One of the country’s finest Pulitzer-Winning photography papers might have seen its last days. Channel 9 News in Colorado has the story:
DENVER – The publisher of the Denver Post claims the owner of the Rocky Mountain News said the paper would be closed “as soon as practical,” belying hopes that a buyer for the Rocky will be found.
The Rocky, Colorado’s oldest newspaper, was put up for sale on Thursday after owner E.W. Scripps Co. said it lost about $11 million on the operation in the first nine months of the year….
…Boehne says the problem is not getting people to read the paper, it’s that the advertising dollars that aren’t there anymore…
…The Rocky joins a crowded marketplace. Cox Enterprises Inc. is trying to sell its newspapers in Texas, North Carolina and Colorado. Landmark Communications Inc. said in January it wanted to sell nine daily newspapers but has found that buyers are having trouble getting loans amid the credit crisis…
I think the first instinct is to blame market conditions for the decline of newspapers in recent years. While I think current conditions speed up the downward pressure, they also highlight a trend that has been persistent the last decade. Readers aren’t reading the paper product as much as the digital one.
Follow the money.
The industry doesn’t survive without advertising. Advertisers need eyes to provide enough justification to place ads in any space. The eyes aren’t in paper nearly as much as they used to be. As a result, advertising money is showing up in different mediums.
Another reason to boost your business acumen.
The Monk
