What The New York Times (NYT) Company Could Learn From Hearst

If Hearst does not get huge concessions from the staff at The San Fransisco Chronicle and cannot find a buyer, it will close the paper. It does not matter that it is one of the oldest and most well-regarded dailies in the US.

There is a lesson in Heart’s actions for The New York Times Company (NYT), which owns a large number of regional papers and The Boston Globe. If NYT closed those papers or could drastically cut staffing, these properties would not be a boat anchor pulling the flagship operation down.

As a corporation, The New York Times will almost certainly continue to lose sales. The newspaper industry is not going to come back. Too many consumers of the news have moved online. NYT.com has a chance to be a large and profitable franchise, but it will take years for it to help carry the parent company, if that ever happens at all.

The only way NYT buys itself time is to get out of the business of owning papers with the exception of The New York Times itself, and hope that its internet plans bear fruit.

Douglas A. McIntyre