A good businessman knows you cannot stop a super tanker on a dime. The Globe has miles to go before it can stop and change direction.
Soooo…
bring back the Boston Post. Pay big money and long term contracts to selected few people from Globe/Herald and other places. Editors and top producers in advertising/sales.
Then raid columnists and writers.
Be like the WHA raiding the NHL in the 70s. Get Bob Ryan and Dan Shaughnesys, and Joan Vennochi, Scott Lehigh, Derrick Jackson, Frank Phillips.
Suddenly you have credibility.
Hire Bill Brett’s daughter as a photog.
Big salaries for big named players will cost much much less then buying the Globe.
Now, here’s the best part. The Boston Evening Post. Why bother with a morning edition. The six o’clock news killed the evening edition. Now the internet is killing the six o’clock news.
People would love to come home and find an evening newspaper to peruse while sitting on the couch in front of the tube. Info more current than morning paper and more in-depth then the crap on TV news.
The afternoon paperboy/girl. Bring them back.
If you can’t buy the red sox or the bruins or the patriots or the celtics there is nothing you can do.
If you can’t buy the Globe you put out a better paper cheaper. Nothing stopping you.
Let the Globe die.
A new paper would be good to counter the malaise our city is in.
First off, any buyer will, presumably, take action to get rid of the dead wood you speak of.
<
p>After that, you’re buying the names “Boston Globe” and “Boston.com” which are the two most valuable brand names in Boston area journalism.
<
p>You get an already established staff, especially in sports, that people already follow.
<
p>You don’t have to develop a base of advertisers, since you already have that.
<
p>There hasn’t been a successful start-up city newspaper since, well, I don’t know.
<
p>Trust me, if you had to choose between buying between a turnkey operation like the Globe, or trying to start a new paper, go with the Globe.
Depends what you mean by ‘successful’. The Moonie-owned Washington Times is not known for its journalistic quality or fairness, nor is it profitable, but it still publishes 27 years after its founding.
<
p>Whether the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review counts as a ‘startup city newspaper’ is debatable; its history sounds a bit like what you might get if, say, the Salem News or the Lynn Item decided to move to Boston and become a metro daily.
It’s not that easy, though, is it? That’s exactly what NYTCo. has been doing. They’re not there yet — they’re still looking at losing over $50M a year, even assuming all the union concessions get ratified.
<
p>As for a “base of advertisers,” again, how’s that been working out lately?
<
p>And if the “Post” takes Ernie’s advice and raids the Globe, well, the fans will follow them, don’t you think?
Go in, blow up the contracts and get reorganized.
<
p>As for advertisers, I’d rather start from the Globe’s position than have to begin from scratch. When companies are ready to start buying again, where will they go? The company that already has a readership, online and in print, or some hypothetical start-up?
<
p>And no, I don’t think staff raiding makes much difference. There may be a handful of writers who would get readers to switch, but overall most readers don’t notice bylines.
How many more people started reading the Herald when Mike Barnicle wrote a column there?
Is Boston.com’s readership up ever since Tony Massarotti jumped ship?
I like this — except for the “Evening” part. In almost every town that once had a morning paper and an evening paper, there is now only a morning paper. Either the evening paper went out of business, or it became a second morning paper and put its competitor out of business.
<
p>Something about the ‘evening’ model stopped working, all over the US. I’m not sure Boston can buck that trend.
<
p>Otherwise, this may be just what the city needs.
Way back when, I was taught that the reason evening newspapers were going under was the cost of tranporting newspapers in daytime traffic. Anyone know if this is true?
Really, Kate, I’m sure it hasn’t been all that long since you were an undergraduate:)
<
p>As to the question at hand the Lowell Sun does seem to have different delivery times. What used to be definitely a late afternoon paper in the suburbs has been delivered early afternoon or even late morning in recent years. However, only on the weekends would I call it truly a morning paper when it’s on the doorstep by 8:00 AM.
still operates on an afternoon basis.
At 4:30 in the afternoon, it’s tough for a Globe or Herald truck to run a red light. At 4:30 in the morning, they run every single one of ’em. I’ve watched them both do it before 6am, on streets all over Boston.
Questions:
<
p>1. How much Metro coverage? What kind? Besides exposes on Dan Conley. Daily.
<
p>2. Do you bother with a business section?
<
p>3. It’s 6pm paper, so do you rebuild Arts section around that evening’s TV? And redo the movie reviews not to cover what’s in theaters, but which movies are on TV that night?
<
p>4. Besides columnists, which reporters would you snag?
Television doesn’t have much to do with arts, nor with locality. The ‘Boston Post’ should focus its attention on locally produced or locally exhibited arts and culture.
When John Henry and Co. bought them, they hadn’t won anything in a long time. Why didn’t he start his own baseball team?
<
p>Why buy the Hancock? Build another building.
<
p>Why buy Mass. General if that comes up for sale? It’s just a bunch of beds and some machines that go bing …
Seriously — instead of putting up flawed analogies, why not directly address Ernie’s proposal, pointing out the flaws where you see them? That will lead to more constructive dialogue.
I hope Ernie can take it as well as he dishes it out.
<
p>This is the absolute dumbest idea I’ve heard in years. The Globe:
<
p>- Has a 100+ year history
– Has been New England’s leading paper for at least half that time
– Has an existing distribution system throughout New England
<
p>How can anyone seriously argue that a startup, no matter how well-funded, can hit the ground running and be successful?
<
p>Look no further than Rupert Murdoch. He didn’t look for a paper to compete with the New York Times. He bought the Wall Street Journal, one of only three papers that was already competing with the Times.
<
p>My Red Sox analogy is perfectly apt, in my opinion.
A new team couldn’t succeed because of the monopoly created by MLB, which manages and parcels out franchises. There is no equivalent for newspapers.
<
p>The existing distribution? That can be purchased. Example – the New Bedford Standard Times is now printed in Hyannis at the Cape Cod Times facility, which is new and state of the art. Other papers utilize other printing/distribution facilites as well, like the one in Chicopee (forgot what paper(s) were involved in taht, but I read it).
<
p>$3.50 and a 100 year history will get you a grande at Starbucks.
Among the old folks who still read newspapers, a history means something. Maybe not enough to save it, but something.
But that’s exactly the problem, right? Those folks are in increasingly short supply, and they’re not being replaced.
By you and me. đŸ™‚
A daily and a weekly – supplemented by internet.
<
p>Then again, five years ago, it was a daily and TWO weeklies, supplemented by internet.
<
p>In my youth – three dailies. And no internet.
In addition — even in thinking about baseball, what if MLB was looking to add another team in Boston? Then you do what any expansion team does: you raid other teams and pick up as many decent free agents as you can. Then you start playing. And pretty soon you win a World Series.
And it never looks to add teams. It allows entrepreneurs to buy in and be considered legitimate competitors.
<
p>But to take this back to Ernie’s original point: No startup newspaper will be considered a serious competitor to the Globe until the Globe ceases to exist (or slides to some barely recognizable state of decline).
<
p>I think the idea of a completely new newspaper, or some multimedia news gathering organization, is great. But whoever does it has to realistic about what’s possible.
<
p>
Many seem to be of the view that that’s already happened. And if it hasn’t yet, it seems to be heading in that direction with startling alacrity.
I don’t know what the psychiatric nurses are giving you Ern, but keep taking whatever it is. This is a brilliant idea whose time has come.
If the Boston Globe didn’t exist, would you build it. That’s what they always say about the NYT.
<
p>I can’t imagine the venture capital, mezzanine or banker who’d put up the $$ for a start-up Boston Evening Post.
<
p>Kinda like building the next buggy whip company. New! Vinyl Buggywhips!
<
p>At least the Boston Globe has some assets: circulation, brand, building. I guess there it has some profitable publications.
<
p>Even if you could figure your way to finance the start-up, how much would that take:
<
p>(1) hire away from Globe. That would take some promise of stability at least for a year. 100 to 200 people at $70 per, 7 to 15 million.
<
p>(2) marketing. No idea, but the start up to bring in circulation would have to be big: free newspapers for months like USA Today did years ago. Took 15 years to become profitable, but it did make it. All the while, deep pockets subsidized it. High risk.
<
p>(3) facilities. Gotta put the new business somewhere. Rent or buy, it’s big money for a year or so at least, and with expectations of profit no sooner than 2 or 3 years (and using the USAToday model, 15 years! yoinks)
<
p>High risk. Too high risk to get financing, no?
As it happens, there’s a printing plant you might be able to pick up cheap.
I agree that a new paper which replicates the Globe is doomed. However, a new paper which avoids its pitfalls might succeed.
<
p>Example – five years ago, a local genius started Cape Cod Today (full disclosure – I used to write for them, and still maintain a fond relationship with its 75+ yr. old mad genius founder, who was a dead tree editor himself for many years). This virtual-only paper has broken scoops – the Glen Marshall Wampanoag scandal which changed tribal leadership, Christy Mihos’ announcement that he’ll run as a Republican, etc. Others are of more local interest, but those two were picked up statewide.
<
p>If you combined that with the Politico model – a web start-up which publishes a dead tree edition as a secondary item – you could have a Boston Today. And as Kindle delivery becomes a greater possibility, such a virtual-published hybrid could succeed.