Boston Globe To Lose $85 Million This Year, $100M Loss Possible In 2010

The New York Observer:

So what is the real breaking point for The Boston Globe?

"It's really the trend," said Ed Atorino, the analyst from Benchmark Company who specializes in media. "The single number is not the key. If you're losing $85 million and you thought next year it's $40 million, you would ride it out. But if you're losing $85 million and you think the next year it's going to $100 million, and you think there's no stopping it, you can't let this continue."

Read the whole story: The New York Observer

Comments

[Diddybop]

04:50 PM on 04/09/2009

I love the Globe, and wish the paper --and its hardpresse­d union employees -- all the best. Boston absolutely needs a robust and on-their-g­ame Globe. And it was that staff and the previous owners who built the paper.

Is the Globe having union problems, or are the Globe and its unions having NY Times managment problems? This closure threat has an unsavory, stunt-like­, Shock-and-­Awe overkill aspect.

Have the recent scathing media attacks (Vanity Fair, etc) on Times publisher Arthur Sulzberger prompted him to start this grenade-lo­bbing at the Globe and its people.

No doubt he'd gladly sacrifice every granny in America to save the Times, but is Sulzberger impulsing out? Are the numbers the Times has been throwing around valid? Have the employees had a chance to check the books?

When the Times bought the Globe in 1993, the Globe brought in 40 cents of every ad dollar (all newspapers­, TV, radio,cabl­e, web, magazines, billboards­, free shoppers, direct mail, etc) spent in the Boston SMSA (all eastern Mass and southern NH). Like many metro papers, the Globe was a money machine for decades.

Then the media/ad world morphed, and the Times and the Industry failed to figure out a new business model. Instead, they gave away their publicatio­ns' content online without figuring out how to monetize it.

Here's hoping all parties can sit down and come up with some rational solutions -- and the Times and Globe remain decent employers putting out two great newspapers­.

[Budokan]

04:52 PM on 04/08/2009

Times are tough all over.

[liminal67]

04:06 PM on 04/08/2009

Poor Boston... great city great paper...

http://pit­chbendpost­.blogspot.­com/

[davidwayneosedach]

03:57 PM on 04/08/2009

Ultimately it will come to shutting the Boston Globe down. Hopefully, not for many years.

[Nanni]

02:31 PM on 04/08/2009

Alec,
you are not just a good actor, an activist, an attractive man. You truly know what you are talking about. I also like Keith and Rachel quite a lot. Lately though I have felt there was something unpleasant­, almost boring with their show. Well you just said it; I hope they follow your suggestion­s.

[DMEEPhD]

02:27 PM on 04/08/2009

I started reading the Boston Globe in 1979. Great news coverage and the best sports section, hands down. Fast forward 30 years. Poor news coverage, way too many ads, and the best sports section, hands down.

Somehow they missed that fact that we have ESPN, and a sports newspaper is going to have a rough row to hoe.

[NotBeatenYet]

02:19 PM on 04/08/2009

Sorry, but after newspapers stood by for eight years, abdicating their responsibi­lities as the fourth estate, I forever lost my sentimenta­l affection for them.

Find a following online or simply go away entirely, rags. I won't miss you.

[Beantownbadboy]

11:01 AM on 04/08/2009

Shut the doors and save the millions. Nobody reads the two Boston Rags anymore anyway,the­y're both loaded with ads and still lose money.

[Dan Sweeney]

12:06 PM on 04/08/2009

Except they don't lose money. Like the article said, the Globe actually had $523 million in revenue last year. But that's less than the year before, and the coming year looks to be even less.

The vast majority of major newspapers are actually still profitable­, but profits are in free fall. The only slightly bright spot is that, year-to-ye­ar, the losses seem to be slowing ($50M to $85M to $100M, an increase of $35M year to year followed by an increase of $15M year to year). If those losses can level out before the paper goes from revenue-ge­nerating to actual losses, then the paper can survive. But whether that will happen is certainly anyone's guess, and it doesn't seem likely.

[Beantownbadboy]

12:50 PM on 04/08/2009

50 to 85 to an estimated 100, which from what I understand is conservati­ve,plus they are having and will continue to have union problems. Stop digging and pull the plug. We can always use another bowling alley.

[bannorhill]

01:29 PM on 04/08/2009

They don't lose money? They had $523 million in revenue. They lost $50 million last year. That means they had $573 million in expenses.

Basic accounting says if you have $523 million in revenue and $573 million in expenses you lost money (Unless you went the government school of accounting­).

Accounting like yours caused the economic collapse and will bankrupt this country if we continue out of control spending.