Seriously.
I'm wondering if the Fort Worth Star-Telegram is about to go broke.
On the way back from Big Bend, I stopped at the Amon Carter Museum Christmas Eve. Saw the great Gordon Parks exhibit for a second time, and had camera with me. Also saw another, new, photography exhibit.
Anyway, in the north side lobby, next to the museum store entrance to the building, was a copy of the StartleGram. As is my wont, I picked it up, in part to catch up on news after four days, but more, as is really my wont, to check out its adhole.
First, only 18 pages of paper. That's bad enough.
Second, I saw NO classys, unless there was a Section C I was missing, and I doubt that.
So, third?
One page, in all, of ROP. That's counting obits, as paid and at the rates charged today, as ROP.
One page, period.
That's a 5.55 percent adhole.
So, unless StartleGram ad staff is on straight commission with zero, zip, zilch, nada salary, how are they not about to go broke?
==
OK, I looked also at the Friday/27th issue when in Denton. It did have 5 pages and change of ads on a 34-pager, to break 15 percent. Of course, 2-plus pages was a front section "wrap" by Spec's for New Year's booze.
Thursday, December 26, 2019
Wednesday, December 18, 2019
At least the vulture capitalist journalism ownership class
is honest about their vulture capitalism now
Digiday reports that the mavens (actually, just Marc Benioff, not THOSE Maven-s, nor Meredith) at Time Magazine are selling a tiered membership plan.
Top tier? $20,000 a year.
But WAIT! That's not ALL! You also get a trip to Davos.
Surprised that Steve Jobs' widow, Laurene Powell, missed out on this with Atlantic going behind a paywall.
You could have a $20,000 top tier membership with an invite to Apple's WWDC, the Worldwide (guess two W's is as cool as calling what should be about OS 12 as still OS X) Developers Conference.
But, back to Time.
The other membership tiers?
Seems like Time is trying to buy / bribe people with insider status somewhere to be their version of Instagram influencers.
Per the link, it's clear that's what Forbes is doing.
But, let's not limit it to Time, Atlantic and Forbes.
There's plenty of opportunities here.
Bloomberg Business? Contribute $1 million through a super PAC and you can be President Michael Bloomberg's Treasury Secretary.
Any newspaper owned by CNHI? Contribute $20,000 and get a week of free furlough every quarter.
The remnants of Gawker? Contribute $100,000 and get a free hippy punching of Peter Thiel plus 100 hours of free criminal defense lawyer service.
The Bulwark? Contribute $100,000 and get a super-duper NeverTrump ad and cookies blocker on all devices, plus lifetime free trips to Chez Netanyahu.
The Intercept? Contribute $10,000 plus a special memo with secret encryption to Glenn Greenwald and get to have him (accidentally?) reveal the encryption.
You get the idea.
Top tier? $20,000 a year.
But WAIT! That's not ALL! You also get a trip to Davos.
Surprised that Steve Jobs' widow, Laurene Powell, missed out on this with Atlantic going behind a paywall.
You could have a $20,000 top tier membership with an invite to Apple's WWDC, the Worldwide (guess two W's is as cool as calling what should be about OS 12 as still OS X) Developers Conference.
But, back to Time.
The other membership tiers?
Seems like Time is trying to buy / bribe people with insider status somewhere to be their version of Instagram influencers.
Per the link, it's clear that's what Forbes is doing.
But, let's not limit it to Time, Atlantic and Forbes.
There's plenty of opportunities here.
Bloomberg Business? Contribute $1 million through a super PAC and you can be President Michael Bloomberg's Treasury Secretary.
Any newspaper owned by CNHI? Contribute $20,000 and get a week of free furlough every quarter.
The remnants of Gawker? Contribute $100,000 and get a free hippy punching of Peter Thiel plus 100 hours of free criminal defense lawyer service.
The Bulwark? Contribute $100,000 and get a super-duper NeverTrump ad and cookies blocker on all devices, plus lifetime free trips to Chez Netanyahu.
The Intercept? Contribute $10,000 plus a special memo with secret encryption to Glenn Greenwald and get to have him (accidentally?) reveal the encryption.
You get the idea.
Tuesday, December 03, 2019
Newspaper owners and Tolstoy's bon mot
That bon mot I refer to comes from "Anna Karenina":
Rich newspaper owners are all alike in being rich, but they're all cheap in their own ways.
The big chains reward top management with bonuses for slashing salaries, workers or both. The bonuses they make would actually pay for most of the workers they fire.
Privately held chains, like Hearst, don't have to disclose what they pay top brass, but I'm sure it's the same. So, whenever you see a columnist at a paper like the Houston Chronicle criticize management at other newspaper companies, ask them to reveal how much THEIR ownership and C-suite management make.
Smaller, so-called "family" chains, usually not owning any seven-day dailies and more and more, not owning dailies period, are cheap in different ways.
With them, it's usually failure to keep machinery and supplies updated for modern times and needs.
I've worked at more than one paper with Macs years out of date. Ownership hadn't even considered the option of joining the PC world, where even with a semi out-of-date computer, your browser software and some other things will still be newer and faster than on a pre-Mac operating system 10.7 or newer. (More and more, I refuse to use the Ohhh Esss Echhhs branding, as Mac went to OS 11 at that point, among other things, but cult groupies still drink the Kool-Aid.)
Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.And, this applies to newspaper owners how?
Rich newspaper owners are all alike in being rich, but they're all cheap in their own ways.
The big chains reward top management with bonuses for slashing salaries, workers or both. The bonuses they make would actually pay for most of the workers they fire.
Privately held chains, like Hearst, don't have to disclose what they pay top brass, but I'm sure it's the same. So, whenever you see a columnist at a paper like the Houston Chronicle criticize management at other newspaper companies, ask them to reveal how much THEIR ownership and C-suite management make.
Smaller, so-called "family" chains, usually not owning any seven-day dailies and more and more, not owning dailies period, are cheap in different ways.
With them, it's usually failure to keep machinery and supplies updated for modern times and needs.
I've worked at more than one paper with Macs years out of date. Ownership hadn't even considered the option of joining the PC world, where even with a semi out-of-date computer, your browser software and some other things will still be newer and faster than on a pre-Mac operating system 10.7 or newer. (More and more, I refuse to use the Ohhh Esss Echhhs branding, as Mac went to OS 11 at that point, among other things, but cult groupies still drink the Kool-Aid.)
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