Comments

1
Watch. When the summer ad push winds down and the pre-holiday ad buy slump hits in September, McClatchy will be dying to unload this paper.

They tried last year and they've effectively stated that their ownership stake is worthless.

The Times is done.
2
I dropped it as soon as my carryover subscription from the PI was done. Reading the Seattle TImes made me less informed.
3
When have you ever seen an ad for The Times?
4
Glad to hear they picked up a lot of business post-PI. It may not be the best newspaper ever, but it's better than NO newspaper in this town.
5
Correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't they also double the newsstand price from 25 to 50 cents in the last year? Perhaps that's what they meant by "budgetary decision" being the reason for the 8% drop in circulation.

The Times isn't going anywhere. They've now got close to 100% of the market share in Seattle and will be able to ride that for years to come.
6
I already stopped paying for the Seattle Times - and got a NY Times subscription - man, that is way too much paper, I miss when the WSJ wasn't a Socialist Republican rag that infected news coverage with it's America-hating stances.
7
It's 75 cents at the newstand, not 50 cents.
8
50 and 75 cents are the going rate for daily papers in most cities I've been in the last several years. I don't know of any big city dailies that have been 25 cents in the recent past.
9
Alright, it went up from 50 to 75 in the past year. I don't know for sure, because I only occasionally read that rag.

The point is, they had a 50% increase in price and an 8% decrease in circulation, which is a big gain in revenue (though not good for ad revenue). Now, with the PI gone, they've got their readership back and then some. The Times is much stronger financially today than they were 3 months ago.
10
I believe that a very small percentage of income comes from the actual cost of the newspaper. So while it would be nice if that price change would save them, I highly doubt it.
11
Why don't you tell us how much the strangers circulation is down for comparison? You guys can't be doing that well either.
12
That's correct. Remember when the Weekly went from 75 cents to free? (Thanks to competition from the Stranger.)
13
Eli,

The memo you posted was "leaked" by a Times staffer?

Your post went up at 9:50 a.m.

At 9:36 a.m., the same memo was posted nationwide on Romenesko's media column on the Poynter Web site.

Doing the math, you're congratulating yourself for having a staffer "leak" a memo that was already nationwide 14 minutes earlier.

Scoop on!
14
@10 - Circulation is about 20% of their revenue, and the rest is from advertising. So, even though it's a small piece, it's not chump change.

And, with all of the PI subscribers on board now, their ad revenue will probably go up too.
15
@13: Yeah, forwarding an non-confidential e-mail that was distributed to 1,000 employees can hardly be described as being leaked. But if it makes Eli feel like a big-time journalist...
16
@1: Your ignorance is showing. McClatchy doesn't own the Times, so it can't exactly unload it. The best it could do is sell (or give away, if it's as worthless as they're claiming) its share back to the Times. Not likely to happen.
17

"Thanks to the quality and appeal of The Seattle Times newspaper"

Oh, and the fact that we violated two Washington State Law statutes by automatically converting subscribers under a negative option marketing ploy. That mighta' had something to do with this "success" too.

Blethen, your conscience is calling. Should we keep taking messages?
18
Eli, your post is wrong. Times circulation has climbed by 70,000 or more. The old Times/P-I circulation is what has dropped by 8 percent.
19
Yeah, the memo actually says the Times is up 95,000! Your headline kinda misses the point.
20
The Weakly's headline:
Ex-P-I Subscribers Hanging in; Times Circulation Soars
21
Count me as another PI subscriber that is so done as soon as my carryover subscription is used up. I suspect there are losts of PI readers like myself. Expect double digit decreases with the next audit release.
22
I thought most newspaper revenues were from ads - which are down due to the Bush Recession?

Newstand sales are the LEAST of their problems.

Please wait...

Comments are closed.

Commenting on this item is available only to members of the site. You can sign in here or create an account here.


Add a comment
Preview

By posting this comment, you are agreeing to our Terms of Use.