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Topic: Letters Sent to Romenesko
Date/Time: 5/18/2007 8:37:12 AM
Title: Back at you, Dan!
Posted By: Jim Romenesko
 
From JEROME WEEKS: Dan Kennedy argues that an (unnamed) newspaper in the 1990s cut its book pages because of a decline in book ads. In my past ten years as the book critic for The Dallas Morning News, I cannot recall a single ad from a major New York publisher. The only ads that ran in the book pages were a few tiny ones from specialty bookshops, and the occasional movie/theater/music spillover. That is the situation at book pages across the country.

During the period Mr. Kennedy refers to, the big bookstore chains did cut back on their ads but those ads, by design, most often ran NOT on the Sunday book pages but in lifestyles sections. The chains felt they reached a wider audience. Even so, the truth is that book pages themselves, even the few, freestanding book sections, have never or rarely paid for themselves. In a March 6 Wall Street Journal article, the book editors of the San Francisco Chronicle and the San Diego Union-Tribune spoke about the "rarity" of ANY ad support. "You constantly have to justify your existence," says Oscar Villalon, who edits the Chronicle's book section. "Why? We don't bring in ads."

So how could the "loss" of such advertising, as Howard Kurtz charged, have led to decisions about cutting space or staffing? There was no such major loss. If Mr. Kennedy or Mr. Kurtz has different financial data I would be curious to see them.

I notice, by the way, that Mr. Kennedy did not attempt to address my logical extension of this argument that book ads supposedly support book pages. That is, can he demonstrate that any sports section is supported by the NFL? Does the weather map earn ad revenue? The opinion columnists? Of course not. Either other advertisers want to reach those readers (as with the sports section) or management is committed to running these services at cost because they feel, to be useful as a newspaper, to be taken seriously, they must. In contrast, they have abandoned their literate readers, whether through cuts in space or staff or the increased use of wire copy, figuring such readers are a small number and they're on the web already anyway.

Or they'll just take what they can get. [Permalink]

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