The Richmond Times-Dispatch has announced the consolidation of its print news pages and the layoff of another 33 employers, including 13 in the newsroom. The downsizing, which was part of a broader NH Media Group restructuring, came in response to the continuing shift of readers and advertisers to digital media.
“While more readers than ever turn to our digital products, our digital revenue is not growing fast enough yet to offset print revenue losses from both advertising and circulation,” wrote Terry J. Kroeger, CEO of BH Media. Customers are being hurt by the growth in online retailing, he said.
In “resetting” the legacy side of the enterprise, the Times-Dispatch is growing its online audience and developing new revenue segments such as premium magazines, e-commerce, paid events, sponsored content, and archive products and services, said Publisher Thomas Silvestri.
Bacon’s bottom line: The newspaper industry continues its slow-motion death spiral. I pray that I’m wrong, but I don’t see anything that can reverse it. Even if the Times-Dispatch grows its online readership, the transition from paper to print entails a shift from a print advertising revenue model to an online revenue model. Because the T-D enjoys a near-monopoly status in the Richmond regional print market — the tabloid Style Weekly and Richmond magazine provide the only serious competition for print dollars — print ads are highly profitable. But in the online arena, the T-D is competing against national players from Google and Yahoo! to Facebook and Craig’s List. An online reader generates significantly fewer advertising dollars than a print reader does.
Adding insult to injury, online aggregators of news content capture much of the economic value from the T-D‘s news content. We can decry the fact that Google, Facebook and other platforms are parasites on the T-D‘s content creation, but the world isn’t fair. Lamentations do not change reality.
Meanwhile, as the T-D shrinks its newsroom staff, it loses the capacity to create content. Less content for the newspaper = less content for the T-D‘s Richmond.com website. Less website content = fewer page views, and fewer page views = less online revenue. It’s a vicious cycle.
Every newspaper faces comparable challenges. But in the Virginia news eco-system, the Times-Dispatch plays a special role. As the newspaper of record in the state capital, it devotes disproportionate resources to covering the activities of state government. The Washington Post, Virginian-Pilot, Daily Press and Roanoke Times might parachute in every so often for stories that directly impact their readers, but T-D reporters are the ones who provide the routine reporting on meetings and hearings day in, day out. As the newspaper retrenches its coverage of government, accountability will diminish and politicians will run free.
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