A map detailing the comparisons between pre and post Bush Administration
theatlantic.com
theatlantic.com
Even the reasoning for the map device itself is tenuous at best, since the outline of America is barely recognizable and the graphics bear no relation to their locations on the map, except perhaps for the "inmates in custody" square, which is in the general vicinity of Texas.
The average person spends 1704 hours in front of the TV every year? On average thats 20% of your life in front of a TV... I spend maybe 5 hours per week, so I'd hate to see what some others do.
I suppose thats a big contributor to the other statistic, states with obesity rate below 20%... down from 28/50 to 1/50.
online spending is actually less than I expected
Newspaper circulation is actually more than I expected...all this bitching and moaning about how newspapers are dying, and they only lost 10%
That is enough, though. Businesses don't just care about sales, they also care about net profit. The ratio of the latter to the former is profit margin, and indicates how what percent revenue needs to fall in order for a company to go into the red. A small change in sales can result in a large change in profit margin, depending on the costs involved in running the business. The NYT ran a 3.4% profit margin in 2007, on revenues of $3.1bn. A small change in that revenue is all it takes to put them in the red. If they have lost 10% of their circulation, assuming advertisers become disinterested at a similar rate, that is more than a sufficient amount of pain.
FWIW, this has borne out in Q3 2008. Profit margins at NYT are at -16.72% for Q3. Revenue was at $687.04, which is a 10% drop from the same quarter a year ago. Annualized revenue from Q3 is at $2.748bn, or a 14% drop from the prior year. Not counting the $160m "unusual" expense they took -- whatever that was from, that still around 10% drop in revenue, and a profit margin of right around 0%. I can't imagine Q4 will be any more rosy given the trajectory of their revenue.
I suspect we'll see more cost cutting there in the coming month, which will likely result in a reduction of reporters and other staff. It would seem to follow that either a smaller paper, or less expensive (read: more fluffy) articles will result, which runs the risk of further reducing sales. Not a happy cycle.
So yeah, it's enough.
Source for figures: http://finance.google.com/finance?q=NYT
Making up 10% in profit through other sources is hardly impossible, and they should have been able to recover by now if they spent a little more time thinking instead of whining
And yeah, there are plenty of things they could be doing to make up that 10%. But there are still plenty of ways people who insist on the old model can introduce inertia into the push for change. They understand the old model, have experience with it, and are averse to a hard bout of learning and possibly failing a indeterminate number of times before getting the new model right. Those things are hard, and come with the added risk of tarnishing their own professional image, and the image of the newspaper. It's easier in the short term to just whine.