Will the next daily newspaper to fold be another one that shares its city with a competitor?
You know that old Western movie quote, “This town ain’t big enough for the both of us?” Well, it seems that the newspaper industry is experiencing the proverbial gunslinging shooutout.
Earlier this week, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer announced that it would cease print production and go online-only. Late last month, the Rocky Mountain News published its last paper. Fortunately, the Mile High City and the Emerald City still have the Denver Post and the Seattle Times, respectively.
This all got me wondering who would be the next to go. We’ve all heard that daily newspapers are struggling – but who will stay afloat? I took a look at all daily newspapers in the U.S. and Canada with a circulation of over 100,000 (I did not include the
free commuter dailies like Chicago’s RedEye or the now-defunct BostonNow and Baltimore Examiner). Here are the three 100K-and-up dailies that have folded in the past year:
- New York Sun (R.I.P. September 2008)
- Rocky Mountain News (R.I.P. February 2009)
- Seattle Post-Intelligencer (R.I.P. March 2009)
Notice anything? That’s right – these three papers share their market with another major daily newspaper. Could this by our crystal ball to predict which papers may fold next? Well, I don’t know if I’d go that far, but it certainly is a risk factor for papers who do share a market.
What other cities in North America have two or more daily newspapers with a circulation of over 100K? It’s not a long list, so if you’re looking to do some off-track betting, your chances are pretty good for at least one of the papers at each of the cities below:
- New York City (New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Daily News, Newsday)
- Chicago (Chicago Sun-Times, Chicago Tribune)
- Detroit (Detroit Free Press, Detroit News)
- Boston (Boston Globe, Boston Herald)
- Philadelphia (Philadelphia Daily News, Philadelphia Inquirer) NOTE: The Daily News recently became an edition of the the Inquirer, but still maintains a seperate staff and is branded as the Daily News. Could this be a template of how two papers can work together in the same city??
- Toronto (Globe & Mail, Toronto Star, Toronto Sun, National Post)
- Vancouver (Province, Vancouver Sun)
We haven’t seen the layoffs and buyouts at Canadian newspapers that we have seen with newspapers in the U.S., so Toronto and Vancouver may be the safe ones on this list.
What do you think? Have we seen the worst or will more papers continue to fold? If so, who’s next on this list? What impact will it have on these cities if they become one-paper cities?
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Tags: media relations, media research, newspapers
I don’t think it’s exactly fair to count the National Post and the Globe & Mail as Toronto only papers and not Vancouver. With that criteria, you should add USA Today to New York.
Oh but I should say thanks for including Canadian information at all.
Thanks for your comments, Kerry. I went back-and-forth on including the Globe & Mail and National Post as papers in Toronto… you make a very good point that they are national. I also thought about USA Today, but it’s actually located in McLean, VA, so it doesn’t really have another major paper produced in that city.
On another note, I wonder – Will national papers like USA Today and the Globe & Mail fare better in this print decline because of their broader audience?
How about high circ newspapers starting to share content…”Management added that the News & Observer will also “increase cooperation with the Charlotte [Observer] newspaper and will speed its transition to a narrower format to save on production costs.” Both the Raleigh and Charlotte papers are owned by McClatchy. Also, in December, The Washington Post and The (Baltimore) Sun, facing cost pressures as advertising revenue continues to sink, said they will share some stories, photos and news content starting next year. How many other papers will follow this example?