Categories: OLD Media Moves

Biz sections dying for lack of ad revenue

Jeremy Mullman of Advertising Age writes Monday that the reason business sections are being cut by daily newspapers is the decline of advertisers who want to buy space in them.

Mullman wrote, “While the cuts are a source of much consternation among business journalists — and also to public-relations executives at small local firms and agencies that may have trouble securing news coverage without them — analysts, advertisers and publishers say that the stand-alone sections were relatively poor sources of ad revenue that tended to be overmatched by national and online competition on anything beyond the most hyperlocal stories.

“‘We’ve never had much use for local business sections with B-to-B clients,’ said Andrew Swinand, the top print buyer at Starcom USA, whose clients include major business advertisers such as Oracle.

“To Mr. Swinand, the best local business sections tend to be the ones that dominate an industry of particular local interest, such as the San Jose Mercury News’ exhaustive coverage of Silicon Valley’s tech firms or the New York Post’s media obsession. ‘The Merc’s business coverage is relevant because it’s covering the dominant local industry, which makes a lot of sense. It wouldn’t be a disconnect to cover such a hyperlocal story in the metro section, if they decided to do that.’ (It hasn’t.)”

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Brian O'Connor says:
February 18, 2008 at 4:47 pm
Um .... yeah, but what about newspaper SPORTS sections. Other than tires and titty bars, they don't attract much advertising, either. Ask any editor, and they'll say sports is an exception because it draws readers. So maybe the point is to make the biz section: A - not suck, which so many do; and B - More like the sports section.
Face it -- biz is the game of life and biz sections are the scorekeepers. Act like it and maybe you'll draw enough readers that you won't get folded into the back of the Food section.
Bottom line: local biz sections are getting stuffed because they generally suck. The wire copy you can get anywhere, and the local coverage is about as insightful as the Pet of The Week feature.