You Knew Newspapers Were Dying, But the Numbers Are Stunning

When Jim Cramer lured me away from newspapers to join TheStreet.com in 1998, people thought I was making a mistake... I was one of the first somewhat high-profile print journalists to make the shift to online from print... leaving a six-day-a-week column I had written for 10 years at the San Francisco Chronicle for a […] Not rendering correctly? View this e-mail as a web page [here](. [Empire Financial Daily] You Knew Newspapers Were Dying, But the Numbers Are Stunning By Herb Greenberg --------------------------------------------------------------- [Bottom fishing? Check this out]( Right now, many stocks are sinking. But one stock currently trading under $5 is attracting millions from the world's greatest investors. [Find out why](. --------------------------------------------------------------- When Jim Cramer lured me away from newspapers to join TheStreet.com in 1998, people thought I was making a mistake... I was one of the first somewhat high-profile print journalists to make the shift to online from print... leaving a six-day-a-week column I had written for 10 years at the San Francisco Chronicle for a fledgling financial news site. Back then, there was a distinction between print and "online news." Online was considered so experimental that many news sites, including TheStreet, still used publishing deadlines somewhat similar to newspapers... with changes planned for the next day rather than shortly after they were written. That quickly changed, especially when it became obvious that we could scoop the dailies by publishing anytime. (I still relish that time I beat the New York Times.) Newspapers, meanwhile, struggled trying to figure out what to do. Some had news staffs dedicated exclusively to their websites – almost like a farm team of younger, more inexperienced (or shelved, on-their-way-out older) journalists. The "paper," after all, was the bread and butter of the news business. Ad rates were based on print circulation, which was audited. And readers still liked the touch and feel of paper. It was easier to read at the breakfast table... or on a train during the commute. And then, well, we all know what happened next... Newspaper circulation plummeted. That's old news, but the numbers in the table below, which Harvard journalism institution Nieman Foundation's NiemanLab published last week, are nothing short of stunning... We knew they were down, but... USA Today... down 90% to a mere 159,000? The Chicago Tribune, one of my former employers, down 83% to 106,000? My beloved San Francisco Chronicle, down 86% to just 60,000? Sixty thousand! (That's better than the Rocky Mountain News, whose print editions disappeared entirely.) What's the point of mentioning all of this now? Another media publication, the Press Gazette, [just published]( a list of the top 25 U.S. newspapers. All posted circulation losses this year, with one exception: The Villages Daily Sun of The Villages retirement community in Florida, which rose by 3% to 49,000. There's a catch, of course: The Daily Sun charges next to nothing for a subscription, and its end market is people who have extra time on their hands... and whose lives are steeped in reading print newspapers. --------------------------------------------------------------- Recommended Link: [The BIGGEST hit to your wealth in more than a century]( A former Goldman Sachs banker just stepped forward with the biggest announcement of his career. It all centers around a wave of money flooding Wall Street, even as stocks crash. And he says this misunderstood corner of the market could soon ravage the wealth of those who aren't prepared. [Click here for the full story](. --------------------------------------------------------------- And to be fair, for all of these other newspapers, plenty of eyeballs shifted online, but that raises another problem... The online advertising contribution isn't the same as it was in print, in part because it's not as easy to quantify. There's also tons of competition for ad dollars. As a result, no surprise to anybody: Newspapers have struggled to stay afloat, and few have figured out how to make money. And that's even after several waves of layoffs, with estimates that 60% of newsroom staffs have been eliminated over the past 15 years. Printing plants have been shut down and historic headquarter buildings have been sold. And that's still not enough. As the NiemanLab piece bluntly put it in regard to print circulation... All of these numbers are going to zero. As the case of The Villages shows, print has become a niche product, overwhelmingly for senior citizens. Every year, some of them will die, and some others will have a grandchild help them figure out an iPad. The primary industry goal for the past two decades has been a transition to digital – so that, when the time came, papers could shut down the presses but live on. It was a reasonable goal. The problem is that it's 2022 and they're still counting on print to pay the bills. Gannett, the country's largest chain, still makes $2 in print for every $1 it makes in digital. In circulation revenue, Gannett still makes $9.60 in print for every $1 in digital. Newspapers have made progress in that transition – just not nearly enough. And they won't, because outside the likes of the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal – and certainly not without further consolidation or more bleeding by a few hedge funds whose ownership has helped expedite their demise – they can't. The crazy part is that those of us lucky enough to work on newspapers in the glory days were paid to do it. And, boy, it was fun while it lasted. As always, feel free to reach out via e-mail by [clicking here](mailto:feedback@empirefinancialresearch.com?subject=Feedback%20for%20Herb). And if you're on Twitter, feel free to follow me there at [@herbgreenberg](. I look forward to hearing from you. Regards, Herb Greenberg July 22, 2022 [Learn more about how to get 40% off a year of Herb Greenberg's Investment Opportunities here.]( --------------------------------------------------------------- If someone forwarded you this e-mail and you would like to be added to my e-mail list to receive e-mails like this every weekday, simply [sign up here](. © 2022 Empire Financial Research. All rights reserved. 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