With the newspaper industry and GateHouse Media in crisis mode these days, it should be interesting to see how the company's experiment in Kansas City, Kansas works out.
In that community, the newspaper, which has been in existence since 1921, will cease to exist this week and be supplanted by a totally online version. The new KC Kansan is in blog format.
With the cost of newsprint and the expected continued downturn in display and classified advertising, should we be surprised if some of GateHouse's less successful newspapers soon follow the Kansan's example?
I would hate to see something like that happen to The Carthage Press, or any of GateHouse's Missouri properties.
Randy,
ReplyDeleteThe KC Kansan's blog/Web site seems to be missing one important element to be a successful news organization: advertising.
-Chad
I wonder how a competing firm might do in Carthage or Neosho using the GateHouse experiment tried with the Joplin Daily approach.
ReplyDeleteI dont see how this format will help except to delay bankruptcy a bit. Paying for a website is less expensive than newsprint and the associated costs of a "hard copy" newspaper, but if they don't have advertising or charge for subscriptions it is still a place to watch the cash disappear. How will they pay for it? I can not see Gatehouse doing it if there is no prospect for making money.
ReplyDeleteAnother Howard Owens debacle for GateHouse. The man has no clue as to how to do anything except bankrupt the company he works for. He's living off one accomplishment in California and has no clue on how to actually make money off his product.
ReplyDelete