the newspaper business

How do we decide how many pages should be in the paper each day?

Advertising.

the old rule of thumb for profitable newspapers our size was to run 45-50% advertising. But that was in the day before the full age and double page grocery store ads and the full page department/discount store ads changed to sections printed someplace else and we insert them into the Daily News.

In 2005, the twelve newspapers we confidentially share information with ran 35% advertising. the Daily News ran 40% advertising.

Above is the way we calculate the number of pages for each issue.

There are 126 column inches on a page, a column inch is one column wide by one inche deep. Th estimated number of advertising column inches is divided by 126 to get the number of ad pages and then multiplied by 2. In the above example it indicates 28 pages.

There are other variables that will effect the number of pages. Does news need more for a story, how much color are running, is it full color or a single (spot) color, four sections or two, etc. In a perfect world we would hit our estimate exactly and all the color would fall on the right printing units and that would result in a 50/50 newspaper.

But as you know, Sunday has a lot more ads, and Tuesday a lot fewer. November has a lot more ads and February a lot fewer.

Now you know who to thank if you want more news - our advertisers.

Welcome to the first official entry of “the business of newspapers.” Be sure to read the “about” tab in the upper right hand corner of the page to understand the purpose of the blog.

I can’t think of a better place to start than with the organization chart of the newspaper. Most people are familiar with a typical organization chart consisting of a board of directors, board chairman, president, vice-president, etc. If asked to place titles on an organization chart, most people could probably do it.

However, many people aren’t quite sure about the Publisher, Editor, General Manager reporting relationships. This is one of the many unique things about the newspaper business.

As you can see from the chart, the editor (in our case managing editor) and the general manager both report to the publisher who reports to the president. this history behind this structure is the desire to keep the newsroom free from business influences. However, the newsroom should never be totally insulated from the rest of the newspaper, because we all have to work together and recognize the capabilities of each department The same is true of our online newspaper.