The Seattle Times Turns a Profit

It’s hard to know what to make of the fact that the Seattle Times, now the only newspaper in Seattle, is beginning to show a profit.

The newspaper became the only daily newspaper in time after the Seattle Post-Intelligencer shut down its daily newspaper operations in March, surviving only as a news website devoted primarily to local blogs.

The resurgence is no doubt due to the fact that the Seattle Times managed to pick up most of the Post-Intelligencer’s subscribers. The newspaper’s circulation rose 30 percent in June from 200,000 to 260,000, according to the New York Times.

The Times itself was apparently nervous about their own demise when the Post-Intelligencer shut down with the newspaper asking whether Seattle would now become a “no newspaper town.”

Newspaper executives had reason to be worried. Many newspapers that are the only daily in town are still struggling to survive, so the Seattle Times is clearly doing something right. But since the Times is a private company it’s unclear exactly what that something is.

Meanwhile, the Post-Intelligencer also seems to be doing well with its scaled down Web operations at SeattlePI.com and has retained the audiences that formerly read the newspaper online.

The main reason The Times is doing better seems to be that its partnership with the deceased Post-Intelligencer has ended. The papers used to share expenses with the Times handling printing and delivery for the Post-Intelligencer and sharing profits 60-40. The Times had been trying to get out of the partnership, arguing that the partnership was dragging it down, while artificially prolonging the life of its rival.

The Seattle Times’ lean mean operation may also be helping its financial picture. The newspaper has cut staff drastically, going from 375 people five years ago to 210 people today. But many newspapers have cut staff and pared down costs only to find themselves still hanging on to life by a thread.

Perhaps the quality of the newspaper has also helped increase profits. The Seattle Times has a reputation of being a great newspaper and the Blethen one of the few family owned newspapers in the country, according to the New York Times. The family owns 55 percent of the paper with the McClatchey Co. owning the rest. Eight family members still work for the newspaper. I’m not sure how many such newspapers are left but surely the family keeps a better eye out for the newspaper than a media conglomerate would.

Whatever reasons the newspaper is succeeding, it’s a glimmer of brightness in the gloom and doom of media news these days. Let’s hope there will be more glimmers that can lead us out of the darkness.

Photo from nytimes.com