Newspaper closures are inevitable, says US media analyst

From a Washington Post media piece about still-declining ad revenue and “hiring freezes turned to buyouts and then to layoffs” come these two rather grim quotes:

“Never in my most bearish dreams six months ago did I think we’d be talking about negative 15 percent numbers against weak comps,” said Peter S. Appert, an analyst at Goldman Sachs. “I think the probability is very high that there will be a number of examples of individual newspapers and newspaper companies that fall into a loss position. And I think it’s inevitable that there will be closures in this industry, and maybe bankruptcies.”

Slightly less bearish but no cheerier:

Since the fall, when Media General, the owner of a major newspaper chain in the South, set its 2008 budget, “We have pulled our thinking down twice with respect to revenue,” said Marshall N. Morton, the chief executive.

Over the next few years, he predicted, “There’s got to be some assimilation,” with some major American newspapers going out of business or merging. At the corporate level, he said, “I would guess that rather than bankruptcies, you’d see combinations.”

I read the story in a newsletter sent out by the INMA, The International Newsmedia Marketing Association, who can usually be relied on for good news about newspapers even while everyone else is muttering dire predictions. But it appeared alongside a slew of stories about cuts in newspapers in the US:

• Washington State’s Olympian to Lay Off 17 Employees as Part of Corporate Parent McClatchy’s Cutback Drive
• Outsourcing of Printing Work at the Boston Herald to Lead to the Lay Off of 130 to 160 Workers
• Germany’s Berliner Zeitung Cutting 30 Positions as Part of Cost-Saving Programme
• News Corporation to Merge Marketing, Advertising, Online, and Circulation Functions of the Times and the Sun
• Restructuring at the Atlanta Journal-Constitution to Cost 21 Jobs in the Information Technology Department
• Oregon’s Register-Guard Cutting 30 Jobs Following Budget Shortfalls
• North Carolina’s News & Observer Cutting 70 Jobs and to Jointly Produce Sports, Politics, and Features With the Charlotte Observer
• Journal Register Said to be Considering Sale or Outside Investment
  
• Reorganisation of Editorial, Administrative, and Sales Roles at Central Counties Newspapers in the UK Could Cost Up to 34 Jobs
• Newsquest Cutting 8 Editorial Jobs at the York Press and the Gazette and Herald

Even in Taiwan:

• Taiwan’s China Times to Cut Staff and Page Count as It Deals With Difficult Market Conditions

Just in case you were in any doubt that the newspaper business is in trouble.