Perhaps you saw in the Saturday newspaper that the Seattle Post-Intelligencer was put up for sale.
Its owner – Hearst Corp., a privately held multimedia conglomerate – said it would offer the newspaper for sale for 60 days. If there are no takers, Hearst will either close the paper or cut its staff to the bone and produce just a news Web site.
My bet is that there will be no buyer, and that it won’t find new life as a Web site.
Other newspapers, big and small, have been for sale recently without result.
The San Diego Union-Tribune announced it was for sale last summer. It has had lookers but no buyers. The Rocky Mountain News in Denver was put up for sale in early December and given six weeks to sell or be shut down. It is now mid-January, and no purchaser has been disclosed.
While this economy is difficult for all businesses, traditional media (newspapers, television stations and radio) also have the added disruption of accepting a new medium that competes for advertising revenue: the Internet.
Big metropolitan newspapers in two-newspaper markets such as Seattle and Denver seem especially afflicted. The two big newspapers in Detroit recently announced they would convert from daily newspapers to home delivery three days a week.
The biggest problem with all these newspapers is that they are losing money (the P-I and the Rocky each said it was losing about $15 million a year), have been in decline for years (Detroit) or are in one of the worst housing markets in the country (San Diego, which as a privately held company won’t disclose profits or losses).
Which brings us to The News Tribune.
Are we in similar trouble? Absolutely not. While the P-I said it had lost money every year since the dot-com bust of 2000, The News Tribune has been solidly profitable throughout that period, and remains so today. And our housing market, while troubled, is relatively stronger than most of the nation.
We have had to trim expenses because of the loss of revenue from both the recession and from some revenue going to the Internet. But we remain in the black with plenty of revenue to pay our operating expenses and our debts. We are prepared to weather a rough economy in 2009, and to do whatever is required to survive.
How might the closing of the P-I affect the TNT? That is harder to say. We might pick up some subscriptions and some traffic on our Web site, both of which could produce some new revenue. But I don’t think either would substantially change our prospects as a business.
There are two other reactions in our newsroom as we absorb the idea that Seattle might soon be a one-newspaper town.
One is profound sadness for our colleagues at the P-I. They are worthy competitors, and many are close friends. We also mourn the potential loss of an important voice in American journalism, should the newspaper close and its Web site shut down.
But the other emotion is hope.
If it must go, then we hope that the departure of the P-I is a boon to its partner newspaper and competitor, The Seattle Times. That newspaper – which is partially owned by the McClatchy Co., the TNT’s owner – has also been losing money for years, and may also be in serious trouble.
If Seattle cannot support two newspapers, we wish nothing but good things for the one left standing.
Dave Zeeck: 253-597-8554
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