With a weekday circulation of about 350,000, the Globe is reported to be on track to lose $85 million in 2009.With the $20M that the Robber Barons at the New York Times plan on screwing out of the Union scribblers, that will get the loss down to under $200 a subscriber. So what explains the Death Watch? The Media insiders have a firm grip on reality:
So why is the Globe, which is just a touch smaller than the Chronicle, so similarly strapped? Atorino says it has a lot to do with the city's makeup: a high proportion of Boston's residents are college students, who tend not to read newspapers, and a high proportion of its businesses are financial institutions, which, of course, have gotten hammered over the past two years.Too many students. Riiiight. Unfortunately, the reality they're clutching is from Planet Zokbar-2.
Nothing to do with publishing Internet Porn on the front page because "someone told them it was pix from Abu Graib". Nothing to do with reporting on a Tea Party in Kentucky, but not the one in Boston. Nothing to do with shilling a Democratic politician's handbag in their store.Must be those danged kids. They're probably out on my lawn, right this minute.
I'm not surprised. The last Globe I picked up had organic farmers dating on the internet "reviewing" their dates on line at the Globe, with photos. Have we no PRIDE folks?
ReplyDeleteNot at the Glob, Brigid.
ReplyDeletePart of it is no doubt college kids, but they aren't (for the most part) permanent residents so they don't really count, or shouldn't.
I dumped them when they printed my credit card information on scrap they used to wrap the paper. Friends of mine have dumped it because they see it as anti Israel and anti Semitic. Others dumped it because they saw it as anti Catholic.
My kids, both well out of college get all of their news from TV or on line. I think that the biggest part of the problem is the Globe's best demographic is decreasingly reading the obituaries and increasingly in the obituaries.
Brigid, GAY pride is to be seen in The Globe, copiously.
ReplyDeleteTOYWTYTR:
I think that the biggest part of the problem is the Globe's best demographic is decreasingly reading the obituaries and increasingly in the obituaries.You win the Internetz!
But they can't just quit.
ReplyDeleteIf, right now, they have 350,000 subscribers, and they start to shut down, what will happen? Readers will leave. They will find their news elsewhere. First, other newspapers, then the internet news outlets, and finally, in their desperate search for news, they will be reading our blogs. That just can't be allowed to happen.
So, the Globe will keep cranking out their fish wrapper. Readership will slowly fall away, if for no other reason than the remaining readers will die of old age. Even if losses remain steady, for the sake of argument, loss per subscriber will rise.
In fact, as the readership declines, advertising revenue declines as well. Why buy advertising that no one sees? So expenses stay the same or increase, subscribers leave, and revenue drops.
Soon enough, the Globe will be losing enough money to qualify for a government bailout. Then, we will have to hire people to read it. A that point, it will be mandatory for students receiving government aid for tuition to read the paper...
ASM826, they've dropped below the power curve, and it's really hard to see themselves claw their way up. Certainly the "break the Union" approach that the NYT is taking almost certainly won't make much difference.
ReplyDeleteThey've already lost conservatives and Catholics, and as they cut the news, they'll lose the liberals.
I actually see the Boston Herald buying the remaining assets when the NYT is sick of the bleeding.