Blue Mass Group

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Rich Executives Have Bled the Boston Globe Dry

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NYTimes executives have kept the same salaries even as ad revenues have declined.

Chairman Arthur Sulzberger Jr, whose family controls the Times through a special class of shares, will earn about $1.09 million this year, according to a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on Wednesday. Chief Executive Janet Robinson will earn $1 million.

Executives at the Times, which owns the namesake newspaper, as well as other U.S. papers including The Boston Globe, have been making the same base salary since 2006, while ad revenue has declined and the company comes under more pressure to find a way to reverse its flagging fortunes.

There are fifteen directors on the board of the NYT Corp, drawing huge paychecks.  Now these greedy elites threaten to destroy the Boston Globe, a key forum for keeping the people of our Commonwealth informed and empowered, if they don’t get $20 million in concessions from the middle-class people who write, edit, print and deliver the Globe?

These executives would destroy Massachusetts if they thought it would preserve their fortunes and social standing.

I hope the people at the Globe fight them tooth and nail.

Hat tip to Brookline Tom

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  1. Sulzberger family stake in the NYT has declined from being worth $1.2 billion to $95 million.  

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    p>So, like, they’ve basically lost more than 90% of their holdings.  

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    p>And who knows what happened with Arthur S’s 2008 divorce.  

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    p>In fact, they’re the least greedy fatcat family, which ruins your meme.  

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    p>But also the dumbest.  The WaPo family became an education company.  Tribune and WSJ families sold at peak to Zell and Murdoch.  

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    p>Sulzberger held out b/c he thought he was the lord’s gift to journalism.  

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    p>They’d sell the Globe but nobody wants to buy it.  Because it has negative net worth right now.  Every day it loses more than it takes in.  

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    p>NYT Co is toast, but they are immaterial.  

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    p>The issue is us.  We’re not buying enough Globes.  Because they give it away for free on the web.  

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    p>At some point a new Globe structure will emerge.  Dan Kennedy, I think, has offered some thoughts about what that might be like.  That’s really the debate to be had now.  

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    p>If I were a Globe reporter/editor, I’d pull together 20 to 40 best people at the paper, find a venture capital guy, and launch Boston2.com.  

    • and launch boston2boston.com. That’s because boston2.com is already owned by “TomSettle.Communications”, in Altoona, PA.

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      p>Of course, you’ll have to pry that boston2boston.com away from one “Joe Vallee”, who owns and has parked the domain name. From his public “whois” listing, he lives at 105 Lionheart Lane, in Thorofare New Jersey. You can reach him at 856-384-5955 and let him know of your interest.

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      p>You don’t need and can’t use more than 5-10 people at the launch. Bootstrap the venture and bring on the rest as your traffic and revenue ramps up. The VC won’t talk to you until you have a running business. By then, you won’t need them.

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      p>Thanks to joeltpatterson for the hat tip, BTW.

    • Unless they get $20 million in cuts and concessions from the people who actually make the Globe worth reading (and available to read).  

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      p>What we have here is another example of a business in hard times, and the owners and management say:  “All you middle-class people need to sacrifice–and some of you need to become poor.”  But the management and owners have made no real sacrifices themselves as times got tougher.

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      p>Whatever the net worth of NYT Corp., Sulzberger has taken $1 million per year the past two years.

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      p>He ain’t eatin’ beans out of a can for his dinner.

      • It was bought by NYT for 1.1 billion.  

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        p>How about this….

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        p>If it sells to someone for $100 million or more, then you are right, there are many entities interested.

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        p>If it’s a fire sale for less than $100 million (that’s 9% of what it cost the NYT), then I’m right, that nobody is interested in the current incarnation of the Globe.  

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        p>Fair?  

  2. Speaking of executives adjusting their salaries, isn’t it time for mayors and city councilors and the governor and legislators to take personal pay cuts of, let’s say, 10%, to set an example for city and state employees? Did they do this and I missed it?

    • should be across the board, for elected and appointed officials as well as for public employees.

    • that worked out really well for us.

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      p>They don’t need to take a pay cut, they just need to grow the cajones to raise taxes.  

          1. I don’t give a crap about Mitt Romney at this point in my life.

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          p>2. I rarely, if ever, talk about the guy at this point.

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          p>3. I WILL bring this point up whenever someone talks about government politicians working for free or for less. In government, as with anything else, you get what you pay for. If you give little to squat to elected leaders, only people who don’t give a shit about a government salary will run for office, because they’d be the only ones who could afford it. If you can afford to work for free, that means you probably have an agenda that has little, if anything, to do with the priorities of the middle class or working classes.  

  3. It’s the same BS meme progressives use for increasing taxes “on the wealthy.”  Well, there aren’t enough of the “wealthy” to tax at 100% to fund all of Barack’s 2010 budget.

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    p>Same thing with the NYT’s/Globe’s executive suite compensation.  You could zero out these salaries and still see the Globe/NYT go broke because thousands of worker bees are overpaid and under-worked.

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    p>The fundamental economic problem with the Globe is that their product stinks, and fewer people every year want to purchase it.

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    p>Add on top of that INSANE union compensation and retirement burdens and even the slightest decline in revenue triggers a crisis.  The Globe’s entire labor structure needs to be blown up, and rebuilt.  No amount of fiddling around the margins will solve the problem.

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    p>Lifetime employment?  Gone.  Pensions?  Gone.  Printing plants?  To be outsourced.  Thanks to the unions.  And stupid, push-over management.  $20 million in union concessions?  Too late.

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    p>The Globe will either fold, become a “NYT New England Edition” insert (assuming the NYT survives,) or be recast as The Boston Globe Metro.

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    p>Maybe not now, but eventually.

    • I don’t think Joel said it was exclusively executive salary, but it’s certainly a piece of the puzzle. I’m sure if executives were willing to suck it up and, instead of earning 7 figures, were willing to work for the mid to low 6s, that could probably save the NYT Co. millions upon millions of dollars. Maybe not 20 million, but maybe 10.

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      p>They could do that, or they could throw everyone else under the bus. I think it’s fair and good that the pain is shared, but apparently others think only the working class people of this world should hit hard by the economy. I suppose you think we shouldn’t be stripping the exec salary compensation at companies that take federal bailouts, either?  

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