Word: profitable
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...news, the magazine speculated, "because they don't trust its homogenized premise of objectivity, especially when Disneyized, Murdochized, Oprahized and Hard Copyized." Though these corporate ownerships are becoming more apparent (Good Morning America travels to Disney World more often), the homogenizing factor may be the result of profit pressures and competition rather than some sprawling conglomerate conspiracy...
...dinosaurs." Yet for all the harbingers of doom, the $48 billion newspaper industry (compared with $12 billion in 1975) is still a pretty good business to be in. In the past, owning papers made families like the Hearsts, the Grahams and the Sulzbergers tremendously wealthy. And even last year, profit margins for the industry as a whole were a respectable 12.5%--nearly twice that of the average Fortune 500 company. (Gannett Co., the country's largest newspaper chain, rang up a 21.7% margin.) Notes John Morton, a Wall Street analyst: "The newspaper industry is sorely besieged, but not from...
...Ridder, CEO of Knight-Ridder's 17-paper empire, explains that he must answer to many masters. "I've got a number of constituencies: the customers, the communities in which we do business, and I've got the shareholders." And some shareholders remember the boom-boom 1980s, when newspaper profit margins routinely approached 20%. Cold reality hit along with the recession in the early 1990s: retailing, then retail advertising, then newspapers dependent on such advertising suffered, and profits fell. Ridder insists that the financial pressures on all papers tend to be cyclical and that in fact Knight-Ridder has recently...
Nevertheless, newspapers are facing a unique challenge. Although the economy has rebounded--and with it, according to third-quarter reports released last week, profit growth for many newspaper chains--the face of retailing has irrevocably changed, with fewer mom-and-pop stores eager to advertise in the Anytown Daily Bugle and with large discounters not using newspaper ads as heavily. The rise of other ad outlets, such as cable television, direct mail, niche publications and online services, means that newspaper executives may never see such rich margins again--but that does not stop them from squeezing. Many newspaper veterans feel...
...many newsrooms, however, morale is hitting an all-time low--though journalists are famously cranky. For example, at the Philadelphia Inquirer, which is under pressure from parent company Knight-Ridder to boost profit margins from 8% to 12% this year and 15% the next, staff members cite with dismay the collapse of the time-honored wall between "church" and "state"--the editorial side and the business side--which is meant to ensure journalistic integrity. The head of circulation now sits in on story meetings, while reporters and editors must take "business literacy" classes to learn how the publishing side works...