MediaNews Declares Bankruptcy: … but the Times-Standard’s parent corporation is expected to breeze through court with the blessing of creditors, the Wall Street Journal reports. Head honcho Dean “The Beast” Singleton will remain in
This article appears in Taking On City Hall.
From the WSJ article: "The company said all but one of its newspapers is profitable."
I wonder which one that might be.
It’s definitely not the T-S. Because they insist on keeping around the very people that are causing them to fail, they are bleeding money like a stuck pig. Half of their "business" staff have no experience in their respective jobs, have no training, and don’t particularly care about doing a good job. The other half are so unappreciated and overworked that they are desperately trying to get out.
Many people in recent years have come to management with cash-cow ideas but because the ideas were good and management didn’t want to look stupid for not coming up with any ideas themselves that they squashed the ideas and did their best to fire or force out the people who had the ideas in the first place.
You have to understand that the T-S has a massive ego. They seem to think that by simply showing up and pretending to do their jobs that somehow they are newspaper heroes. The last thing they will ever choose to hear is that they are doing a bad job.
I’d be willing to bet that Dean’s hometown paper is the only one he puts a cent into.
The Times-Standard is one of the more prosperous newspapers in Singleton’s empire – there is no competition. The unprofitable property is probably the San Jose Mercury-News, maybe the CoCo Times. Singleton’s newspapers make money, just not enough to pay the enormous debt load of the company. Singleton’s formula to growing his empire has been to highly leverage his newspapers to buy more. Unfortunately for the T-S, that means Singleton has to suck as much revenue as he can out of each of his dailies to service that debt.
Working for Dean Singleton has always been challenging, even in the good times. I could only handle the newsroom for a year and half. I admire the news staff who’ve stayed with the newspaper for years: John Driscoll, Heather Shelton, James Faulk, Chris Durant, Kimberly Wear, Thad Greenson, photographers Shaun Walker and Rich Bickel, Jennifer Morey. The community is lucky to have a news staff that has been so stable for so many years.
Thanks, Andrew, for setting this straight. Remember not too long ago when Dean and Rob A. settled and Rob closed the Reporter? It was revealed in the original filing that instead of $4M net per year the T-S was earning when the Reporter began, Dean’s yearly net dwindled to only $1M. That $3M (over many years) and the devaluation of the paper was the damage Dean was claiming. The T-S has always been profitable to my knowledge. Profits of 20%-30% a few years back were industry standard for dailies, but I know at one point (under Jerry Colby) the paper was sending 40% net back to headquarters. Love him or hate him, Rob forced the T-S to reinvest some of those profits.
It’s very interesting that so many people outside the T-S claim to be privy to its secrets. I think you’re all just trying to look smart when really you have no clue about any of it. Everyone knows that having no competition is great for business but the T-S is writing its own obituary with the absolutely inexcusably bad "reporting" over the last year it makes no sense to think they are raking it in.
They can’t spell people’s names right, they use their opinions for facts, they assume constantly, misquote everyone, and have more typos than a monkey at a keyboard.
If you are making up most of your story and work like a recluse lives, how can anyone want to buy your paper, let alone seem to be supporting it by placing their ads in it?
To all the local businesses: drop your T-S ad and use every other local paper or website to advertise. You will see an increase in business and an improvement in your reputation. And it will be cheaper!