BuzzMachine

The media pundit's pundit. Written by NYC insider Jeff Jarvis, BuzzMachine covers news, media, journalism, and politics.

Month: April 2009

  • Interactive teaching position at CUNY

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    Here‘s a job listing for a new tenure-track teaching position in the interactive department I head at CUNY’s Graduate School of Journalism. I’ll spare you the sales pitch. We’re doing many exciting things at the school and it is growing robustly. Here are a few posts I’ve written about what we’re doing.

    But first: Please do NOT use my email address. Instead, send your letter and resume – and links to your blog and online, interactive work – to this address and this address only: interactive_search@journalism.cuny.edu. (Thanks.)

  • Talk about an unsustainable model: print

    18 comments on Talk about an unsustainable model: print

    Wow. A blog friend, Robert Feinman, emailed this morning to point out just how few ads are in the dead-tree version (or is that the dead tree-version?) of today’s New York Times. An audit:

    First section: In the entire national/international section, nine one-ninth-page ads roughly adding up to a page. The religion page boasts almost two-thirds of a page for Palm Sunday services (sadly, He rides into Jerusalem but once a year) plus two house ads. In metro, there are two ads adding up to about a quarter of a page plus three more house ads and paid obits.

    Business section: Not one display ad. Plus six, four-line classifieds.

    Sports: Not one display ad, but about a quarter of a page for the last gasp of classifieds.

    Entertainment: G’bless show biz – 23 ads, none huge, adding up two two pages plus a quarter-page theater directory and another three house ads.

    Grand total: 4.5 pages out of a total 44 pages, or slightly more than 10 percent. Note here that Tribune company wants a 50/50 ad/edit ratio (at its optimum, I’d bet The Times probably chose to operate at a higher proportion for edit). But for the sake of ease, let’s use the Tribune’s numbers. Also, note, by the way, eight house ads (what, not enough news out of the newsroom today?). Finally, note that I’m adding up my local New York edition; I’m sure there are fewer ads nationally.

    Just how much revenue is missing from today’s edition? That’s hard to calculate given the different rates for different ad categories. But take entertainment (and please, please check my numbers, folks): The open rate is $840 per column inch and there are 126 column inches on a page, so a full page, bought once (with no volume discount) would cost $105,840. Business ads go for $1,541 per column inch; that totals to $194,166. Classified ads used to add up to a fortune per page; ah, those were the days. And there are other charges relating to color and position and such.

    Just for the sake of round numbers on this envelope, let’s say that the 4.5 pages of ads today is worth about $650,000. Going by Tribune Company’s 50/50 goal, that would say that today’s edition is short $2.6 million. And mind you, it could be much more than that if there were more ads to justify a larger paper today.

    But let’s stop there and say that today’s New York Times is a gift to you, dear readers, wherever you are, from the Sulzberger familiy and their fellow share and bondholders of a few million dollars.

    Remember, The Times is still, so far as I understand, profitable; it is a still-strong newspaper brand. The Boston Globe is, of course, another matter and it is in today’s paper-thin edition that The New York Times Company reports it is threatening to shut down the Globe because it is losing $85 million a year now.

    And it’s only going to get worse.

    This is why I say there is no time to waste to make the transition to the next life for news. Print is simply no longer sustainable.

  • Announcing the Guardian’s Media Talk USA

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    The Guardian is launching its first US podcast, an American rendition of its wonderful Media Talk show, and I’m proud (and nervous) to say that I’m presenting it, as they say. Here’s the home page for the Media Talk USA, which will be broadcast podcast monthly from the studios of the City University of New York Graduate School of Journalism. The premier episode features Jay Rosen of NYU and PressThink and Elizabeth Holmes of the Wall Street Journal in a lively discussion and an interview with Arianna Huffington, plus news from PaidContent. We even have a Facebook group. And what would a Guardian venture be without a Twitter feed? A preview snippet here.

  • At last, numbers

    8 comments on At last, numbers
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    The debate about dreams of a paid content model for news is finally – finally – getting specific with numbers. Martin Langeveld does some great and simple back of the envelope figuring to show that online subscription revenue won’t cover the lost of ad revenue with lost audience. Jeff Mignon and Nancy Wang run more elaborate scenarios and have added in numbers for subscribe acquisition costs (a rallying cry of mine); it also doesn’t look pretty.

    This debate has been purely emotional – think a kid stomping food and shouting, “it’s not fair” when lamenting the loss of sub revenue – and now it is finally – finally – turning rational. We need much more modeling like this.

    (Note to all the modelers: I will soon have MBAs and others to run numbers as part of the New Business Models for News Project at CUNY. So keep it coming and we’ll add yet more scenarios for local ecosystems, national content exchanges, hyperlocal bloggers, and more.)