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Product Name: Newspapers
Product Description
Hearst Newspapers published 12 daily newspapers. Hears's leading newspapers include the Houston chronicle, the San Francisco chronicle, the San Antonio Express-News, the Albany Times Union and the Seattle Post-Intelligencer.
“We’re an industry in transition. Like all media, we’re competing in a world of greatly expanded consumer choice. Across our 12 dailies, we understand that we can’t see ourselves as one-product media anymore.” –George Irish, President, Hearst Newspapers
Facing circulation declines and advertiser uncertainty, the newspaper business offered its usual assortment of challenges in 2005. But for Hearst, it brought some tests that couldn’t have been accounted for in even the best strategic planning.
“We have to build our core newspaper product with better content and better design. We have to continue launching spin-off products to target demographics and segments of interest,” said Irish. But at the same time, we have to think beyond newspapers to build new businesses—both print-based and electronic—using the advantage of our community presence.”
Case in point, Irish said, is Hearst’s acquisition last year of Buffalo’s White Directory Publishers, now the No. 2 independent yellow pages company in the country. White was also the first, Irish said, to make its product interactive, with its online TalkingPhoneBook.com.
“We see tremendous opportunities,” he said, “to combine the local newspaper product with new community-based businesses like yellow pages, particularly when you add interactivity to the mix.”
That confidence led to adding two new yellow pages companies: Mega Publishing of Gainesville, Fla., with three directories, and Penstar Publishing of Weatherford, Texas, with two directories. These acquisitions, along with several start-ups, bring the directory total to 83, producing some 11 million copies in 12 states.
The addition of White Directory, combined with strong performance by key newspapers in 2005, helped the group post an 8 percent gain in revenue and a 24 percent gain in profit in a year when a number of newspaper groups posted declines in both.
In an uncertain economy and an ad market still trying to gain traction, Hearst newspapers bucking downward industry trends included the Albany Times Union, Laredo Morning Times, Midland Daily News, Midland Reporter-Telegram and San Antonio Express-News. The Internet was a big contributor to revenue growth at many papers, most notably at the Houston Chronicle, which recorded a more than 80 percent growth in revenue.
Few events could test a business like the 2005 hurricanes—or, as Irish explained, showcase newspapers at their best.
As Hurricane Rita raced toward the nearly empty city of Beaumont, Texas, on September 24, 20 staffers of The Beaumont Enterprise hunkered down in the newspaper’s three-story brick building, determined to ride out the storm. Its 120-mile-per-hour winds and up to 10 inches of rain arrived at about 1 A.M., ripping chunks of roofing off the building.
Water seeped in, soaking ceiling tiles, which dissolved into a muddy soup on the newsroom floor. Power went out, leaving the building without air-conditioning. Writers and photographers joined Publisher Aubrey Webb and Editor Tim Kelly and a handful of other staffers who didn’t evacuate in a frantic effort to move computers, stop leaks and mop floors. Then, with the storm’s turbulence still rattling the city at around 7 A.M., reporters began doing what they do every other day of the year. They headed out to cover the news.
The city of 113,000 had been evacuated and power was lost for what would be as long as 10 days. There was no one to run the presses or deliver the newspaper, so the Enterprise shifted its focus to the Internet. With limited air-conditioning in the 90-degree heat, and with no running water or hot food, the Enterprise staff began the day of the hurricane by publishing ongoing bulletins about the estimated $7 billion in damage done to southeastern Texas and western Louisiana, providing, in effect, the only line of communication for many of Beaumont’s scattered residents.
Page views of the Enterprise’s online coverage ended up totaling almost 2 million. After the storm, daily Web traffic continued to run double what it was before Rita.
Eight days after the hurricane hit, the newspaper published its first post-hurricane paper edition, which included six-page versions of every newspaper that readers had missed since the crisis began. Every day, Enterprise staffers also assembled a print version of the newspaper and stored it electronically—until enough readers returned to their homes. The San Antonio Express-News printed these editions and two subsequent days’ papers and trucked them into Beaumont until the Enterprise had enough press staff back to begin printing again on its own press, which had survived the storm.
“Hurricanes Rita and Katrina were clearly two of the biggest and most difficult domestic news stories of the year,” said Irish. “And Hearst Newspapers’ reporters and editors from around the country responded, both in print and online, in words and in pictures, in ways that served as a reminder of the powerful force newspapers can be in their communities during times of trouble. When evacuees from New Orleans arrived in Hearst Newspapers cities like San Antonio and Houston, we provided special free evacuee editions to relief centers around the cities. Major corporations like Exxon turned to us with advertising aimed at helping them locate and aid their dispersed workforce.”
As a tool in time of crises, the Weblog may have come of age. The Houston Chronicle pre-recruited a team of citizen journalists to write blogs and post photographs of what they were seeing as Hurricane Rita approached Houston. Traffic to Chronicle blogs alone totaled 2.5 million page views a day, or 4 percent of total traffic.
The same kind of innovation that marked the performance in natural disasters was evident, Irish said, throughout the division.
The San Francisco Chronicle gained nationwide attention for its innovations in podcasting, in which its journalists created mini radio shows downloadable from the Internet. Chronicle journalists used podcasts to interview the likes of rocker and activist Bono, offer walking tours of the city’s new De Young museum and provide lessons on how to order dim sum. Downloads have reached 6,000 per month.
The San Antonio Express-News began integrating its online journalism with television feeds from its Web partner, KENS-TV, to create San Antonio’s most comprehensive Web site. And the Albany Times Union, working in partnership with programmers from White Directory Publishers, launched a local search engine to help readers find all things in Albany, from shops to vendors to blogs.
In print, the Houston Chronicle launched Gloss, a monthly women’s fashion magazine that debuted with 56 advertisers, increasing to 74 by the second issue. Albany introduced TU Communities, a four-day-per-week part of the Times Union that gives readers more concentrated local news.
A focus on things new and innovative, explained Irish, hasn’t taken attention away from newspapers’ core mission of serving the community. A Houston Chronicle series by reporter Dina Cappiello detailed the dangerous levels of pollutants being breathed by residents living near Texas’ many oil refineries and chemical plants. The Seattle Post-Intelligencer’s Eric Nalder reported on how reforms enacted years ago to prevent oil spills like that of the infamous Exxon Valdez 16 years ago have failed to prevent unsafe practices by major oil companies and maritime shippers—most recent evidence: an oil spill into the Puget Sound in early 2005. And the San Francisco Chronicle’s Mark Martin and James Sterngold reported on the unsatisfactory conditions in California’s prison system.
Perhaps the year’s most moving series was written by Hearst Newspapers Fellow Alicia Parlette, describing her ongoing battle with cancer at the age of 23 in the pages of the San Francisco Chronicle.
“We’re not in business to win awards,” said Jeff Cohen, executive vice president and editor of the Houston Chronicle. “But when a newspaper group earns the kind of recognition we did in 2005, you know that we’re investing in great content.”
Company Details
"In our third century, Hearst is continuing to place traditional media products alongside exciting new technologies in a formula that has consistently proven successful."
—Victor F. Ganzi
Ganzi began his career with Hearst in 1990 as general... more
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