Comments on: Someone's going to get rich in Denver next week…

By: 63.201.188.178

63.201.188.178 — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 14:53:18 +0000

LOL the Post will fade away soon also. I don’t think ad folks are going to run to them.

By: Andre Albert

Andre Albert — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 13:22:11 +0000

Newspapers are a dying breed. Only the ones who can embrace change and revise with the times will be left standing. Newspapers CAN make a living on the Internet; after all, so many other websites are doing just that. The problem comes about when people are resistant to change and want to just keep doing everything the way it's always been done. There was a time when newspapers were the trailblazers. Now, it's the Internet. Learn to grow with it, or get out of the business. Foot

By: 67.190.30.83

67.190.30.83 — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 10:03:31 +0000

So, lemme guess–you work/worked for The Post?

If you don’t think that the Post’s website had an automatic advantage re: search engines because of the word “Denver” in the title, then you’re either hopelessly ignorant, deluded, or a willful liar.

Keep on throwing stones.

Or, maybe, go back to work and wait for Mr. Potter to cut your job. After all, we all know that there are shoes yet to drop in that newsroom…

By: Robert Niles

Robert Niles — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 10:00:09 +0000

Well 67.162.145.191 (Comcast Colorado Broadband IP address), Todd and I had the guts to post under our names, so I think that gives us a bit more credibility than an (as Slashdot would put it) “anonymous coward.”

The Post, like the Rocky to a lesser extent, built its print circulation in the late 1980s and early 1990s by grossly expanding its circulation area – even as far as the Dakotas. The Rocky bailed on that strategy in the mid ’90s, ceding the print circ lead to the Post, though retaining a slight lead in the Denver metro area.

But I never maligned the Post in my comments. Nor would I. They put out a good paper and a good website. But the two papers’ obsession with print circ numbers left them blind to the markets that their online operations were creating, until after it was too late and the papers were locked into a innovation-crippling JOA (crippling on the business development side. Both newsrooms continued to innovate online, but that doesn’t directly pay the bills.)

By: Jan Dargaj

Jan Dargaj — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 09:22:42 +0000

Oh, well some good news. Except that wall street went under 7000 points today.

By: 67.162.145.191

67.162.145.191 — Sun, 01 Mar 2009 23:36:00 +0000

Todd – sorry you’re still bitter at the Post for letting you go, with your unfounded shot at the Post’s website. The Rocky’s website certainly has not been better than the Post’s in the last few years.
And, saying they got double the traffic than the RMN just over “out of state” clickers and “Bronco” readers is just silly.
As to Robert Niles’ assertion that Scripps could have bought out Singleton any time if it wanted to from its TV business but didn’t want to, that’s misleading.
Scripps’ TV properties are losing money now, too, and buying Singleton out likely would have called for them to become a leveraged company just like any other.
The Denver Post has been subject to too many little potshots the last few days, either from bitter, out of work RMN people, sideline cynics like Niles who have an ax to grind and bias from previous work experience there and in general.
The Post worked its ASS off in the 1980s and ’90s to get the circulation lead back from the News – when they were down by 117,000 copies to the RMN at one point.
News people got fat and lazy, and smug. They would always have some snide little story about the impending “death knell” of the Denver Post and its reporters would openly chortle toward Post reporters at assignments, about how they would “be owning their notebooks” soon.
Well, guess what? The Post just went to work and started putting out a better paper. While News execs like Larry Strutton tooled around town in a Porsche, wearing suspenders and calling himself a news man, others at Scripps made the disastrous decision to invest in a clunky, way-too-expensive printing press that put out blurry papers for about a year. Editor Jay Ambrose wrote a widely ridiculed “daily thought” on page 2 and hired a lot of reporters who mostly just around all day.
There was a TREMENDOUS amount of money wasted by Scripps in the 80s and, especially, the 90s. Reporters, for instance, did not have to account for anything under $75 on their expense accounts. A reporter could claim to have a $74.99 breakfast if they wanted, when really it was only $5, and pocket the difference. Don’t think that didn’t happen – a lot.
The Post had to account for anything over $10. While the News blew a lot of money and got lazy, the Post hired aggressive new reporters, started putting out a better looking paper and had a terrific TV ad campaign in the 90s (“It’s Bigger, It’s Better, It’s Free”) and finally overtook the News in circulation.
Scripps then panicked, pulling out of statewide circulation and slashing subscription prices to a penny a day. All that did was hemorhhage them money, while the Post did not panic and, while having ridiculously low rates themselves, did not give away the store as much.
Finally, the News cried uncle in 2000 to Singleton, paying him $60 million and ceding the Sunday paper in the JOA.
That always put them in the loser’s position going forward. Until, finally, they died.
Those are the facts of what happened, and I left out many more. Let the others try to rewrite history as they see it if they feel they must. It won’t change what the truth was.

By: 70.223.230.82

70.223.230.82 — Fri, 27 Feb 2009 22:07:50 +0000

A great deal of the advertising in the DP and the RMN was sold as package deals. So, Jake Jabs of American Furniture Warehouse will get fewer readers in just The Post than in both, and he probably will want to pay less. (Some of the RMN readership will leave the market. No surviving newspaper ever has picked up the full readership of a closed paper.)

Per another post and much as I hate to admit it, RMN.com has been a better website for a few years. DP.com owes some of its traffic to having “Denver” in its name, and it has substantial out-of-market readership – much of it for Broncos news.

– Todd Engdahl, former editor DenverPost.com, now with EdNewsColorado.org

By: Shaun Anthony

Shaun Anthony — Fri, 27 Feb 2009 18:27:50 +0000

It’s sad to see a very old community newspaper fade into the past; however, the relentless gallop of new Web and digital media will leave grand old newspapers in its wake. The only certain thing is change, the quality we must all embrace to grow, thrive, and survive.

By: 208.59.171.84

208.59.171.84 — Fri, 27 Feb 2009 13:56:19 +0000

You are correct Robert.
What is most poignant about the Rocky’s video obituary (http://www.vimeo.com/3390739) is that it demonstrates how powerful newspaper websites can be when they embrace new media. In this case, we’re talking about broadcast-quality video — a feature that could be central to a new web-based business model.

The economics are compelling: Despite the recession, research firm eMarketer predicts spending on online video advertising in the U.S. will grow 45% in 2009. 15-second video ads can command CPMs (cost per thousand viewers) of $25 to $35, while the display ads found on news sites are typically priced at no more than $5 to $10. (And ad space the newspapers can’t sell is filled by ad networks at even lower rates.)
Local news organizations that want to survive need to make their websites the #1 Internet destination in their region — a place the audience will spend more time and national and local advertisers will want to sponsor.
That means not just articles with a handful of amateurish videos (typical of newspaper websites) nor TV with a little text (typical of local TV affiliates’ sites). It is a third animal altogether, combining the power and immediacy of video, where appropriate, with the depth and analysis found in the best newspapers.
Local news websites will never generate the revenue newspapers did in the monopoly days before the Net. They will be smaller. They will be less ambitious. (Foreign reporting will be the province of national publications; lengthy investigative projects will require some form of non-profit model.) They will be less profitable. But there is a business model to be created here.

By: Robert Niles

Robert Niles — Fri, 27 Feb 2009 12:05:33 +0000

Scripps washed its hands at the newspaper business when it separated the papers from its cash-cow cable networks.

Scripps had the opportunity to buy out the Post when Times Mirror put it up for sale, and didn’t. It had the resources to buy out the Post with cash from its cable networks, and didn’t. Scripps, headquartered in Cincinnati, simply didn’t want to beat Denver-based MediaNews in that market as much as MediaNews wanted to beat Scripps. That’s why the Rocky closed first.