Times Company posts profit

The Times Company has posted a profit for the first quarter of 2010 with a net income of $12.8 million. This is a vast improvement from the loss of $74.5 million in the first quarter of 2009. This was accomplished by the cost cutting and restructuring in 2009 as well as the advertising markets slight improvement. Through this the company cut 18 percent of operating costs, most of which were from labor and newsprint expenses.

Most would see this as good news, but I wonder if this model is sustainable and if media companies will continue to make money. You can only cut so much in labor and still have enough people to operate your business and I’m afraid companies aren’t realizing the damage they’re doing by purging employees. Perhaps they do realize the consequences, but feel they are backed into a corner because executives are merely trying to keep the companies doors open. We all need to be praying that the advertising market continues to rebound so some employees can possibly be spared.

While posting a profit is definitely something to celebrate, I worry companies will get down skin and bones and will be too frail to operate.

I have given in to the trend and am trying out Twitter. I don't tweet very often and I'm still getting used to it, but I don't totally hate it. Currently, I tweet more about personal things than what's in the news, but that may change as I begin my internship this summer. Mashable has a feature called "Top 10 Twitter Trends This Week." They list out what people are tweeting about the most and whether they have been in the top 10 previously. For the week of March 20-26, the week Health Care was passed, Health Care rated 3rd and was the only top 10 member to have anything to do with a news event, everything else was about an entertainer or entertainment. And just to satisfy the curiosity, the president and his health care bill were beat out by 16 year old pop singer, Justin Bieber. I don't even know how to respond to that.

Follow the most popular Twitter topics at: http://mashable.com/2010/03/27/twitter-trends-this-week-chart/

Through journalist friends of mine in Tuscaloosa I've discovered an interesting system of how The Tuscaloosa News gets a sizable amount of their content. Interns. They pull from The University of Alabama and the journalism school instead of hiring full time reporters. The T-News has set up an internship program where they take on a dozen interns each semester. For every 90 hours the student works they receive 1 hour of academic credit and $250. So at 12 interns a semester and three hours each the T-News will get 3,240 work hours for $9,000 without benefits.

Because there are only 12 spots for interns the T-News can still be somewhat selective to assure they will be getting honest, hard working, talented reporters. This type of partnership could be applied to many college towns with small to mid size papers. It can be mutually beneficial to both the students by gaining professional experience and to the papers by getting content at a lesser rate than a full time salary.

An article on Romenesko got me thinking about executive pay in journalism and how it has effected the industry. The article discusses how Craig Dubow, the CEO of Gannett, is being offered $19.3 million to leave the company. Essentially, his salary has become too expensive for the company pay so they're trying to get him to take a pay out now instead of having to pay him closer to $30 million when he retires. What's even more interesting is someone commented that while Dubow's pay has increased in these harsh times his employees have taken pay cuts. No wonder they want to get rid of him. I have heard informally that a similar situation had occurred at the New York Times. The company as a whole is taking a loss while their publishers continue to make more money. Is this a trend in journalism not only on the business side, but for bureaus on the reporting side as well?

The famous journalists that have been working for the same publications for awhile are making far more than the average journalist. Some would argue that they should be after their years of service and expertise. I'm not saying I disagree with that argument, but at some point I think publications start paying more for their name and less for their productivity. For instance, at Hearst's Washington bureau there are 8 employees one of which is Helen Thomas. She is 90 and has covered presidents since John F. Kennedy. She is a former White House correspondent and now a political columnist and I feel confident she is making more than most other journalists. However, when she is no longer working I would be willing to bet the bureau could hire 3 or 4 young journalists for her one salary and they would produce far more content and have a more diverse skill set.

I think is the best hope that young journalists have in our uncertain industry. We can and will work tirelessly, offering our skills in written reporting and visual media, for far less money than is expected by a veteran reporter.

To read the article from Romenesko click here: http://www.footnoted.org/buried-treasure/an-oddly-placed-reward-at-gannett/

According to the New York Times, the way news networks will survive is by coupling with a cable network following a model like MSNBC and NBC. ABC is currently trying to shrink their size by 400 employees which is comparable to MSNBC and NBC's staff. If buy outs don't work, ABC said those who should be most concerned about their jobs are those with only one function or skill. I was very happy to hear the NY Times reporting this because it reinforced everything our professors have been telling us. Employers want to be able to pay one young journalists to write, take photos, edit video, etc. instead of paying one person to do each of those tasks. I now feel like my extra class to earn a double concentration in Journalism and Visual communication will be worth my time and perhaps make me more marketable when I graduate in a year.

To read more about ABC and how they plan to survive go to: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/01/business/media/01network.html?pagewanted=2

BREAKING NEWS: This just in, a newspaper actually made money!

The Washington Post Company's newspaper division reported on Wednesday that they earned revenue in the fourth quarter of 2009. In the fourth quarter of 2008, The Post reported an operation loss of $14.4 million, but an operating income of $3.2 million in the fourth quarter of 2009. The Post attributes the financial gain to continued cost cutting. I wish they had elaborated on how they cut costs so other papers could follow in their footstep and possibly start to turn a corner for the better. Although The Post had a loss of $163.5 million in 2009, the fourth quarter shows a glimmer of hope and I will be interested to see where their numbers are after the first quarter of 2010.

To give some perspective, at The Washington Post Co. their television stations went down 16% from 2008in revenue and their magazines went down 30% in revenue from 2008.

Read the full article here: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/02/24/AR2010022401924.html?hpid=moreheadlines

Social Media and Advertising

Poynter Online recently had an interesting article about advertising and social media. They discussed how some companies are now buying ads through a news agency to go out to all of their followers on Twitter. I can see some benefits of advertising in this way, but still think it is premature and won’t be successful in the long run.

My opinion could stem from not using Twitter myself, but I don’t think Twitter has developed enough to be a successful outlet for advertising. I do think it is marketable to small businesses that may not be able to afford a print ad, but the cost doesn’t seem high enough to really be making anything other than pocket change. I think in order to make any money from this type of advertisement there would need to be tweets every hour from different businesses, but this ultimately defeats the purpose of the Twitter feed. People are following the news agency to get immediate updates about local news and I believe followers will get annoyed quickly when the ad tweets start taking over the news tweets.

Small businesses are smart to use news agencies Twitter accounts to advertise though as opposed to their own Twitter because the news service will have a diverse group of followers that can bring new customers. For example, if a restaurant had their own Twitter account only those who already knew about the restaurant would follow them and learn about the special deals. Buying tweets from a news site gets your special deal out to a much more diverse audience that has the potential to bring in new customers.

To learn more about this concept read here: http://www.poynter.org/column.asp?id=101&aid=176228