Monday, The New York Times introduced the first paid section of its online version. In less than 24 hours, someone found a way around the TimesSelect paid subscription service. Never Pay Retail was created on the same day that TimesSelect began. The blog links to other newspapers that syndicate the Times' Op-Ed content and are putting it online for free. To access the Op-Ed content and archives...