Odds and Ends

Herald Circulation is down 11.8% to 210,884 and Sunday circ is down 9% to 279,484. Ouch.

Herald parent McClatchy's shares closed at $2.22 cents on Monday. In April of 2005 MNI shares traded for $74.50. Double ouch.

Herald Watch has learned that Oscar Corral, the author of the Marti Moonlighters article that resulted in the resignation of the Herald's then publisher Jesus Diaz and the disgrace of the paper's then executive editor Tom Fiedler has accepted a buyout from the Herald and will be among the additional staff cuts made by the company.

Corral secured ignominy when he was busted soliciting a teen-aged prostitute in Miami. No word on to whom he will be providing content in the near future.

Herald circ. continues to plummet - UPDATED

The Audit Bureau of Circulations report on newspaper circulations for the six-month period that ended on March 31st is out and the news is ugly for the Miami Herald.

The Miami Herald reported daily circulation lost more than 11% with 240,223 copies while Sunday dropped 9% to 311,245.

Meanwhile the news wasn't as bad for El Nuevo Herald.

El Nuevo Herald, the sibling of The Miami Herald, reported weekday circulation slipped 1.3% to 79,963. Sunday circ was off 2% to 88,035.

I have heard reports that not many Herald Employees have opted for the buyout the company is offering which consists of 75% of the employee's salary for one year.

On the share price front, McClatchy closed today at $10.50 which is somewhat better than the all-time low of $7.93 on a week ago but abysmal compared to the 52-week high of $34.32 and the $44 dollar range the stock traded at in October of 2006.

UPDATE: Anonymous commenter says that the details of the buyouts are different than what I had heard:

The buyout offer is two weeks' salary for each year of service, up to six months' salary. There's also an insurance option - full coverage for three months, or no coverage but additional payout, or longer coverage with a smaller payout.

Top 30 Newpaper Web Sites

Editor & Publisher has published a list of the 30 top newspaper web sites based on unique visitors. Not surprisingly, the Miami Herald is not on the list.

Many local bloggers, including yours truly, have lamented the Herald's online offering. MHMC has paid lip service to changing with the times but real change is slow in coming. The issue is twofold, content and layout. Addressing the content issue is much more difficult in the short run. The paper's reporters are who they are, the columnists are who they are and the editors are who they are. There's a lot of institutionalized attitudes at MHMC that prevent the paper from being what it could be.

But there's no excuse for the clumsy, stupid, and frustrating functionality of herald.com and elnuevoherald.com. All it takes is hiring the right people and spending the money necessary to get it done. If MHMC doesn't take those steps while their dead-tree circulation drops, they risk losing readers to national newspaper web sites, those from other cities, and perhaps in the future web-only local newspapers.

Below is the list. You'll notice that they aren't all markets bigger than Miami. In fact Seattle has two newspapers on the list. You'll also notice that there is only one McClatchy newspaper on the list, KansasCity.com (The Kansas City Star) at number 30. This despite the fact that McClatchy is the "third-largest newspaper publisher in America".

Top 30 Newspaper Websites, November 2007

Site -- Unique Audience (000) -- % Change/Uniques

NYTimes.com -- 18,930 -- 51.5%
USATODAY.com -- 9,563 -- (-6.0%)
washingtonpost.com -- 9,516 -- 16.8%
Wall Street Journal Online -- 5,630 -- 57.4% -
Newsday -- 5,350 -- 182.1%

Boston.com -- 4,839 -- 10.1%
LA Times -- 4,590 -- 5.9% -
SFGate.com/San Francisco Chronicle -- 3,635 -- (-5.6%) --
New York Post -- 3,390 -- 21.5%
Village Voice -- 2,774 -- 127.9%

Chicago Tribune -- 2,707 -- (-14.3%) -
NY Daily News Online Edition -- 2,679 -- 2.7%
Atlanta Journal-Constitution -- 2,362 -- 42.9%
The Houston Chronicle -- 2,346 -- (-26.6%)
Chicago Sun-Times -- 2,196 -- 15.9%

DallasNews.com -- 2,102 -- 6.2%
International Herald Tribune -- 2,075 -- 13.4%
Seattle Post-Intelligencer -- 1,886 -- 31.9%
The Seattle Times -- 1,797 -- (-11.0%)
The San Diego Union-Tribune -- 1,648 -- (-7.6%)

Ottaway Newspapers -- 1,549 -- (-10.3%)
Azcentral.com -- 1,462 -- (-24.2%)
Baltimore Sun -- 1,448 -- 41.5%
Philly.com -- 1,447 -- (-15.4%)
Orlando Sentinel -- 1,374 -- 27.1%

NJ.com -- 1,363 -- 13.4%
The Politico -- 1,363 -- N/A
MercuryNews.com -- 1,342 -- (-23.9%)
Detroit Free Press -- 1,265 -- (-17.7%)
KansasCity.com -- 1,260 -- 5.0%

The bad news continues for the Herald

Today, the Audit Bureau of Circulations released the latest edition of it's highly anticipated FAS-FAX report about newspaper circulations nationwide.

Interestingly, but not surprisingly, the Herald has not posted anything about ABC's FAS-FAX report.

Of course, as expected, the news for the Herald was not good. According to the Herald's McClatchy sister, The Sacramento Bee, the Herald's daily circulation "fell 8.3 percent to 239,389".

But something is amiss. The last circulation figures I have (April 2007) for the Herald show daily circ. at 272,299. So the new number of 239,389 is actually a drop of 32,910 or 12%.

All told, since January of 2005 the Herald's official audited daily circulation has dropped by 23.7%. Poof. Voila. Gone!

Also rapidly disappearing is McClatchy's share value. As of 2:34 EST, McClatchy shares were trading at $15.69. To put that in perspective, the 52-week high for the stock was $44.04, that's a 64.4% drop in shareholder equity.

The early reports don't mention what the Herald's current Sunday circulation is. Stay tuned for more.

The Miami Herald's Problem

According to one blogger named Juan Antonio Giner who runs a blog called Innovations in Newspapers, the Herald actually has more than one problem:

Once one of the 10 best newspapers of the U.S., now The Herald is one of the most problematic newspapers in the country.

Why?

Because it has been:

Unable to control the damage of the “I don’t believe The Miami Herald!” campaign.

Unable to connect with the large latino community.

Unable to become the U.S. paper for Latin America.

Unable to exploit its newspaper monopoly.

Unable to lead the Cuban community.

Unable to grow in a booming market.

Unable to stop the circulation decline.

Unable to stop the advertising decline.

Unable to develop a succesful [sic] internet strategy.

The Miami Herald was the flagship of the Knight-Ridder group.

Now McClatchy has a problem.

I don't know that I can agree that the Herald was ever a top 10 newspaper, and I'm not exactly sure how the Herald is supposed to "lead" the Cuban community, but the rest of it pretty spot on.

Herald circs decline...again

Editor & Publisher is reporting that the combined circulation for the Miami Herald and El Nuevo Herald has dropped by 8.4% (weekdays) and 12.3% (Sundays) since the last reporting period.

Over the last couple of years, the Heralds have been among the leaders in vanishing newspaper circulations.

Not the news that McClatcy wants to hear given their plunging share price which is hovering at a 52-week low.

It's hard to imagine a worse situation for the Herald.

Heralds launch new web-based editions

The Miami Herald and El Nuevo Herald have launched new web-based editions of their printed newspapers. The uninspired names of these new versions are The Miami Herald Digital and El Nuevo Herald Digital.

A small item in today's printed Herald says that "The electronic editions follow similar launches by...The New York Times and Washington Post.

The advantages of these new electronic versions, according to The Herald, are that "Users...can scan PDF images of each newspaper page, clicking on stories, photos and ads. The customizable format allows users to change the size and typeface of the stories and to save stories and photos."

MHMC will charge $4.95 a month and "is offering discounts to some subscribers. " No details on who would be entitled to a discount were given.

Obviously MHMC, like all the other newspaper companies, is struggling to figure out where to go from here since the days traditional newspaper are numbered. What it is not clear is what will happen to herald.com and elnuevoherald.com the free web sites offered by MHMC. Why would anyone pay for the same information that is currently being given away? Especially when the paid version is potentially clunky.

See a demo The Miami Herald Digital here and decide for yourself.

McClatchy Ad Revenues Plummet

Herald Watch has been documenting the precipitous decline in circulation at the Heralds for some time. While some of this can be attributed to readers switching from the paid print edition to the free online edition, that isn't necessarily a good thing. Newspapers need eyeballs in order to sell ads and, to date, online doesn't command the same type of ad rates as print.

Editor & Publisher is reporting that Florida ad revenues were down 14.1% for McClatchy in the month of August. In Florida McClatchy owns The Miami Herald, El Nuevo Herald and the Bradenton Herald.

McClatchy's chairman and CEO, Gary Pruitt, says that "We are making progress on reducing debt in the third quarter and will continue to focus on de-levering our balance sheet." Could a sale of the troublesome Heralds in Miami be in the offing?

Herald Circulation

Source: Audit Bureau of Circulations

Herald Circulation continues to plunge

Back on April 30th, the Audit Bureau of Circulation (ABC), the primary organization that audits newspaper circulations, released its latest figures.

The Herald's weekday circulation decreased by 5.5% and is down to 272,299 and its Sunday circulation decreased by 10.1% to 342,432. That follows decreases of 8.8% and 9.1% respectively reported in October of last year.

To put those numbers into perspective, an outdated page on the Herald's web site says that in July of 2001 ABC reported the Herald's weekday circ as 314,592 and Sunday circ as 430,080. That's a 13% decrease in daily circ and 20% decrease in Sunday circ in less than six years.