Sep 4, 2009

Battle for the Bay

The Wall Street Journal and the New York Times both plan to launch a special edition targeting the San Francisco Bay Area, and both are poised to create other regional editions if the experiment by the Bay works out.

From the Times:
Both The Journal and The Times seem to be betting that the Bay Area is the place to try first. Its biggest newspapers, The San Francisco Chronicle and The San Jose Mercury-News, have suffered through some of the sharpest downsizing in the industry, and a very high percentage of the region’s residents moved from elsewhere, which usually means less attachment to the local paper. ...

“I think the San Francisco area is the most obvious market to try this in, because it’s big, it’s sophisticated and it’s getting progressively more poorly served by its papers,” said Rick Edmonds, a media business analyst at the Poynter Institute. But if the strategy takes off in multiple cities, he said, the national papers should worry that “they’d be seen as administering the final death blows to these metro dailies.”
In addition to the shrinking Bay Area papers, the Los Angeles Times has curbed its coverage of California as well.

3 comments:

pasadenapio said...

"Both" is one of my pet peeves. Makes me cringe when I see its redundant use! Just thought I'd share.

Interesting how the vultures are swooping over SF. Fresh meat.

pasadenapio said...

Was that rude?

Anonymous said...

Might be the best thing that's happened to Bay Area journalism since Citizen Dean got his grubby hands on the KR properties. If nothing else, MNG and Hearst will have to think twice about future downsizings. If they fail to deliver the goods, to quote BANG's recently axed pub (well, last year) John Armstrong, they gonna "eat your lunch."