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How to save The New York Times?
I was reading an NYT account of its finances and came across the following:
More radical moves, like dropping the sports section, have been rejected because they would undermine the quality of The Times or would not save much money, Keller said.
"Or"? Which is it? It would not undermine the quality of the paper from a Platonist point of vew; the NYT sports section isn't even as good as USA Today. It's hard to believe the section is cheap to produce, but if it were that again would imply it wasn't so special.
Is Keller trying to say something like: "We also don't think the section is that good, but if we cut it we'll lose those subscribers who take only one paper and still demand minimum sports coverage"? For these subscribers, is it not possible to rent out somebody else's sports section and stick it in the paper with a NYT label on it and maybe an extra article about the Knicks?
Posted by Tyler Cowen on November 5, 2009 at 06:13 AM in Economics | Permalink
Comments
The disjunction doesn't specifically apply to the sports section, which is merely one example ("like") of radical moves. Some of the radical moves would undermine quality; others would not save much money.
Posted by: brec at Nov 5, 2009 7:21:41 AM
It wasn't that long ago (maybe 10 years or a bit more at most, maybe as few as 8) that the New York Times had a seriously sub-standard sports page. It was bad enough to wonder why they had one at all. This was back when I still regularly looked at box scores and stories in sports pages so I paid attention. I was more likely to buy a NY Times when it got better because I didn't have to look elsewhere for the scores. But now I mostly get my sports results from espn's web page and suspect many, if not most, do the same. I don't doubt that getting a decent sports page helped the NY Times, but I wonder if going back to a lesser one would hurt them much, given the changes over time. Papers buy the box scores anyway, so they could maintain minimal (but better than they had before!) coverage via that.
Posted by: Matt at Nov 5, 2009 7:51:24 AM
I'm not much of a sports guy, so I don't really check out the sports section that much and don't have an opinion on it. But is it like all other sections of The Times, where to an outsider like me, it looks as if there's a lot of redundancy amongst the reporters? Did anyone here see the details of the buyout package mailed to everyone at the paper? Apparently, some sections run with a few people, but others run with a massive number of reporters. You have to wonder, does The Times really need 103 people working at the Metro desk? Does it even need 50? Does the paper need 14 book editors? My guess is, there are quite a few people that could be cut without drastically undermining the quality of the paper.
Here are a few random thoughts, predictions, and suggestions:
1. I'm not sure if you realize this, but The Times recently started offering a local edition for San Fransisco, which along with Chicago has the highest number of subscribers outside the Northeast. Chicago's local edition will be out towards the end of the month. (The Wall Street Journal is doing the same, starting today in S.F. I believe.) Right now, the edition isn't much, just a couple of pages every Friday and Sunday with some local advertising mixed in. The Times people themselves they don't expect to see huge results from it, but if over time it can push enough people to the web site who, since they aren't from New York might not think of nytimes.com right away, or actually lead to some small subscriber growth, this could be expanded into several areas. The Times already has a ton of domestic bureaus outside of the northeast, and while it's not clear how much news will come from current employees, like those at the S.F. bureau as opposed to more independent, possibly non-profit services like the recently formed Chicago News Cooperative, its presence already around the big areas both through manpower and through deals for actually printing make it very possible, if not likely. It all depends on several things going right, but some small subscription growth in a bunch of different places could reverse the overall declines.
2. As I said before, the paper has what appears to be a bloated Metro staff. Why doesn't it either reassign the people to other areas or simply drop them? Or better yet, why not drop the majority of the really localized news from the main paper and try to spin it off into a free Monday through Friday paper? Imagine a small paper would give a roundup of news, a lot of sports, and perhaps some cultural stuff that could be digested on the subway each morning. The Times already has a lot of manpower and the other things that go along with producing a newspaper, so why not try it? There could be different versions for each borough, and since the advertising wouldn't need to reach people outside of the city, it could be small enough in price but big enough in quantity to make it work.
3. Why not try to fold the Boston Globe into the The Times itself? I don't read the paper often and have never seen a print edition, but if it's at all possible to retain enough local flavor by keeping the Boston-specific staff members on while using those already working at The Times to maintain its national focus, why not think about it? Would there really be that much of a circulation drop? How much is tolerable?
4. Perhaps the paper should consider not printing at all, save perhaps on Sunday. This is a pretty radical move, and while right now the paper makes more from circulation than advertising, there's no guarantee that will hold up if price increases continue. Those inside the paper know more about the numbers than me, but if I had to guess, I'd say this idea has been entertained more than once.
5. Why not charge a small fee for some parts of the site? Some wouldn't return, but if you assume even a small amount of the 15-20 million unique visitors each month would pay $5 on the low end to $25 on the much higher end, it'd be worth it to try for a freemium modal like The Wall Street Journal.
Posted by: Brian J at Nov 5, 2009 8:08:42 AM
Some years ago I did an informal survey. Over the course of a few years, I asked people how well the major media covered their personal area of expertise. The answers ranged from very badly to badly. Nobody thought that they did a good job. I then asked how it covered some other area that wasn't related to their personal expertise. They generally thought the media did okay on that. What I inferred from this is that we defer to the media on areas we don't know well, even though we rate them poorly on areas we do. It also means that we tend to maintain our subscriptions because their poor performance in our personal area of expertise isn't enough to offset the value we get from their other coverage.
The sports section is the best part of almost all newspapers because it is the section that is within the personal area of expertise of the largest part of their readership. If they screw that up, they'll lose more readers than they lose from screwing up any other section. The NYT can live without comics, but it can't live without sports.
And I think that the NYT sports section is good. It's not a typical sports section, but it does what it does pretty well.
My theory also explains why the NYT business section is the only good business section of American newspaper (they have a relatively high percentage of sophisticated business section readers). The WaPo, in contrast, had a horrible business section, the shrinkage of which to a few pages in Section A improved the paper in my opinion.
Posted by: Eric at Nov 5, 2009 8:17:17 AM
It's an "and," not an "or," in the case of the sports section:
1) The money saved would be small. The Times does not have that many sportswriters and probably has a small editorial staff exclusively devoted to sports. The section today runs from B12 (!) to B18; on the latter, it shares more than half the column-inches with obituaries. That's 6.5 pages and it does not even start on the front page of a section -- and note, the Yankees won the World Series last night. A lot of the content -- probably 2 pages worth -- is AP reports from around various leagues and/or scoreboards and lines. I guess they could outsource more of it, but I do not think the Times benefits from treating content as a commodity (to that degree).
2) The value of the sports section -- and indeed, most non-A sections -- is significant. It allows brand advertisers to vertically target readers from within the Times' demographic. Because of the sectional nature of the paper in general, it also buoys subscription rates as husbands now have something to flip through if their wives otherwise wish to subscribe. That -- being a sectioned omnibus news format -- is one part of the business model which still remains relevant.
Posted by: Dan at Nov 5, 2009 8:40:33 AM
Maybe it isn't worth saving?
Posted by: Seward at Nov 5, 2009 9:00:27 AM
The NYT business section, while very good, is far from the only good business section in the U.S. Many papers do a good job covering their local area of concern, such as the auto industry in the Detroit papers.
Most papers do have bloated staffs. Many reporters have very small beats under the belief they'll cover them exceptionally well. What happens instead is they lose perspective. That said, many papers wind up going too far the other way and cut staff to the point where reporters really are overwhelmed.
Also, you always have to remember the Times does have a somewhat exaggerated sense of itself.
Posted by: Ted Craig at Nov 5, 2009 9:02:50 AM
The Times sports section is loads better than USA Today, Tyler. They do a nice job of complementing the states & commentary of the web with real journalism and thoughtful writing. USA Today just replicates what's available on the web.
The Times brand is all about covering all that is interesting and important in the world. It's a ridiculously grandiose goal, but the fact they go for it every day is what makes the paper worth reading. If you hack off a limb or two, you will impair that.
Posted by: Hugo Lindgren at Nov 5, 2009 9:27:13 AM
Great Tyler: the kind of rationalization you suggest makes perfect sense and is surely the future.
Posted by: Chris Dornan at Nov 5, 2009 9:35:05 AM
In Canada, the CBC and the National Post are now doing just this sort of content sharing. The Post gets sports from the CBC, the CBC gets business from the Post.
http://www.cbc.ca/arts/media/story/2009/10/02/cbc-national-post-deal.html
Posted by: andrew potter at Nov 5, 2009 9:45:20 AM
America would be a better place if the NY Times failed -- the NY Times is a truly crappy journalistic product and it crowds out superior rivals.
Posted by: newsjunky at Nov 5, 2009 10:15:34 AM
This is like what surveys show people think of regulations & big government -- everyone thinks regulations & big government do a terrific job, except in those areas where those interviewed actually know something.
"Some years ago I did an informal survey. Over the course of a few years, I asked people how well the major media covered their personal area of expertise. The answers ranged from very badly to badly. Nobody thought that they did a good job. I then asked how it covered some other area that wasn't related to their personal expertise. They generally thought the media did okay on that."
Posted by: Greg Ransom at Nov 5, 2009 10:24:22 AM
I wonder why the same publications that report regular news should report sports news. Initially it was because consumers wanted to get "everything" from one or two newspapers. Now, of course, people go to many sources through the internet. (This avoids the question of pricing.)I think the NYT could get rid of the sports section without much loss of readership. But the ship IS sinking.
Posted by: Mario Rizzo at Nov 5, 2009 10:24:44 AM
Have you seen the Knicks lately? Are you sure an extra article moves marginal value in the positive direction? :)
Posted by: Jim Vernon at Nov 5, 2009 10:25:28 AM
Other people have already pointed this out, but Tyler is simply incorrect about the quality of the NY Times sports section. About twenty years ago it was true that it was really bad, to the point that the tour guide was making jokes about it when I took a tour of the then NY Times building. Its improved substantially and incorporates some good analysis. I read the New York tabloid sports sections sometimes too, and the Times sports section at the moment is a better read than the one in the Daily News and about even with the NY Post. It may even be the best section in the paper.
The main problem with the Times was that it was caught a few times this decade publishing stories, in the front section, that were either fabricated or straight propeganda. I'm thinking of Jayson Blair and Judith Miller. They blew their credibility and that is hard to fix. I don't think moving around or changing their subsections, which they've tried, really fixes this.
As it happens, the Times is bloated, but the Sports Section, which is quite small, rarely a separate section, and actually quite decent is actually least in need of cutting or an overhaul. Have you looked recently at Styles, Arts, the Book Review, Business, or Travel recently? Others here have also pointed out Metro. I read an article in the Sunday Travel section, about a place that I visited a few months ago, that was a parody of what is wrong with the Times. The writer completely missed the main reasons one would want to visit the place and wrote mainly about motorbiking with his friends and trying to pick up girls. It managed to combine being annoying with giving no information to potential travellers about why you would want to visit the destination or what to do when you get there.
Posted by: Ed at Nov 5, 2009 10:41:03 AM
I haven't read the NYT sports section in over 5 years, but when I did last read it (~7-8 years ago) it was awful. It was just like any other newspaper's sports section, only not as good. That's why I haven't read it since.
It might be better now, I don't know.
Posted by: Bob Montgomery at Nov 5, 2009 11:15:06 AM
I think papers in general are going to be re-defined and need to narrow their focus to what they're best at, good at, known for. The NYT is not known for sports coverage. Either they should drop it, or cut a deal with ESPN to have a daily sports page (not section) covering the previous days action and today's schedule. Something akin to what the WSJ does now, a one pager, with the occasional interesting feature. If I want a lot of sports coverage, I go to another paper in truth (NY Post, Daily News). And, as the other poster said, ESPN.com.
Similar to a lot of other industries, the days of a paper being all things to all customers are waning. Find what you're good at, differentiate yourself with it, and forget the rest. Nobody buys the NY Times for the sports section. They buy it for the A news section, for the Science on Tuesdays, for the Lifestyle sections on weekends and the Week in Review. Sports is kind of added in as an afterthought - you read it only because it's there. You don't buy it for that. That kind of ancillary offering is what businesses need to ferret out in their product lineups and stop.
Posted by: outsider at Nov 5, 2009 11:24:03 AM
The NYT, along with the Financial Times, are quality news producers; I agree that perhaps the times should drop or subcontract out sports or local news and pump out its production to a national level.
For example, the NYT could become a supplement to a struggling local newspaper in another market--just put a separate NYT news section in a local newspaper.
Or, flip it, and have the local NYT newspaper have a sport supplement produced by ESPN.
Technology has changed. Newspapers should look at their business as content providers and aggregators and subcontractors in order to survive and continue offering unique content.
Posted by: Bill at Nov 5, 2009 11:45:01 AM
Who reads the New Yuk Times?
Tyler - PLEASE stop linking to NYT articles. Even though it is free, like the WaPo, the profane user name I tried to use didn't match the profane passwords I tried.... Too much trouble for substandard reporting.
Posted by: anon at Nov 5, 2009 11:47:43 AM
What brec said. You misread the sentence.
The point being made is that NYT has considered a number of radical changes, and none of them reduce costs significantly without damaging the quality of the paper. Eliminating sports is just one example of a radical change that has been considered, and falls into one of the categories.
Posted by: Bernard Yomtov at Nov 5, 2009 12:15:04 PM
The NY Times Sports section only concerns itself with 1 issue, RACE. Bill Rhoden is a joke. Every article re mgmt vs players......fans vs players.....mgr vs players always and everywhere goes back to....yep u guessed it...RACE....without player as slave metaphor u really don't have a NYT sports section.
Posted by: jm at Nov 5, 2009 12:35:45 PM
When the NYT pushed pro war propaganda on the american people in the lead up to Iraq they lost a ton of credibility even amongst liberals. When the NYT pushed the bailout of Governemnt Sachs on america they lost a lot more credibility. Maybe they could be saved if they stopped pushing CO2 = poison propaganda...in any case I hope the NYT dies soon.
Posted by: Gabe at Nov 5, 2009 1:03:16 PM
maybe if the NYT would break more stories like this:
"The CIA relied on intelligence based on torture in prisons in Uzbekistan, a place where widespread torture practices include raping suspects with broken bottles and boiling them alive, says a former British ambassador to the central Asian country"
Instead we have to rely on the internet for real news.
Posted by: Gabe at Nov 5, 2009 1:40:54 PM
I don't think 100 people on the Metro desk is "bloated." New York City is freakin huge. I would think it would take at least 100 people to do a decent job of covering it.
Posted by: too many steves at Nov 5, 2009 2:28:37 PM
I'd drop my subscription without the sports section. Its perfect for today's world. You don't need game stories and box scores (internet) but they dig into unique stories. Where they are wasting money is on the columnists. With all the various outlets for opinions, no need in traditional print media (especially at their high salaries).
Posted by: ben at Nov 5, 2009 5:00:41 PM
