A New Newspaper Business Model: Switch From Being A Six Times Weekly PM Paid Broadsheet To A Twice Weekly Free Tabloid And Put The Real Daily News Effort, With Fewer Journalists, Onto The Web Site

Philip M. Stone February 12, 2008

As newsrooms continue to shrink their editorial staff as part of their “new business models”, some of the new ways of doing things are becoming clearer. Like paid-for daily newspapers no longer being daily, nor paid-for, and their use of paper lessens.
See April 28, 2008 followup

Take the Capital Times, a PM of just 17,072 circulation  six days a week in Madison, the state capital of Wisconsin. The newspaper has announced that beginning April 30 the broadsheet will be no more. It is turning tabloid-size. Not only that, but it will publish on paper just two days a week, and, oh yes, it’s also going free.

Under the new plan the AM Wisconsin State Journal (WSJ) will distribute as an insert the Wednesday Capital Times that will contain mostly news and opinion. On Thursday the WSJ will distribute the second Capital Times of the week, this issue devoted to  the arts, entertainment and cultural news. And for those who don’t take the WSJ they can pick up both tabloid editions throughout Madison from free newspaper boxes.

But that doesn’t mean that the Capital Times disappears as a daily news source., No, for publisher Clayton Frink says that instead of throwing more good money after a losing print operation he is now a convert to the power of the web.  He says the newspaper’s web site will have more copy, more depth, and news will show up on the site far faster than in the past, but he will do it with about 25% less newsroom staff, down to about 40. And as for the two weekly editions, distribution will be around 80,000 each, nearly five times more than at present.

Dave Zweifel, the newspaper’s editor for the past 25 years, described it thus: “Moving our resources to the web is the wave of the future. Thousands of readers are already using captimes.com and, frankly, we’re often blown away by the volume of responses we get to the columns and stories at a time when we’re devoting limited resources to the site. Putting the full force of our newsroom on the site will extend the reach and relevance of The Capital Times for years and years to come.”

Be that as it may, Zweifel gives up the editor’s chair to be named editor emeritus as a younger man takes over. “The opportunity is there and we're going to grab on to it," Zweifel said. "It's a hell of a big step and it's a sad step for those of us who are in love with the printed word. ... [But] we'll be able to reach 80,000 one day a week instead of 17,000 six days."

Cut through all the spin and what really is happening is that another paid-for PM print newspaper bites the dust, but it continues with a decent  newsroom -- it will probably go down from about 60 journalists to around 40 – 45 from early retirements and the like – as it puts the majority of its efforts into being a full-fledged Internet newspaper. Yes, a newspaper without the word “paper”.

The Capital Times could do this easier than others because  it and Lee Enterprises  each own 50% of Capital Newspapers which publishes the Capital Times, the Wisconsin State Journal in addition to three other daily newspapers and several weeklies and shoppers.

The Thursday Capital Times tabloid will actually replace the Rhythm section that had been produced by both newspapers and distributed in each.

As Zweifel put it, “We can sit here and continue the way we are, or take a step into the future.”

The PM newspaper in the US is now pretty much of a lost soul. It has pretty-much disappeared from the small markets and whereas there were around some 500 communities that enjoyed both a morning and afternoon newspaper 100 years ago, the number is down to around 20 today. Most of those PM newspapers died when their circulation fell below 30%  of the AM newspaper. In Madison, The Capital Times circulation was 80% below the AM – it did have a shared profit agreement with the morning newspaper, but even so the publishers really gave the PM a good run for the money, but the time to do something had definitely come.

Another business model has been announced by the daily 175,000 circulation Palm Beach Post in Florida that wants to maintain a high-quality daily prfint product while boosting its web efforts. Managing Editor Bill Rose wrote to staff, “We need to reorganize the newsroom in a way that will make it easier and more efficient  for us to both funnel breaking news to the Web and produce a top-quality newspaper.”

The new business model calls for renaming the Metro Department the Breaking News Department. “Reporters and editors in the former Metro Department will no longer have filing to the print newspaper as their first priority. Henceforth their first priority will be to file all breaking news to the Web as soon as possible.” And to emphasize that “Breaking News” is top-dog now at the newspaper, print will report to the Breaking News editor.

New business models also mean new reporting shift times. “Most metro  editors and reporters will be working much earlier shifts, while several other editors and reporters will work even later shifts to handle print stories.

And although it won’t happen right away, “Our traditional way of ‘putting out the newspaper’ will eventually give way to a 24/7 production desk for the entire newsroom. Editors would simultaneously produce print and Web products. We have many copy editors in the newsroom who are itching to learn online tools. No matter what we come up with, our hope is to give those editors a chance to grow their skills and help us become a more efficient operation.”

One comment printed on the web from a reader who read the memo, “Face it: You're hopelessly behind the curve. WAY behind the curve.”

And also from Florida comes the example of the new business model of cutting back print distribution and cutting back on reporting, even from the state capital. Two weeks ago, according to the St. Petersburg Times, it became the last major Florida newspaper to stop its distribution in Tallahassee, the state capital. No longer can state legislators find out what newspapers in other parts of the state are saying about them, unless they look it up online.

And the newspaper notes that many of Florida’s major newspapers have cut back their reporting presence in Tallahassee. “Fewer reporters mean fewer people to monitor lawmakers and encourage them to pay attention to problems back home,” wrote Steve Bousquet, the Times’ Tallahassee Bureau Chief. “We’re witnessing the steady depletion of a capital press corps that has long been regarded as one of the strongest in the country. That’s bad for democracy.”

Whether it’s for the online web site or the print newspaper, state capitals still deserve local coverage of their legislators, what laws they are introducing, how they vote, and all the like. But the financial cutbacks dictate otherwise and, while less coverage may indeed be better for the financial bottom line, what  Bousquet said, too, is also very true --  “That’s bad for democracy.”

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