New ad/ed ratio; writers to be measured; Trib waving red flag

By Lou Grant | Jun 05, 9:03 PM

The operations end of the newspaper business is a drag on the newspaper and not in balance, according to a blog entry by Sam Zell, reporting on a lender call held earlier today. "We are not giving readers what they want and we are printing bigger papers than we can afford to print," Zell told employees in his blog.

"The model for newspapers no longer works," Zell says, "supply and demand are not in balance."

"Readers want unbiased, honest journalism; local consumer and community news; and maps, graphics, lists, ranking and stats," Zell summarizes readership studies as concluding.

We must strategically align the size of the paper with what advertisers want… We will be assuming a 50/50 ad-to-editorial ratio as a floor to right-size our papers. With that benchmark we can significantly scale back the size of the papers we print, Zell said.

Editor & Publisher quoted COO Randy Michaels as predicting the 50/50 benchmark would eliminate about 82 pages a week. Currently, most US Newspapers use a 60/40 benchmark.

Another controversial cost-cutting strategy outlined by COO Randy Michaels involves measurement of written production. "How many column inches did someone produce?" Michaels proposed. "You find you eliminate a fair number of people while not eliminating very much content," he is reported by Editor & Publisher as saying to the lenders.

Tagged: Randy Michaels, Tribune Company