26 September 2007
US newspapers companies' online activities
US newspaper companies are dead in the water right? Facing with plummeting print circulations, falling stock prices, and rapidly shrinking ad revenues particularly in the key classified categories of autos and property (as the credit-crunch tightens), it's accepted wisdom that these companies are in a lot of trouble.
But if you dig a bit deeper into the latest reported revenues, it's clear that the one bright spot is their online activities which are growing fast, albeit from a small base, and that often these activities comprise a good deal more than just an online version of the newspaper.
I read an interesting and informative post from Sramana Mitra on this topic this morning. He picked Gannett, one of the largest US newspaper companies and analysed their online investments, joint ventures and products, and the list was both long and wide-ranging, including not just their interest in CareerBuilder, but also in Classified Ventures (along with Belo Corporation, The McClatchy Company, Tribune Company and The Washington Post Company) which has as its objective "to collectively capitalize on the revenue growth in the online classified advertising categories of automotive, apartments, and real estate."
In the key verticals, this is where Gannett is present:
So whilst the print operations may be struggling, Gannett has clearly not had its corporate head in the sand about the impact of online on its business and the poitential revenues it represents. They operate some leading brands online, and if they hit upon a winning formula in one particular area, their resources and national presence will enable them to replicate local sites quickly and easily.
But just to prove that online is a very different game, this week the New York Times announced that it would be discontinuing the subscription model that it had implemented for TimesSelect. According to the NYTCo, this was not because the figures for subscribers and the revenue generated was disappointing in any way, but the light had dawned, and they now believe that they can attract more traffic and sell more advertising through a free-access model. Central to this decision was the realisation that search engines accounted for a hefty chunk of traffic and they should ignore this at their peril.
Changing times for newspapers indeed.
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