Newsday Is Hiring, Which Says More About Cablevision Than the Newspaper Industry
Here's something you don't read about very often: a newspaper that is hiring editorial staff -- and not just a handful of staff, but several dozen people. That newspaper is Newsday, the tabloid that covers Long Island; but the decision to hire about 37 people throughout all aspects of editorial, including digital, does not speak to the health of the newspaper. In the second quarter, it experienced a 9.7 percent decline in revenue to $80.1 million -- and a 12.6 percent decrease in advertising revenue. Instead, the decision to hire staff speaks to the broader corporate strategy of Cablevision, the cable operator that bought the newspaper back in 2008 for $650 million, beating out News Corp. and The New York Daily News for the privilege.
According to The New York Post, part of the plan is to hire reporters to cover local towns, which will no doubt enhance the hyperlocal strategy not only of Newsday, but of Cablevision's News12 operation, which occupies Channel 12 on each of the markets in which it provides cable service. The idea, whether its Newsday or News12, is the same: to cover the news that New York City doesn't -- of high school sports, local political scandals -- and yes, the occasional suburban murder mystery that gets overlooked by The Big Apple. Though not everyone agrees with Cablevision's reasoning, the business strategy behind it appears to be three-pronged: to provide a bigger tent to local advertisers, who can buy from Cablevision on a cross-platform basis; to cross-pollinate subscription revenue; and to use local content as a point of differentiation between it and the telcos and satellite providers that are in heated competition with it.
While much of that battle has been on price, recently the content competition has gotten more heated. Verizon FiOS launched its own local news organization last year, FiOS1, to occupy Channel 1 for those who subscribe to its bundle of services. But one thing Verizon can't do now is get into the Long Island newspaper business in a meaningful way. Newsday, despite suffering from the same travails as most of the newspaper business, is the only newspaper that really covers Long island in all its tabloid glory. (And frankly, even though it seemed unlikely at one point that a cable company would ever buy a newspaper, it seems even less likely that a telco would.)
All of which is to say, that it's great that Newsday is hiring, but it shouldn't be taken as a sign that the Newsday -- or the newspaper business -- is rebounding.
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