It is day one at the World Association of Newspapers 2008 congress, but an early candidate for star speaker of the conference is Dean Singleton, chief executive MediaNews Group, writes Stephen Brook.
Singleton, who runs the US newspaper company that publishes hundreds of local titles, including the San Jose Mercury News, is certainly one of the most straight talking.He under no misapprehension as to the problems facing the US industry - according to his calculations 19 top newspapers in America are losing money. He rails against unions, journalists and other vested interested against change. "They fondly remember the past as if it will suddenly reappear." But he is adamant that there is no going back. "It's time to get over it and move to a print model that matches the times."
"We once upon a time edited newspapers that we thought our readers needed. Now we edit newspaper that our readers want."
The company has hired the analysts Bain to suggest what a newspaper company would look like if it was started from scratch today, just like James Murdoch has done with Boston Consulting Group at News International in London. "We expect our business to look a lot different next year," Singleton says.
He sees revenue growth opportunities in digital, but maintains that print must stay strong. "The core must stay strong while we develop our future, because the core will finance the future."
One innovation is a partnership with Yahoo in a "hot jobs" platform and Yahoo is set to become primary provider of search on all the company's newspaper sites.
As well as boosting newspaper websites, the company has created a series of online marketplaces that have little to do with newspapers. LA.com, BayArea.com are hubs for newspaper content but operate as much more, servicing local areas. Marketplace is about niches, aggregating audiences but going "local and deep" rather than "broad but shallow".
The company has identified 25 content categories such as weddings, home/design and recruitment that it can expand into in each of its in different geographic areas.
In summary, Singleton says that print has a chance in the future "if we discard our arrogance and our old ideas". "Old newspaper models are destined to die. If we fail, democracy fails, failure is not an option. The future might be scary but it is also exciting."
