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From the photo accompanying the article, I thought it was an announcement that Rachael Ray was taking Pinch’s place, which could only be an improvement.

Yum-O!

What accounts for the decline? In two words: bad management.

First, here are a couple of charts showing the magnitude of the decline of the NYT’s weekday and Sunday circulation since they peaked in 1993 – you can see that most of the drop in circulation has occurred in its home market, as the paper’s management has focused more on becoming a national newspaper.

By contrast, the New York Post’s circulation has increased, as it has risen by specifically focusing the newspaper on serving the New York market. (HT: Geoff – that’s the kind of chart we would do if we had the time!)

As a result of the management’s decision to go national, the New York Times’ print ad revenue has suffered since much of its home market advertising is simply not relevant to the majority of the paper’s readers. If you’re in Seattle, are you going to go buy a car in Brooklyn? See a Broadway show anytime soon? See what job listings there are for what you’d like to do in Queens? Look at home listings in the Bronx? For local advertisers, the NYT isn’t providing a whole lot of value.

Then, the geniuses who run the paper decided to charge more for that advertising. And then, they also hiked prices for subscribers and newsstand buyers. Guess what happened? Circulation dropped faster, even as subscription revenues rose (the result of charging more), but ad revenue plunged – paying more to advertise to fewer people just isn’t all that appealing to businesses.

Did we mention that the paper substantially increased its dividend from 17.5 cents per share to 23.0 cents per share in 2007? The New York Times’ Company’s management makes substantially more through the dividends that they receive from owning the company’s stock they hold than they do for actually running the newspaper. Plus, it appears that they may be playing games with how they report executive bonuses.

Coming soon, we’ll be looking at the New York Times’ publisher’s compensation from 1997 onward, but here’s a quick preview of 2007’s numbers: Arthur O. “Pinch” Sulzberger, Jr. raked in $3,439,280 in direct income (salary + bonuses + stock awards and options + misc.), but by holding 7,645,080 Class A shares of stock and 739,770 Class B shares of stock in the New York Times Company, he made more than twice that at $7,252,895. His estimated total compensation from owning and running the New York Times in 2007: $10,692,175.

Did we also mention that the stock is up over the past six months, mainly because a hedge fund has bought a 20% stake of the outstanding shares to try to force management changes at the company?

Of course, the last place you’ll see any of this discussion is in the business section of the NYT. We strongly suspect that there’s quite the culture of fear operating at the paper.

It also goes a long way to explaining the NYT’s hostility toward business and private enterprise in general. They actually might think that every business is run the way the New York Times is run, as a crooked insiders’ game.

My view is that less people leaking national security secrets, the better.

Had they just not moved to a brand new building, I would call for it to be padlocked and fumigated

There aren’t enough people living in Manhattan, Madison, San Francisco, Seattle and three or four other university and upper middle class enclaves to support a left-leaning, politically correct newspaper like the Times.

OT

By strange coincidence my Netflix ‘Stranger Than Fiction’ and ‘Atonement’ were back to back.

I wish I had seen ‘Atonement’ first however.

Ironman, great analysis of their financial state.

I have a feeling that this will become a case study for business schools– assuming, of course, that the Times decides to embrace some transparency.

I wonder how much energy is used in the production of a weighty (in the physical sense) newspaper like the NYT? For starters, we have: transporting wood or wastepaper to the newsprint plant, running the newsprint plant, shipping the newsprint to the printing facilities, and getting the newspapers to the readers. Not to mention running the presses and the usual office-building stuff.

I also wonder what % of NYT executives and readers would care about the answer to the above question.

I wonder how much energy is used in the production of a weighty (in the physical sense) newspaper like the NYT

We are talking about a ‘policarbonist’ (my poor attempt at coinage) operation of high order, only surpassed by the Federales in DC.

Here is where the NYT carbon footprint calculation could start.

http://tinyurl.com/5hfmps

These are some of the carbon footprint calculators.

http://tinyurl.com/6ohc7e

“What accounts for the decline?”

C’mon, that’s easy. The NYT is run by a complete nincompoop. What would happen to IBM or Intel if they chose PeeWee Herman as CEO? Admittedly this is a somehat unfair comparison since Herman, unlike Pinch, actually has some life accomplishments not owed to his family ties.

I went to high school with Pinch, and was amazed that someone from such a high-powered and influential family could be a complete nonentity. If he hadn’t inherited his job, he wouldn’t have gotten as far in journalism as Jimmy Olsen.