Newspapers the next frontier?

Will newspapers become commercial printers to survive?

Subscriptions are down at most newspapers, and internet sites like Ebay and craigslist have eaten into their classified advertising revenue.

Still, there is a lot of bubbling and seething in the newspaper world. The Chandler family has sold the Tribune properties to Sam Zell, and the ultimate Fox and Friends personality Rupert Murdoch is pitching woo to the Wall Street Journal. Transcontinental has announced it will begin newspaper printing operations here in the US.

Some observations. Newpapers are under cost cutting pressures and competitive environments they have not experienced for years. One response to this is cash in and get the hell out while the getting is good. The new owners will run the business like a business, focusing on reduction of overhead and excellence in the printing operations. Transcontinental sees similar opportunities, but as a trade printer, allowing smaller properties to get out of printing and focus on the content and publishing end of the business.

All of us who have been to Europe for training and demos have seen the Euro printing model, a family holding company that owns a commercial printing operation, a newspaper printing operation, and a publishing company that produces the local newspaper and various magazines for newstand distribution or insertion into the daily/weekly editions. Aller Trykk and Zollikoffer fit this model. These companies are able to achieve high levels of automation and staff reductions by leveraging control of printing schedules and product fomats.

Others in the US see the distribution possibilities as a more likely avenue for newspapers to regain their confiscatory margins. Only the USPS can reach more individual address, and they seem bent on their own destruction with their rate increases and soviet era customer service. Newspapers could offer a competitive alternative to the USPS for advertising and magazine distribution. If this catches on, the race to add commercial printing will be on.