We run the numbers so you don’t have.  There are four new options:

Where this gets interesting is when you compare these plans to the physical paper subscription plans which all come with the equivalent of the All Digital Access plan.

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Net, keep the Weekday or Sunday-Only mountain of ink-smudged paper if you are living la vida multi-device.  I had really hoped to get rid of the newsprint altogether but I shouldn’t be paying more for near zero marginal cost product.

* How long before there is a GreaseMonkey script that adds a Twitter or Facebook referrer to every link on nytimes.com and everything is free again?

** The physical paper of course entails the wholesale pulping of forests, vast carbon emissions for home delivery, “paperboys” with inadequate health care insurance, overflowing land fills and customers with inky fingers.  I look forward to the editorial page thundering in dismay at the shortsightedness of this lamentable capitalist organization.

Post Post-Intelligencer

The newsprint carcass of the Seattle PI isn’t even cold yet and we’re already learning new (and perhaps revisionist) things about the departed:

The two best print newspapers in the United States – the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, and the Christian Science Monitor – have just died.

How typical of us not to appreciate what we have until it is gone.

The author then goes on to suggest France as a model for saving newspapers where they are inculcating a (state-subsidized) love for newsprint amongst teenagers.  (Hat tip to John who monitors cutting edge European policy innovations for Platformomics).

Senator Blowhard to the Rescue

Evidently the newspapers’ problem isn’t a demand issue like declining readership, they are just taxed too much:

With many U.S. newspapers struggling to survive, a Democratic senator on Tuesday introduced a bill to help them by allowing newspaper companies to restructure as nonprofits with a variety of tax breaks.

Easy to offer tax breaks to money-losing entities that don’t pay taxes…

If governments really want to help newspapers, banning the Internet seems like a better way to address the root cause.  Still waiting for a flat-out, cold-hard-cash newspaper bailout, but it can’t be that far off.

Carlos Slim has loaned the New York Times (NYT) $250 million. This further lessens the immediate cash crisis and should give the company another year or so of breathing room. As we expected, however, the money was breathtakingly expensive.

The reckoning in May has been put off, but at significant cost:

We estimate that the New York Times Company will need about $200 million of cash this year and about $500 million in each of the next two years. Slim’s money, combined with some of the company’s other recent cash-raising initiatives, should get it deep into 2010.

This money will not, however, solve the company’s long-term viability problem. It will also not allow the company to turn cash-flow positive anytime soon: On the contrary, the additional interest load combined with the ongoing deterioration of the business will increase the amount of cash the company burns each year.

Virtually all the predictions about the death of old media have assumed a comfortingly long time frame for the end of print the moment when, amid a panoply of flashing lights, press conferences, and elegiac reminiscences, the newspaper presses stop rolling and news goes entirely digital. Most of these scenarios assume a gradual crossing-over, almost like the migration of dunes, as behaviors change, paradigms shift, and the digital future heaves fully into view. The thinking goes that the existing brands — The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal — will be the ones making that transition, challenged but still dominant as sources of original reporting.

But what if the old media dies much more quickly? What if a hurricane comes along and obliterates the dunes entirely? Specifically, what if The New York Times goes out of business — like, this May?

UPDATE: NYT response to the Atlantic piece and commentary from Henry Blodget. 

My assumption is the sales process is window-dressing by Hearst, who own the P-I.  They don’t expect any bidders because of the terrible economic climate and the even worse prospects for newspapers.  The one possible exception is the Seattle Times, their partner in the incestuous Joint Operating Agreement between the two papers.  It may be that under the JOA, Hearst’s best strategy is to shutter the P-I in name or in practice and then collect a chunk of the Times’ revenue.  Why go to the expense and trouble of printing a paper if you don’t have to?

The Times oversees all non-news aspects of publishing the P-I, including printing and delivery, under the agreement. The two papers share production and business costs, and divide the remaining revenues according to a formula that gives 60 percent to the Times and 40 percent to the P-I.

Depending on the terms, the Times will have to look at whether it is cheaper to buy out the P-I themselves or potentially pay Hearst a significant share of their (declining) revenues going forward.  Any other bidder would be competing against this analysis as well.

The terms of the Joint Operating Agreement are of course secret (transparency is often a “do as I say, not as I do” kind of thing) so we don’t know what the actual revenue and/or profit sharing terms are or whether they survive if the P-I ceases operating (or just becomes a far smaller, web-only operation).  They did announce in 2003 that the P-I gave up its claim to the Times’ future profits if the P-I were to close (imagine how different their aspirations were when those terms were originally negotiated):

The JOA agreement falls under the Newspaper Preservation Act, a federal law passed in 1970 intended to preserve newspaper competition. But the marriage between the P-I and the Times has been rocky. In 2003, The Times sought to dissolve the agreement, saying it was losing money. After a contentious legal battle, the Times backed down from the divorce.

In a settlement, the Times agreed to take no action to end the JOA until at least 2016. Meanwhile, Hearst gave up its right to receive 32 percent of the Times’ profits if the P-I were to close. In exchange, the Times paid Hearst $24 million.

It looks like Hearst may have a special card here in which case the Times has an economic boat anchor of General Motors proportions attached to its already challenged business model. The best indicator of whether Hearst has that card is if the Times makes a bid for the P-I (and their share of the JOA in particular) in early March.

I bet the TechFlash guys, no matter what challenges they face doing a startup in the current climate, feel better about their decision to leave the P-I and try to build something new.

The future of one of Seattle’s two daily newspapers was called into question Thursday by a TV station report, although top leaders at both papers appeared surprised by it.

KING/5 reported at 5 p.m. that “a source close to the deal” said The Hearst Corp., owner of the Seattle P-I, would announce as soon as Friday that it’s putting the P-I up for sale.

Report of possible P-I sale surprises papers’ leaders

The New York Times is trying to borrow against its swanky, new building to ease what the Times itself calls “a potential cash flow squeeze as the company grapples with tighter credit and shrinking profits.”  Silicon Alley Insider continues to provide updates on the Times’ predicament.  Meanwhile, the (Chicago and Los Angeles, amongst other cities) Tribune Company files for bankruptcy.

The incredible shrinking Seattle Times (down to three sections as of today in an unabashed effort to reduce their two biggest expenses: “staff and newsprint”) is also trying to unload real estate as well amongst other cost-cutting measures.  I have to say the New York Times’ building is the swankier.

How long before the stewards of the op-ed pages, having loyally supported bailouts for other industries, call for their own bailout?  Surely the basic American tradition of a free press (insert obligatory Benjamin Franklin sidebar here) must be preserved.  Following the footsteps of the auto industry, they can put a veneer of eco-spin on it and claim they only need transitory government support to make the shift to a tree-friendly, digital-only product.  A government-appointed “news czar”, with the help of various House and Senate reelection committees, can no doubt clear up any unresolved issues with the newspaper industry’s business model.  And who could resist the sight of newspaper executives making their way to our nation’s capital, not in private jets, but on foot and by bicycle, like the humble paperboys who embody the work ethic and dedication to local community of the newspaper industry they are trying to save.  [If your industry needs help framing its bailout case, I am available for consultation].

In 2004, newspaper broker Dirks, Van Essen & Murray put the value of the company at $900 million. Two years later McClatchy purchased a 49.5% share of the paper from Knight Ridder, which valued the paper at $240 million. McClatchy has regularly written down the value of the company since and in a federal filing dated Nov. 16, it valued its 49.5% stake in the company at $7.9 million.

Seattle Newspaper’s Value Drops 98% In 4 Years

2009 is going to be ugly, ugly, ugly for newspapers.  The fire sale is on — there will be some real deals for newspapers’ non-newspaper assets in the next six months (want to buy part of the Red Sox?)

The Puget Sound Business Journal got significantly stronger today. Two of Seattle’s best-known technology journalists, John Cook and Todd Bishop, have resigned from the Seattle Post-Intelligencer to take new jobs at the crosstown Business Journal.

In an unbundled world, the vertical specialist should have an advantage.

All The News That Fits in the Pits

A special correspondent sends photographic evidence of a local marketing effort by the New York Times in Seattle:

This is near the hydroplane pits at SeaFair, an annual summer event in Seattle dedicated to drinking beer in the sun under the pretext of watching hydroplanes turn left around Lake Washington and periodically flip over.  I read that there was a thrilling ending this year in which the Beacon Plumbing boat was disqualified for being “off plane”, allowing the Ellstrom E-Lam Plus to win with the O Boy! Oberto taking second.  Think aquatic NASCAR, only louder and more provincial.

It is great to see the Times experimenting creatively and aggressively as they seek to revoke their “death watch” status.  No one can deny it is a bold move to place the Times alongside the  powerhouse plumbing (Beacon Plumbing), machine tools (Ellstrom E-Lam), dried meats (O Boy! Oberto) and replacement window (above) sponsors that dominate the hydroplane circuit today.  Presumably this outreach to new demographics is part of an well-orchestrated plan that extends to the editorial side of the house.  I, for one, would welcome more O Boy! Oberto and less opera in the Times.

While bold, the effort does look like it could use a little refinement, starting with actually having someone in the booth.  And West Coast Vinyl next door still tops them in tech savvy, with a prominent free Wii offer.  But in all, a commendable effort.

All News is Only Fit to Print

Meanwhile, over at the Seattle Times, there is continued focus on the core challenges they see facing the business.  No, not the Internet.  Not even inroads by national newspapers amongst local hydroplane and vinyl window fans.

Evidently the problem really is consolidation of the media by large, publicly-traded conglomerates that have the gall to diversify beyond the newspaper business.  Never mind that those same conglomerates are “getting killed” by the Internet as well, one wouldn’t want to lose focus on your eternal nemeses.  Ryan “The Scion” Blethen, from his fifth-generation, family-owned Seattle Times opinion page pulpit, calls upon journalists to speak up and take a stand against media consolidation.  The editorial itself suggests there isn’t much interest amongst journalists in this topic, but is having journalists “speak up” really the best strategy a publisher can come up with to stop industry consolidation?  A time machine might be a better approach given the consolidation in question happened decades ago.  And if you’re a journalist, do you really want to denounce consolidation that might provide a way for newspapers to continue to exist through subsidies from healthier businesses?

My suggestion: more energy on the web site, less time hoping the FCC will somehow hobble your fellow buggy whip competitors.