The Seattle PI could be at the end of line
by John Berkowitz on Jan 11, 2009 9:19 PM PST
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PrintThe coming demise of the Seattle PI which was announced on Friday was a disappointing turn in events which had been forecast for over twenty years. Only a couple of years ago the Times and the PI were in court because the Times was trying to kill the JOA agreement which would in turn kill the PI. The Hearst Corporation spent millions of dollars fighting that one in court and eventually prevailed.
The Hearst Corporation till recently has always wanted to own the Seattle Times. By owning the Times they would control the market. The millions of dollars they spent defending the JOA was an investment in bleeding the Times till they were forced to eventually sell.
This year they decided maybe owning newspapers period in their present form were no longer worth it. The economic model of a newspaper simply doesn't work well anymore because the Internet has siphoned off circulation and most importantly ad revenue.
The Seattle Times will end up being the only newspaper in town in sixty days but that hard won victory ultimately won't save the business long term because printing newspapers simply has become a stone age endeavor during the information age. Even with a near monopoly in Seattle the Times simply may not survive because of some bad investments in Maine which have hurt cash flow.
The PI on the other hand may end up being the ultimate winner if the do not sell in 60 days. Word has it that they are considering going with an all Internet format which will make them the first newspaper in the country to go completely electronic. Hearst has the money to fund such an experiment and it just may end up being the way everyone reads the newspaper in any town in the not too distant future.
I've been gone from Seattle for almost twenty years so I always read the paper via the Internet and I prefer it. Don't get me wrong I like the actual paper but I don't like the mess it always made on the coffee table. I prefer to read the news on my laptop every day.
If the PI can figure out how to cleverly maximize advertising revenue and significantly cut overhead by going all electronic perhaps the PI just may be around for another 100 years or so in a new format.
Hopefully that is the direction they end up going.
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All they have to do to get subscriptions up is to stop being a LIBERAL rag…….and print the news.
But that is IMPOSSIBLE.
Really?
You really think that the PI failed because it didn’t court the huge conservative demographic (haha) in Western Washington?
Its like saying that Fox News needs to ditch its neurotic paranoid baby boomer demographic and try to nail down that all important growing young non-white neo-con movement (sarcasm).
Its a shame that the PI is going by the wayside, but print media has no other option but to go mostly digital at this point. I think thats a plus for the sports aspect of news media though, as it can combine already recorded broadcasts from tv in its print format.
by PhinneyDawg on Jan 11, 2009 10:56 PM PST up reply actions
Life moves on
and the demise of the PI reflects the nations trend toward the internet. Most of the jobs in todays market didn’t even exist 30 years ago, when the US was still a manufacturing producer. I hate to see the PI go under because the resulting monopoly in any forum is not a good idea. More jobs lost for the Seattle market also, which exacerbates the trickle down effect. The print media will have to reformulate itself to survive like johnb said.
All Online is the Future!
There is a lot of money in online advertising. I hate to see ANY kind of monopoly but you have to make money…this is a capitalistic society and money rules the world. There has to be money in all online newspaper, they just need to find it!
John B,
I know this is way off topic, but I was wondering if we could get a quick run down of the kids taking official visits this weekend. Who will be in Seattle this weekend and (if possible) a quick little synopsis? Seeing a lot of names start popping up on the radar lately so it would be nice to see who we are targeting! Thanks!
Devices Like Amazon's Kindle
Could be the future of the way we read lots of things, linked to RSS feeds, or delivered in packets of articles like a non-av podcast. Newspapers make me sneeze anyways.
Our leather lungs together...
Electronic
You look at where the PI and the Times are right now with their electronic versions and you realize that newspapers in general haven’t spent the time or resources to crack the code which will make local daily newspapers profitable.
I think there is a lot of growth potential in that model especially when dailies start dropping lik efloes over the next ten years.
When the promise of the Internet first came out people thought that eventuallly you would print your newspaper each day rather than have it delivered. That was a prediction made in the early 1980’s that seems funny right now. However with laptops, hand held devices such as smart phones and Kindle the reality of online subcriptions makes a lot more sense.
Seattle has an online newspaper
Crosscut- News of Seattle and the Great Nearby
Even the Olympian has an online version of their newspaper that you can read for only $5.95/month if you don’t have home delivery. The Centralia Chronicle has an on line version as well.
I seldom ever read the print or on-line versions of the P-I or Times and I haven’t bought one in over twenty years. I quit buying the Sunday version after I went to work for Intel in Oregon.
The Seattle Examiner
I write for the Seattle Examiner every day.
It is a network of online newspapers nation wide which use local feeds and bloggers.
It actually is a pretty decent read.
II like the old style too...
…that is actually having a newspaper to read. Having said that I don’t like the newspaper waste, the delivery hassle etc.
This is the example of the future of newspapers
http://www.plasticlogic.com/product.html
Devices like this will connect to the Internet and store information such as newspapers and magazines.
The size of it allows a newspaper to be printed in a more readble format which allows adss to be less obtrusive but more readable. Another thing it does is make the ads interactive which yoy cannot do in print.
DUH!!
Internet only newspaper WOW that’s an amazing idea who would have thought of that?!? LOL
Let me get this straight…the newspaper industry is so backward that the PI would be the FIRST internet only newspaper?? Are you kidding me?
I often wonder how people in power are so backwards yet still expect to survive, like the Big Three mass producing SUVs and not developing attractive hybrids… but then someone like Norm1 comments and you realize the world is full of stupid people.
Duh?
I don’t think you really get it at all.
The whole point of a newspaper is to sell ads first then present the news. If they don’t sell enough advertising they won’t survive no matter what the delivery format is.
Internet formats and newspapers currently don’t work very well together when it comes to delivering advertising and news together.
New portable display/reader technology will be able to give you the same look and feel of a traditional newspaper without the actual paper and that is what the future is all about.
Eliminate printing and manual distribution and you save a boatload of money if you can keep your advertising revenue at the same level.
Kindle really is the start of it all but within a year or two it will be an antique compared to some of the things that are now in development.
Another thing…your comment about Norm1…uncalled for in this forum.
Your post wasn’t exactly bright either.
by John Berkowitz on Jan 12, 2009 10:24 AM PST reply actions
Point taken on Norm1 comment
I shouldn’t have let his comment bait me. I admit I was wrong and I will try harder because I respect the quality of your forum.
As for the newspaper industry comment , I was being sarcastic John! I fully understand the problems of transitioning to an Internet forum, which is why I am a huge supporter of internet-only newspapers and magazines. It is rare that I buy anything in print format anymore, I’d rather pay for an internet subscription.
You are correct that the technology is in flux and I personally don’t like the .PDF formatted readers which seem to be the latest rage..I prefer the seamless internet webpage look..but I do understand that the ADVERTISING will drive what technology becomes industry standard because advertisers want to know they are getting the same bang for their buck. I get the business-side completely.
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We all get baited one in awhile and sometimes I fall for it too. It isn’t like I am trying to be overly PC here but I have seen what a mess the Dawgman boards are. What started as a great forum is now something you have to virtually pan for gold to get to the point of any matter. What we have done here is put together a superior forum about Husky Sports that will only grow and get better so we all need to safeguard it and treat it like our living room.
I think the problems with the newspapers is that they were incredibly slow to react to the changes in electronic information. They all stupidly give away their information on the internet without subscription. The newspapers followed the business models of the mid 1990’s and never attempted to lead even though they were in a great place to be able to do that.
The need for news and editorial comment will never diminish. The business just needs to be reinvented fromt he ground up. The cost of printing and manual distribution simply doesnt work anymore.
I think the key will be in the reader/appliance itself and I don’t think the tablet format will be the ultimate answer. I think you will eventually end up with a thin and lightweight tablet which will open and close like a book. You will be able to hold it open and read two pages side by side at once which will allow the integration of advertising back into the paper in the traditional format without all the things we hate about Internet advertising.
by John Berkowitz on Jan 12, 2009 11:20 AM PST reply actions
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