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Rocky up for saleState’s oldest paper faces uncertain futurePeter Marcus, DDN Staff WriterFriday, December 5, 2008 |  | | UNCERTAIN TIMES FOR ROCKY — The news ticker at the Denver Newspaper Agency displays the news that the Rocky Mountain News is for sale. Denver Daily News photo by Tad Rickman. |
On an overcast Thursday morning in Denver, after months of rumors surrounding the fate of the Rocky Mountain News swirled much like the snow overhead, “out-of-town executives” walked into the oldest newsroom in Colorado and said the paper would be put up for sale.
The newsroom grew “unusually quiet” as Cincinnati-based E.W. Scripps Co. executives — the parent company of the Rocky — said it would sell the paper along with its 50-percent interest in the Denver Newspaper Agency, which publishes both the Rocky and the Denver Post under a joint operating agreement.
News spread like an evil cancer across the state’s media community. The Rocky reported tears in the newsroom as executives outlined worsening financial conditions and an expected loss of around $15 million this year. Scripps has owned the Rocky since 1926.
“The decision to seek a buyer for the Rocky would have been unthinkable until very recently,” said Rich Boehne, president and chief executive of Scripps, in a prepared statement. “But the operating conditions have become increasingly difficult in Denver, as is the case in all major metropolitan newspaper markets.”
The Rocky, with a daily circulation of 210,000 and a Saturday circulation of 457,000, is another newspaper casualty of the age of the Internet. Subscription-based papers like the Rocky and the Post are feeling the worst of the impact, while alternative, independent dailies like the Denver Daily News have been able to stay afloat thanks to niche markets and free circulations.
Scripps said it would seek a possible buyer within the next 30 days.
But the next six weeks are going to be “really awful,” Boehne told reporters at the Rocky, according to a report yesterday on the paper’s Web site. Many reporters and staff immediately began questioning the likelihood of the paper being purchased given its financial predicament.
Optimism
But some in the industry are staying optimistic.
Roger “Kip” Wotkyns, an assistant professor of journalism at Metropolitan State College of Denver, said the news of intent to sell does not mean the end of the Rocky Mountain News. If Scripps is unable to find a buyer, executives might consider converting to an online-only format to cut production costs, he said.
“That’s the wave of the future,” said Wotkyns pointing to a recent decision by the Christian Science Monitor to go online-only.
“It’s change or die,” he continued. “Newspapers, even dinosaur newspapers, are still profitable. The problem is that they’re not enjoying the profit margins that they used to … it’s tick, tick, tick every year that goes by. So, it’s change or die.”
Pessimism
Gabriel DiCristofaro, founder of Business Oceans Consulting in Denver, is not as optimistic as some in the industry. A marketing business consultant, DiCristofaro says newspapers like the Rocky will not survive simply because the Internet offers too many other more convenient options.
“If I had $100 million to buy the Rocky Mountain News, I still wouldn’t do it,” he said. “It’s just not a good bet.”
Even if newspapers are to convert to an online-only format, DiCristofaro said readers don’t read entire newspapers online. Mostly they piece together individual articles from papers across the globe to enhance their reading experience, he said.
It is for that reason that DiCristofaro advises that all his clients pay to make their way to the top of all Internet “portals,” like Google and Yahoo.
“My philosophy is that you want to get to the top of the portal with your hand in the air in front of people that are putting their hands in the air looking for your service,” he said.
Papers like the Rocky would be better served selling individual articles to people and organizations with their “hands in the air” looking for specific content, rather than expecting to keep the entire newspaper alive online, said DiCristofaro.
Meanwhile, sadness resonated across the Colorado media community as details of the intent to sell spread across the wires.
“It’s a sad day in Denver,” said Ed Otte, president of the Colorado Press Association. “Colorado’s residents enjoyed the luxury of having two metro newspapers for many years. It’s unfortunate because I think the two-paper situation made both the Post and the Rocky much better.”
Paul Voakes, dean of the School Of Journalism And Mass Communication at the University of Colorado-Boulder, said competition in journalism fosters better reporting.
“Colorado really needs the Rocky because communities are better off,” he said. “The quality of life is better when competition in journalism exist.”
Denver Daily owner responds
Denver Daily News owner James Pavelich expressed concern and sympathy yesterday for the reporters and staff at the Rocky Mountain News.
“My initial reaction was that this was a horrible thing for all the hard working people at the Rocky Mountain News,” he said.
But even facing sharp declines in profit and approximately $130 million in long-term debt, Scripps executives yesterday attempted to stay positive.
“Some will be tempted to immediately write the obituary of the Rocky, but we’re hoping this step will open the way for a creative solution to the financial challenges faced by Denver’s great newspapers,” said Boehne.
Multiple calls to the Denver Newspaper Agency went unreturned yesterday. The Rocky Mountain News declined to comment beyond the Scripps news release. The Denver Post also declined to comment yesterday. MediaNews Group, the parent company of the Post, did not return a phone call by the Denver Daily News seeking comment.
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