Nice Business Model You've Got There, Jimmy

Memo to those news organizations planning to charge for online content: Consider alternative plans. Granted, we're talking about Newsday here and their circulation has been tanking for years. Yet when a major newspaper is charging for access and gets 35 people to sign up over three months their future is rather murky, at best.

In late October, Newsday, the Long Island daily that the Dolans bought for $650 million, put its web site, newsday.com, behind a pay wall. The paper was one of the first non-business newspapers to take the plunge by putting up a pay wall, so in media circles it has been followed with interest. Could its fate be a sign of what others, including The New York Times, might expect?

So, three months later, how many people have signed up to pay $5 a week, or $260 a year, to get unfettered access to newsday.com?

The answer: 35 people. As in fewer than three dozen. As in a decent-sized elementary-school class.

That astoundingly low figure was revealed in a newsroom-wide meeting last week by publisher Terry Jimenez when a reporter asked how many people had signed up for the site. Mr. Jimenez didn't know the number off the top of his head, so he asked a deputy sitting near him. He replied 35.

Michael Amon, a social services reporter, asked for clarification.

"I heard you say 35 people," he said, from Newsday's auditorium in Melville. "Is that number correct?"

Mr. Jimenez nodded.

Hellville, indeed.

The web site redesign and relaunch cost the Dolans $4 million, according to Mr. Jimenez. With those 35 people, they've grossed about $9,000.

In that time, without question, web traffic has begun to plummet, and, certainly, advertising will follow as well.

Of course, there are a few caveats. Anyone who has a newspaper subscription is allowed free access; anyone who has Optimum Cable, which is owned by the Dolans and Cablevision, also gets it free. Newsday representatives claim that 75 percent of Long Island either has a subscription or Optimum Cable.

"We're the freebie newsletter that comes with your HBO," sniffed one Newsday reporter.

Mr. Jimenez was in no mood to apologize. "That's 35 more than I would have thought it would have been," said Mr. Jimenez to the assembled staff, according to five interviews with Newsday staffers.

I'm one of those Cablevision subscribers who gets access and since this started I may have gone to Newsday two or three times as it is.

This clown James Dolan has also presided over a decade of abysmal failure as owner of the New York Knicks and has little success to show with the New York Rangers. If it weren't for his daddy he'd be lucky to have a job at McDonalds.

Thanks to Ace for the link.

Newspaper Circulation Crumbles

Sure, people are cutting back on non-essential purposes during a bad economy, but I suspect even if were were enjoying a robust economy many of these newspapers would still be losing readers.

But this is as bad as it gets. Check that. It'll probably get worse.

The Audit Bureau of Circulations released this morning the spring figures for the six months ending March 31, 2009, showing that the largest metros continue to shed daily and Sunday circulation -- now at a record rate.

According to ABC, for 395 newspapers reporting this spring, daily circulation fell 7% to 34,439,713 copies, compared with the same March period in 2008. On Sunday, for 557 newspapers, circulation was down 5.3% to 42,082,707. These averages do not include 84 newspapers with circulations below 50,000 due to a change in publishing frequency.

The percent comparisons are for the same period ending in March 2008. (All daily averages are for Monday through Friday.)

Daily circulation at The New York Times dropped 3.5% to 1,039,031. The Times' Sunday circ was down 1.7% to 1,451,233.

The Washington Post lost 1.6% of its daily circ to 665,383 and 2.3% to 868,965.

USA Today, as reported earlier this month, lost 7.4% of its daily circulation to 2,113,725 due to a decline in hotel copies.

Daily circulation at The Wall Street Journal was up a fraction 0.6% to 2,082,189, but this was certainly the exception, not the rule.

Daily circulation at The Boston Globe skidded 13.6% to 302,638 copies. Sunday decreased 11.2% to 466,665.

New York's Daily News was off 14%, but rival New York Post lost even more, at minus 20%. The Star-Ledger of Newark shed over 16%. Newsday, by comparison, lost 3%*.

Daily circulation at The Miami Herald fell 15.8% to 202,122. Sunday is down 13.1% to 270,166.

San Francisco Chronicle shed 15.7% of daily copies to 312,118. Sunday fell 16.5% to 312,118.

Tribune Co. papers rolled out highly touted redesigns in this period, but lost readers. The Chicago Tribune lost 7.4% of its daily circulation to 501,202 and 4.5% on Sunday to 858,256 copies. Circulation plunged at the Los Angeles Times at 6.5% of its daily circulation (Monday through Friday) to 723,181 copies. Sunday was down 7.4% to 1,019,388.

The Philadelphia Inquirer lost 13.7% of its daily circulation to 288,298. Sunday was hit just as hard, down 12% to 550,400. Daily circulation at its sister publication the Daily News fell 7.6% to 99,103. (At the end of March the Inquirer started distributing the Daily News within its pages. The change does not affect the circulation for this period.)

Daily circulation at The Atlanta Journal-Constitution plummeted almost 20% to 261,828. Sunday decreased 7% to 462,011.

The top 25 in circulation are listed here.

These plummeting figures can't be strictly blamed on newspapers losing readers due to a liberal slant, especially when the one paper you could say that has a conservative op-ed slant, the New York Post, dropped 20%. Since the Post is owned by News Corp. (as is the WSJ), I'd expect them to weather this. However, some of these newspapers are hemorrhaging so may readers and losing ad revenue at record rates they just may not survive with a print model. Moving strictly online is already being done with some large dailies and that may be the only avenue of survival at this point.

Linked at Instapundit. Thanks!

Brilliant: Failing Newspaper to Charge for Inferior Online Product

This rag may as well just close up shop now. They've been unable to compete in the New York city market and now they want to charge people to read their biased crap?

Good luck with that.

Cablevision Systems Corp plans to charge online readers of its Newsday newspaper, a move that would make it one of the first large U.S. papers to reverse a trend toward free Web readership.

Newsday, which covers the New York suburb of Long Island, was bought by Cablevision in a $650 million deal last May that was widely criticized on Wall Street as a puzzling move into a troubled newspaper market.

Cablevision had to write down Newsday's value by $402 million on Thursday, pushing its fourth-quarter results to a loss, as U.S. print advertising sales and circulation have dropped with more readers seeking free news on the Web.

But Cablevision Chief Operating officer Tom Rutledge said the cable TV company was aware of the difficulties faced by the traditional newspaper business.

"Our goal was and is to use our electronic network assets and subscriber relationships to transform the way news is distributed," he said on a conference call with analysts.

"We plan to end the distribution of free Web content," he added.

Several large U.S. newspaper groups have had to lay off staff, slash dividends and scramble for debt refinancing. Others have filed for bankruptcy protection, including Newsday's former parent Tribune Co, Journal Register Co. and Philadelphia Newspapers LLC.

In the past, several major newspapers including The New York Times charged readers for full or partial access to stories on their websites.

But in recent years, news content has become widely available for free, forcing many papers to give up small subscription revenue in the hope of gaining better ad sales by attracting more readers.

Frankly I'd be surprised if they got a hundred people to pay for their drivel.

Seriously, would you pay for this?