“A more gentlemanly version of the Chicago Tribune”
If anything demonstrates the stark contrast between the buttoned-up Tribune Co of yore versus the radio jockeys -led Tribune Co of now, it’s the illustration that greets readers on the Chicago Tribune web site’s error page.
If you’re expecting “a former waitress at Knockers — the place for hot racks and cold brews,” as a Sam Zell-led Tribune press release once trumpeted a new hire, you will be disappointed.
Instead, visitors are welcomed by one Colonel Tribune pictured on the left. He’s even on Facebook and describes himself as the following, ”Colonel Tribune is a man about town in Chicago. He’s also a more gentlemanly version of the Chicago Tribune.”
(Photo: Chicago Tribune)
from Shop Talk:
Chicago Tribune treats Cyber Monday shoppers – in stores
The Chicago Tribune is giving the gift of a free issue to Cyber Monday shoppers. Online, right? Wrong. This free newspaper (a 75 cent value) only applies to shoppers who actually venture out to stores today.
The bankrupt newspaper appears to understand the discrepancy. In a statement, the Tribune defines Cyber Monday as the online version of Black Friday, which is the day when millions of shoppers hit stores.
Today, many of those shoppers are back in the office --- and who knows, maybe they're using their fast Internet connections to shop online. At least, that's why Cyber Monday grew in popularity a few years ago, when many people still had dial-up or even no Internet connections at home.
"Chicago Tribune is here this season to help you make the holidays memorable on a budget. We hope this free copy highlighting the best deals will help so you can spend more time with friends and family and less wondering where to find bargains," senior vice president of advertising Bob Fleck said in a statement.
It's a bit of a strecth to say that the issue really highlights Cyber Monday. Readers must flip to page seven for offers the paper suggests readers take advantage of (during their lunch break). What can they choose from? If someone is spending the day online, why not do it from the comfort of a new $139.97 Sweetheart Rocker chair from Classic Oak Designs? If their eyes hurt from squinting to look at a small computer screen, they could upgrade to a 21.5 inch model from Staples, and save $60 or $70 -- $60 according to Staples.com, $70 according to the paper.
The newspaper also has an online page dedicated to holiday sales and deals.
We're not sure, but perhaps the Trib is making the paper free today to cheer up readers who had to shell out $1.99 for Thursday's Thanksgiving issue filled with ads aimed at Black Friday shoppers. It was the second year in a row that the paper raised the Thanksgiving price at newsstands to $1.99. The normal daily price is 75 cents.
Tribune365, thinking beyond newspaper circulation
Monday’s newspaper circulation numbers please no one who makes their living from selling papers. That’s evident when you look at the top 25 dailies by circulation and see that the best performance came from The Wall Street Journal, which rose less than 1 percent. Considering that advertisers use these numbers to determine where to spend their money, there is little reason to rejoice.
Tribune Co’s two largest papers, the Los Angeles Times and Chicago Tribune, both posted steep declines on Monday, but the company is urging advertisers to look beyond numbers that it considers less relevant than they were before the Internet. Instead, it wants them to look at how many people they can reach through Tribune’s diverse lineup of papers, websites and television stations.
To make this easier, Tribune has started “Tribune365,” a “multichannel sales solutions group providing customized marketing programs to advertisers looking to reach consumers across a variety of media platforms.” (More on what this means — in English — below.)
“We want to change the conversation around both how we sell and how people perceive newspapers.” Print circulation,” said Vincent Casanova, Tribune’s senior vp of publishing operations “just doesn’t tell the whole story… The objective is to change the conversation from a narrow look at topline circulation results to a broader discussion of the power of newspaper advertising and how to deliver results.”
For Tribune365, that means no longer selling ads to national buyers through a bunch of different sales teams that sell different kinds of ads for this or that part of a paper or this or that part of a website or TV station.
Tribune365 President Don Meek cited a recent ad campaign for big-box retailer Target, which set up one of a 16,000 square-foot “pop-up store” in Chicago (Those are the temporary stores that spring up in cities for a few days at a time, sell a bunch of stuff, and move on):
“We were able to put together an integrated program on WGN, WGN-TV, the Chicago Tribune, RedEye, Hoy… The only thing we couldn’t deliver was the outdoor bus shelter advertising on Michigan Avenue. Not only were we able to provide real estate and promotional support, it was also a fully integrated ad program. They said it was one of the most popular programs that they ever did.”
It’s about time. Tribune365 makes tremendous sense. “Audience aggregation” has become the name of the game, which should now mean aggregating audience across multiple media (er, um, “platforms”). A wise move.
The New York Times tries local news, far away
If you read often enough about the supposed death of the newspaper business, you would think that the nation’s newsrooms are increasingly depopulated, barren places, with darkened offices and empty cubicles… the occasional tumbleweed blowing past. (Actually, large stretches of Tribune Co’s New York bureau look just like that, as I saw earlier this year).
In San Francisco, Chicago and other metropolitan centers, you would be wrong. It’s true that both cities bear unfortunate marks of how rough the advertising decline, rise of the Internet and financial crisis have treated their news operations: Hearst was toying with shutting down the San Francisco Chronicle, and Chicago’s leading daily papers, the Tribune and the Sun-Times, are owned by bankrupt companies. Improbably enough, both are turning into hot spots for local news competition.
The New York Times and Wall Street Journal are fighting over San Francisco, and a private equity guy has teamed up with KQED and UC Berkeley to try a nonprofit local news experiment. And now, the Times reported on Wednesday, it is targeting some other cities, including Chicago. Here is an excerpt from reporter Richard Perez-Pena’s writeup on the Times’s decoder blog:
Plans for the San Francisco edition call for adding to the paper, twice a week, two additional pages of news about northern California. At first, the added content will be produced by The Times’ own writers and editors. But eventually, the plan, as in Chicago, is to turn the production over to a local partner.
Here’s more from spokeswoman Diane McNulty, whose statement also was in the Times’s blog:
We’re in conversations with potential news providers in Chicago about adding local content to The Times. Our intent is to roll out these expanded reports in several key markets around the country with Chicago following San Francisco. The details are still being discussed. The idea is to provide additional quality local content for our readers.
Papers like the Times and Journal are trying lots of things that they hope will stem their own ad declines and keep them profitable as they face the threat of a severely diminished future. The idea is to capitalize on the problems that local papers are having by scooping up their readers and giving them a comprehensive national report along with local news. But it’s hard to see where the cost savings will come from in this Chicago case unless they find a local partner to print their papers.
Tribune: Slow train coming
Bankrupt publisher and TV broadcaster Tribune Co filed for bankruptcy last December, and it’s looking increasingly like next December might be the first time we see what the new company will look like. Here is what the company’s Chicago Tribune newspaper reported Tuesday morning:
The parent company of the Chicago Tribune is scheduled to deliver a plan Aug. 4 but wants to extend that deadline to Nov. 30.
Citing the complex nature of the case, Tribune said in a filing it needs more time to build consensus around a plan. It also said the outcome of the pending sale of the Chicago Cubs could have a “material impact” on the plan.
A spokesman called the request “routine.”
This would be the second time that Tribune gets an extension, if the bankruptcy court judge approves it. Our question for you: Will it be the last? We’re talking about $13 billion in debt, not exactly a foreclosed house. What do you think?
Keep an eye on
- Media companies! They’re not dead! If you don’t believe us, read it here too. (Dow Jones Newswires)
- Freshly departed NBC executive Ben Silverman discovers he really is a rogue outsider after all — and everyone knows it. (The Hollywood Reporter)
- Here is why most people who say they can arrange a viral marketing campaign usually can’t. (The Wall Street Journal)
Tribune Co papers hit where it hurts, Baltimore Sun slashed
Tribune Co keeps the layoffs coming at its newspapers as the media company moves through the bankruptcy court process.
The Sun: Over in Baltimore, we heard from a source that 21 editors — including most of the metro editing staff and two top editorial editors — were herded into offices and told they had to exit the building immediately. Editor & Publisher confirms this report and says more cuts might be coming as soon as today. Perhaps there’s a strategy in there, but it’s hard to tell what it is when most big-city dailies have abandoned their ambitious overseas reporting goals, saying their real value to the community is their local reporting franchise. UPDATE: Looks like at least 40 more people are getting laid off as we speak, according to two sources I just spoke to at 3pm eastern.
And another UPDATE: A Washington-Baltimore Newspaper Guild memo says a whopping 27 percent of the Sun’s staff is getting laid off.
Excerpt from the memo:
“Tribune, through careless management practices, has saddled itself under $13 billion in debt and now Baltimore is paying a price,” said Cet Parks, Executive Director of the Washington-Baltimore Newspaper Guild. “Tribune is siphoning good jobs from Baltimore and sending work that talented editors, reporters, photographers, copy editors and designers have done here to its home base in Chicago. That is not right.”
Tribune plans to lay off the 40 newsroom employees by May 27. Targeted employees, who include four columnists, photographers, critics and copy editors, received hand delivered letters Wednesday afternoon signed by Monty Cook, senior vice president and editor. Also, in the last two weeks The Sun has laid off seven employees in other departments including advertising and customer service.
Chicago Tribune: The paper said last week that it would cut 11 percent of its newsroom staff. Today’s edition of the Gorkana business journalist career moves e-mail shows that, among others, the Tribune is losing Joshua Boak, financial exchanges and energy reporter. We don’t know if it’s because of the layoffs or if he’s just leaving, but either way, it’s a heck of a time to lose the exchanges beat reporter at one of the hometown papers of the world’s largest futures exchanges.
I still enjoy reading the newspaper with a cup of srong coffee in the morning—apparently generation X does not.
Chili, Baltimore
Wall Street Journal finds friend in Chicago
…And we’re not talking about Tribune Chief Executive Sam Zell. We Mean Coleen Davison, private citizen, and resident of Chicago, Illinois.
The Wall Street Journal turned a letter from Davison, a former Chicago Tribune subscriber, into an advertisement — that it tried to run in the Trib. Trouble is, that paper declined to run the ad. Now, it’s running in the Chicago Sun-Times, the Trib’s rival.
Here’s some of her letter:
Our growing discontent with the Tribune’s diminishing quality became intolerable after their redesign last fall, and led us to explore other news options. We settled on the WSJ after perusing several different newspapers, even though neither my husband nor I are particularly involved in the financial world. … While the focus is obviously on the business sector, there is so much to be gleaned about our world from your reporting. Your journalists/contributors clearly know their subjects. Articles are presented articulately and coherently. Your coverage of world news and your human interest pieces are insightful, engaging and thought provoking. And I LOVE your editorial pages-just when I had begun to think common sense was a lost art, I’ve discovered the WSJ!
The ad then offers readers two free weeks of the Journal, along with a 75 percent discount.
A Chicago Tribune spokeswoman declined to comment on the ad. I asked Sun-Times spokeswoman Tammy Chase what she thought about the paper agreeing to run an ad knocking its competitor, but not even mentioning the Sun-Times as an option. She said it’s a business transaction, but in the spirit of good business, asked us to deliver this message to Ms. Davison:
As for her choice of newspaper, the Wall Street Journal is an excellent paper. Sure, we’d love to have her as a customer and if she wants to get local news from Chicago’s best daily newspaper, she can call the Chicago Sun-Times anytime at (888) 848-4637 and we’d be happy to get her a subscription set up.
WHAT? Rupert Murdock owns the WSJ? Oh wait… you mean Rupert Murdoch! Criminal of us to fail to mention that…
Sam Zell ‘chastises’ his intern
Tribune Co.’s new owner, billionaire and orator nonpareil Sam Zell, let Chicago Tribune intern Katie Hamilton know exactly what he thought about her recent prank on rival paper the Chicago Sun-Times — one that has produced its fair share of chatter in the Windy City.
Hamilton and her colleagues submitted a music video that they sent to the Sun-Times, which offered a cash prize to whomever could produce the best video protesting Zell’s plan to sell the naming rights to the city’s historic Wrigley Field.
Here’s the memo that Zell sent to Tribune employees and that we got hold of:
Partners,
I returned from out of the country this weekend to learn that one of our employees had entered a video in the Sun-Times contest designed to protest a name change of Wrigley Field.
Needless to say, I was shocked! Appalled! The video was a blatant disregard for Tribune Company policy. It demonstrated a glaring disrespect for your chairman and CEO. (I’m much better looking, clearly more agile, and I think whoever played me was singing off key.)
So, I immediately referred to the 11th commandment: Thou shalt not take oneself too seriously. And, then I shared the video with my family and friends.
Here’s the link if you didn’t catch it: http://www.chicagotribune.com/chi-suntimes-song-contest,0,1932877.htmlstory
It’s most definitely worth the watch, and it was a deft grab of the ball away from that other paper. What was their name again?
Maybe he’s laughing to keep from crying.
