Top Media Analyst Says Some of America’s Newspapers May Not Survive Pandemic

Top Media Analyst Says Some of America’s Newspapers May Not Survive Pandemic

Ken Doctor, one of the top media analysts in America, appeared on GoLocal LIVE, where he painted a dire future for America’s newspapers.

For the Providence Journal, the Newport Daily News, and hundreds of other newspapers owned by conglomerate Gannett, the financial picture is bleak. 

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On Tuesday, Gannett’s stock closed at $0.63 — the loss of 94% from the company’s 52-week high of $11.35.

Doctor writes the widely-followed column, Newsonomics.

Staff for the Providence Journal and other Gannett papers have been furloughed one week a month. Warwick Beacon has laid-off its staff, and the Providence Business News is no longer printing - now digital-only.

“On the advertising side, they're losing thirty to fifty percent of all their ad revenue in April and it could be more than 50 percent, some have told me. So to the extent this becomes the whole second quarter -- which it looks like it may be now -- they're going to be an extremely stressed company and the tension here...is that in all these markets, including Providence, they cut so much, how much more can they cut and still put out a product?” said Doctor, who is a contributor to Harvard’s Neiman Lab and POLITCO.

WATCH THE FULL INTERVIEW ABOVE

“If you look at their model, most of these daily newspapers have relied on advertising still for 60%-65% of their revenue, and reader revenue subscriptions, largely either print or digital, for a third.  Now, it's been trending closer and closer, because as you said they've been losing 10% plus print advertising for three years in a row now, but still, what they have today is they've got this circulation revenue which is fairly stable - the print people aren't going to cancel immediately,” said Doctor.

“We’re going to emerge on the end of this basically where a lot of us thought we would be certainly by 2025 -- [with] a Sunday newspaper, which is really a weekend newspaper -- much more feature like, 'week in review' - and daily, through-the-day digital -- and that will allow a great cutting of costs on manufacturing, printing presses, distribution trucks, all of that. It will save a lot of money, unless they own their own presses -- and then that's a further complication,” said Doctor.

The Providence Journal owns its own printing presses.

“But what happens - do you break the habit of all those seven-day subscribers, who are largely in their 60s and 70s and 80s, and are paying five, six, seven hundred dollars a year for the paper. If they lose a lot of those customers the decline gets further and further in spiraling down,” warns Doctor.