Last week, two of the remaining, high-profile American newspapers--the Boston Globe and Washington Post--were sold to new owners. The Washington Post passed from family ownership to Jeffrey Bezos, founder of Amazon.com, while, in an almost reverse sale, The Boston Globe was sold by The New York Times Company to John Henry, a Boston local and owner of the Red Sox. Meanwhile, the same New York Times Company, largely family-owned, issued a public assurance that the New York Times will not be sold.
These are three very different paths for three major journalistic outlets. Do we see any evidence for these paths in their readership numbers?
These are three very different paths for three major journalistic outlets. Do we see any evidence for these paths in their readership numbers?
Note: Data reflects readers, not paid subscriptions; print numbers added to web numbers graph for comparison. Boston Globe web traffic data unavailable after 9/30/11; Data from Alliance for Audited Media.
All three papers continue to see declining print readership, suggestive of the widely-acknowledged national decline of newspapers. Online however, we see three unique stories. The New York Times has seen the strongest web growth and is probably the closest to successfully monetizing traditional journalism on the web. The Washington Post also has a good online showing, though not of the size or monetary success (they only instituted a paywall in July 2013) of the Times. This could be why Bezos chose to purchase the Post for his mysterious reasons; perhaps he sees a semi-successful entity that simply needs some assistance adapting to the web. Finally, in the Boston Globe’s numbers we see a paper that is not failing outright, but certainly not succeeding. Hence, it is of most value to a Boston citizen interested in preserving his city’s heritage and local journalism.
Here we see three interesting paths, laid out by three giants of journalism in the 21st century. I hope they all shall succeed, proving that traditional journalism is still feasible. Regardless, the sales of last week demonstrate that the media landscape is far from settled in the digital age.
Here we see three interesting paths, laid out by three giants of journalism in the 21st century. I hope they all shall succeed, proving that traditional journalism is still feasible. Regardless, the sales of last week demonstrate that the media landscape is far from settled in the digital age.
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