Is there ANY newspaper stock that is doing well?

Radio Corporation of America was the big thing in the 1920s and 1930s. Everybody thought that immediacy would doom the newspaper, and in fact, it had a big impact. Most daily newspapers started publishing once a day, instead of having multiple editions. Many newspapers eventually started radio stations, such as WGN in Chicago, “World’s Greatest Newspaper”, and in Fort Wayne, WGL, “Wayne’s Grand Lady”.

Television was the big thing in the 1950s. Everybody thought radio had failed to kill off newspapers because it didn’t have pictures, and sure enough, television had pictures. WGN started a television station, and in Fort Wayne, the first TV station to go on the air was WKJG, “William Kunstler – Journal Gazette”.

But television didn’t kill newspapers, because it’s a push medium, not a pull medium. Readers want relevant obituaries, but not the obituaries of people they’ve never heard of, and there’s no way with TV to give different obits to different viewers.

Cable television tried to do a number on newspapers, both with channels like ESPN, and CNN, but it turns out readers want to know about the fire across town, and the local high school sports.

But the internet is a narrowcasting medium, letting people get the news they are interested in and avoid the rest, and it offers full color pictures, sound, and motion, the same as television.

The real secret, though, is that newspapers aren’t about news. They’re about advertising. Back in the 1960s, a newspaper got 75% of its revenue from advertisers and 25% from readers. By the 1980s, it was 85% of its revenue from advertisers and 15% from readers.

These days, they get 70% of their revenue from advertisers, and 10% of their revenue from readers. What, you noticed that only totals 80%? Well, the other 20% isn’t coming from anywhere. They’re surviving by getting rid of staff, by not replacing equipment when they need to, and by taking cash out ot the owners’ pockets.

There may be a future for weekly newspapers, very focused on local news and features, because small businesses need a way to advertise. It doesn’t make sense to advertise over a 40-mile radius, when you only only deliver pizza within a mile of your pizza shop. Most people simply won’t drive 35 miles to your barber shop, no matter how good you are, even if you have free haircuts. And even if they did, how could you possibly handle a clientele of a million people? So a community paper, possibly a free newspaper, may survive as a weekly.

But the daily newspaper no longer has much of a reason to exist. The only thing they’re really beating the internet on is crossword puzzles and coupons for groceries from local food manufacturers – and those can be handled by community weeklies.

I feel sorry for the Pulliam/Quayle family, although they don’t own the Star or the Herald-Press any more. I also feel sorry for the Thomas family over the recent sale of Wendy’s. If your family has derived a lot of pride for something for a long time, it’s sad to see it deteriorate and fail.

Hmmm. Let’s say you buy a used car for $10,000 and it lasts 100,000 miles before it’s worthless. Over that 100,000 miles, you’ll spend $350 for tires, $150 for a water pump, $600 for oil changes, $1500 for tuneups. If you drive 33,000 miles a year, you may pay $3500 for insurance. Gas at $3 a gallon, and 20 miles per gallon would be $15,000. If you didn’t live in Indiana, 3 years of plates would be about $100.

That figures out to a little over 30c per mile, which means a 1200 mile round trip would cost you $360. If gasoline was free, it’d still cost about $180.

That must have been one hell of a barber, to spend 24 hours on the road and put out that kind of cash.