New Business Model for the LA Times

In the Huffington Post, I found this link about the LA Times.   The LA Times is one of my favorite newspapers and I usually try to read it everyday online if I have the chance.  For me, I could care less if the print edition of the paper disappears.

 

According to Alexa  the LA Times is rated the 380^th most popular web site.   People like me enjoy the content of the website and enjoy the reading the content of the paper.   The problem is that the newspaper does not receive revenue for me looking at the website.   The company receives me for advertisements.

 

When the paper sells a printed version of newspaper,  they receive revenue from selling the paper.  In addition, they make significantly more money off the advertising on the hard copy newspaper than the online edition

 

If the newspaper decides to go online only, they will drastically have to alter their business model.  The article in the Huffington Post suggests a new model.  The model is describe as the following

 

“Now factor into the post-paper newsroom budget the elimination of many tasks – print production, design, editing. Step back from that knife, Mr. Zell. Rather than eliminating those positions, they must be converted to enabling local networks of partners – freelancers, bloggers, citizens – to expand the journalistic reach of the paper into the community.

 

And now add in the rumor that the LA Times might get rid of its national – that is, Washington – and international coverage and hand it – or its readers – over to the Washington Post. I’ve been arguing for some time that the national papers – especially the Post but also the NY Times, the Wall Street Journal, and perhaps USA Today – could become the Washington bureau to the nation’s papers, saving them all money, giving them all the flexibility to redirect staff (reporters and editors) to local coverage, and giving their readers the best coverage. It’s reverse syndication.

 

The LA Times could play this same role with other papers if it provided the very best coverage of Hollywood and entertainment to them, in return for links and new audience and traffic. News becomes a network of links made by those who do what they do best and link to the rest.

 

Clearly, by getting rid of print production and distribution, the LA Times not only gets rid of huge costs – which usually amount to at least half a newspaper’s budget – it also loses both circulation revenue and advertising revenue, which is much higher than digital revenue. As Westphal pointed out in our email exchange, some digital advertising is tied in bundles to print advertising and so the risk is that getting rid of print would hurt digital. But I suspect the opposite would happen: Some of that print advertising will now be forced online. Indeed, I’ve long argued that newspapers should force both readers and advertisers to online – to the future – and turning off the presses would do that.

 

There’s no question that the scale of the business would be smaller, much smaller. But with only edit and advertising sales costs (I’d market only during the transition) it could be a profitable business – a profitable digital journalistic business. That is the promised land. Welcome to the future”

 

That is a potential model for the newspaper.  Personally, it is one feasible model but the paper can remain business for indefinite period of time if it embraces a creative business model that is adapted to the

 

The only problem that I see is that will anger the older readership.  A lot of the people that I encounter in real life do not use the Internet extensively and will only read the newspaper if it is in hard copy format.   In reality, it is time for those people to get on a computer and learn to use the internet efficiently.

Christmas Top Ten From David Letterman

Thanks to a blog on the Riverside Press-Enterprise for this top ten list from Letterman

10. On the first day of Christmas my true love gave to me absolutely nothing because of the bad economy.

 

9. Amy, the red-nosed Winehouse, will need a new liver soon…

 

8. I’m dreaming of a white Christmas, but Al Gore tells me we’re all screwed…

 

7. Biden might do all right if his hair plugs stay in tight.

 

6. Dr. Tannenbaum, Dr. Tannenbaum, is Cialis right for me?

 

5. Deck the halls with illegal payoffs, Bla-Bla-Bla-Bla-Bla Blagojevich.

 

4. Ahmadinejad, Ahmadinejad, Ahmadinejad, you set our heart aglow like a spent fuel rod.

 

3. It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas, 1929.

 

2. I have an irregular heart beat, pah-rum-puh-puh-puh-pum.

 

Joy to the world, George Bush is done

Auto Bailout — Part II

It seems that the Auto Bailout war is the Civil War Part Deux.   The biggest people fighting the auto bailout is Jeff Sessions and Richard Shelby which are the senators from Alabama

 

Both senators are conservatives and so they want to challenge the unions.   However, the real argument is not union vs management but in reality, a turf war.   They want the South to be the only place where auto manufacturing in the country is performed.

 

Jeff Session opposition to Bush’s approval of the Auto Bailout is the following

 

“”The president’s decision to allocate financial bailout funds to private automobile manufacturers represents a further entanglement of the federal government in the free market.  I am disappointed that the president has apparently yielded to the temptation of substituting the whims of politicians for the wisdom of the free market.”

 

So Jeff Sessions wants the “invisible hand” of the free market to solve the problem and of course, GM and Chrysler would go under.   What Jeff Sessions want is to Big Three go under and all of the automobile manufacturing would be done in the South instead of the Rust Belt..

 

In reality, the problems in Michigan would affect Alabama.   According to the Birmingham News, the unemployment rate in Alabama would rise by 4 percent if the Big Three collapse.

Keivan Deravi, a professor at Auburn University, challenges the accusation made by the Economic Policy Institute.   In the article, the Economic Policy Institute is actually a left-wing policy organization some of their research could have been biased in natured.    

 

The impact of Big Three collapse for the Deep South would result in a short-term layoffs.  In the long term, the forces of “creative destruction” will work and the results will be a transfer of the center of auto manufacturing from the Rust Belt to the Deep South.  The two senators from Alabama engage in “tunnel-vision” thinking.    They are not interest in the impact of the Big Three collapse on the national economy.  They could careless what happens to the national economy.

 

They know that their state will benefit from a Big Three collapse.  However, the human consequences would be devastating.  Michigan will turn from one proud manufacturing state into a state that resembles a third-world country.  Massive unemployment and underemployment of skilled employees would dominate the state.  Michigan would be an industrial wasteland where nothing but sorrow and gloom originate from/

 

The question that Shelby and Sessions should answer:  Is it ethical to allow such human tragedy for the purposes of mere selfishness?

Reading The News

Reading the news can make me depressed at times.   There is just so much discussion of recession and grim times ahead that it can depress you.   Even though there is no immient chance of layoffs for at least ten months from now,  I let the news get to me.

I let it take me down.   And yet,  I always turn to thoughts of gratitude to deal with depressing news of the day.   Simple things like going to AA meeting, church, or playing with my dog turned me my sour mood from grim to good.   And of course, I can always give my problems over my higher power and not worry about the news.