Business Policy and Strategy Project: Newspaper Industry Analysis

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AI Summary
This project provides a comprehensive analysis of the newspaper industry, examining its current state, the reasons behind declining circulations and revenues, and the challenges faced by companies like The Chronicle Gazette. It begins with an overview of the industry, presenting data on declining circulation and revenue, and an assessment of the industry's leaders. The project then delves into the external factors contributing to the decline, including economic, social, technological, and competitive forces. An internal assessment of The Chronicle Gazette is also conducted, evaluating organizational processes, HR capabilities, financial position, and marketing/sales capabilities. The project further explores how companies in the publishing industry are adjusting their strategies to cope with these challenges, and proposes short-term and long-term steps that The Chronicle Gazette might take to address them. The analysis includes an External Factor Evaluation matrix and details on the organizational structure, including editorial, production, and circulation departments.
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Business Policy
and

Strategy Project
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Table of Contents
1. INTRODUCTION
.......................................................................................................................1
2. State of the newspaper publishing industry today
.......................................................................1
2.1. Data on declining circulation and revenue
............................................................................1
2.2. Status of newspaper leaders
.................................................................................................. 2
3. Reason for the decline in the circulations and revenues of the newspapers
................................2
3.1. External assessment
..............................................................................................................2
4. Internal assessment
.....................................................................................................................5
4.1. Organizational processes and structure
.................................................................................5
4.2. HR capabilities
......................................................................................................................6
4.3. Financial position
..................................................................................................................7
4.4. Marketing/ sales capabilities
.................................................................................................7
4.5. Operational Capabilities
........................................................................................................8
4.6. Strength and weakness of the company
................................................................................ 8
5. How companies in the publishing industries are adjusting their strategies to cope up with the

challenges
.........................................................................................................................................8
6. Steps The Chronicle Gazette might take in order to deal with the challenges
............................9
6.1. Short-term steps
................................................................................................................... 9
6.2. Long-term steps
.................................................................................................................. 10
CONCLUSION
..............................................................................................................................10
REFERENCES
.............................................................................................................................. 11
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1. INTRODUCTION
This report is based on the overview of the newspaper industry. The report includes the

current state of various newspaper industry and the reasons behind the declining value of the

newspaper industry in recent times. The report will also highlight the various environmental

factors resulting in the decline of the industry and the internal organizational structure including

strength and weakness of the industry including the adoption of the new technology by the

company. Further the report will highlight the strategies made by The Chronicle Gazette in order

to cope up with the challenges faced by them which include short-term and long-term steps of

the company.

2. State of the newspaper publishing industry today

2.1. Data on declining circulation and revenue

The above graph shows the data of circulation that includes daily weekday circulation and

Sunday circulation that shows the deliberate decline for the newspapers in the coming years

mainly due to the rise of the digital media. As the estimates of the recent figures is stated below-

According to the Alliance for Audited Media (AAM), an organization that verify all the daily

newspaper circulation figures, the weekly circulation rate of the US daily newspapers has fell

about 8% in 2016 including in the 28th consecutive years in decline. It states that the overall

decline in the newspapers in US is about 10% which includes 9% for Sundays and 1% decline in

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daily circulation. Further as simplified the the total weekday circulation of the US daily
newspapers fell to 35 million along with the 38 million decline in the Sunday newspapers
(Lee,
Cho and Kim, 2015)

2.2. Status of newspaper leaders

The overall revenue of the worldwide newspaper circulation amounts to 87 billion US

dollars in 2017. Considering the leading newspaper industry- The New York Times has the

overall revenue of US$ 1.676 billion (2017) that showed and increase of 7.73% to that of 2016.

Further there was increase in the revenue of about 4.35% amounting to US$ 1.749 billion in

2018. The New York Times is ranked 17
th in the world and 2nd in US in the newspaper industry.
The company has the overall circulation of 571,500 units of the daily newspapers and 1,087,500

of Sunday newspapers. The Wall Street Journal is one of the largest newspapers in the United

States in case of circulation. The newspaper has the circulation of about 2.475 billion

copies
(Bratianu and Bolisani, 2015.
3. Reason for the decline in the circulations and revenues of the newspapers

3.1. External assessment

Economic forces-
Various economic conditions such as availability of finance and funding
results in decline as well as circulation of the newspapers, as the capital and the financial

resources that are required by the newspaper industry is more than that of digital media or

internet. The requirement of more investment in the industry as well as non availability of

funding sources by the investors due to their lack of interest in the industry is the result of

decline in the newspaper industry. Also the investment of people in advertisement posted in

newspapers is being declined as people are more likely interested in social media advertisement

over the internet which amounts to be of lower cost or no cost. This results in decline of the

revenues by the newspaper industry
(Shrivastava and Persson, 2014).
Social, cultural, demographic and environmental forces-
There are various social factors
affecting the newspaper industry that comprises of the interests of the people and the youth as

they are obsessed with the use of internet and show more interests in reading online news and

watching videos rather than reading the newspaper. The rise in the amount of the working

population has increased the widespread use of internet and lead to the decline in response to

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newspapers and the printed media. The environmental factors that include the growing concern
over the environment and nature has resulted lower in the supply of raw materials by the

newspaper industry as people tend to read things online rather than the use of paper. Social

actors also include the interests of the people in using internet where all the information is

available to the current trend and also it saves the time and money of the people. Extreme

weather condition also adds up the amount to the increase the operational costs of newspaper

industry as it has to invest more amount in making its supply chain more flexible
(Draper, 2017).
Political and Legal forces-
Various legal issues impact on the newspaper industry as it me
include legal matters for printing a particular subject matter in the newspaper as well as the

confidentiality issues and many more. It also include the matter printed against or for any

individual that will further lead to any political issue to the company. Various other issues such

as data protection and threats from political parties leads to reduction and decline in circulation

as well as revenue of the newspaper companies
(Kossyva, Sarri and Georgolpoulos, 2015).
Technological forces-
In every business the technological advancement leads to positive impact
on its growth but in case of newspaper industry there is decline of the business as the rise in the

use of internet and digital media which has turn off the interests of people from reading

newspapers. Also the internet provides every minute information from all the sources which is

more accurate for the people rather than reading the information in newspapers.

Competitive forces-
The competitive forces include the Michael Porter's five forces of
competition which affects the business of newspaper industry as well as results in the decline in

circulation and revenue. To understand these forces the illustration of The New York Times and

its competitive forces are observed
(Wu, Gao and Gu, 2015). These forces are as follows-
Threat of new entrance- New entrants in the newspaper industry come up with the
innovation, new techniques of doing things and increase the pressure on The New York

Times company as by lowering the price, reducing the costs as well as by providing a

better value to the customers. This results in decline of the revenue for The New York

Times.

Bargaining power of suppliers- All the newspaper publishing companies buy their raw
materials from various suppliers. When these suppliers are in dominant position and sell

the goods art higher price, the margin of The New York Times that they can earn in

market. Suppliers which are dominant and powerful use their negotiating power in order

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to extract higher prices from the firms. This in turn also lowers the profitability of the
firms.

Bargaining power of buyers- As in the current trend, customers are considered as the
king of the market and often demand more than what they pay. This in turn creates the

pressure on The New York Times profitability in the long run period as they have to offer

more services over less price for it. Most often the small customer base leads to the

dominance of customers and their power of demanding more at lower price. Thus this

will leads to the decline in the overall revenues of the company
(Moseley III, 2017).
Threat of Substitutes- When the another product of same type offers better quality
service to the customers they tend to switch to that substitute produce and which in turn

will lead to decline in the profitability and revenue of The New York Times.

Rivalry among existing competitors- If there is an intense competition and rivalry
between the competitive firms there will be decline in the revenues and profits of the

firm. The New York Times operates in the industry that has many competitors rivalries

such as The Wall Street Journal etc which leads to the complications over then hold of

long term profitability of the company.

External Factor Evaluation matrix-

Key External Factors
Weight Rating
Total

Weighted

score

opportunities

Merger and acquisition of other news paper

industries
10% 4 0.4
Reducing cost of news paper
14% 2 0.28
Increasing demand in market
12% 6 0.72
Improving marketing and advertisement
8% 7 0.56
managing financial position
7% 8 0.56
threats
0
Changes in political plans such as rules regulations
10% 1 0.1
changing economic policies related with taxation
11% 3 0.33
Upgradation of new technologies
13% 9 1.17
influences of eco-friendliness
9% 4 0.36
societal influences.
6% 2 0.12
Total
100% 4.60
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4. Internal assessment
4.1. Organizational processes and structure

The following is the organizational process and structure of the newspaper company-

Editorial-
The editorial team is responsible for making the high level executive decisions
regarding the stories to be published and in what direction the content must be written as well as

line editing etc. to ensure the high quality writing materials which would be more effective.

Editors work closely with the the authors of the stories being edited as well as the journalists and

the production team in order to make sure that the revisions are being initiated in a timely

manner on the date of publication
(Sobreiro, Vivas and Claudino, 2014).
Production-
This department includes production manager, Photo Editor, Creative Director,
Layout Designer, Graphic designer, photographer etc. This people are concerned with the

printing and processing the information over the paper which will be further publishes as an

output in the form of newspapers. The production department of the newspaper company

performs the layout and the graphic tasks on the computer as well as carry out their work on the

files submitted by the authors.

Managing Editorial-
The Managing Editorial department is concerned with the company's
overall operations, strategic and financial components of the company. This department works

with both the production team and the editors to monitor the schedule for the production.

Employees within this department often set the content requirements, oversee the date of

publication and schedules and see whether the sales targets are met and develop the

budgets
(Bagga and Srivastava, 2014).
Printing-
This department is responsible for compiling and copying the edited manuscripts and
placing them into a paper according to the standardize and required format. Printing department

includes printing manager, print operator, digital print operator, print technician etc.

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Circulation- As the name suggests the circulation department is concerned with the distribution
process of the newspaper. Their activities involve making relationships with the retailers and the

distributors and performing marketing activities in order to influence the customers to buy the

products and subscription for the newspapers. This department includes circulation director,

circulation manager, subscription manager, fulfillment manager etc
(Sarbah and Otu-Nyarko,
2014)
.
Web Design and Development-
This department is responsible for developing and maintaining
the company's websites and the online community. They help in increasing the sales, recognition

of the company product and initiate the customers to provide feedback through online platform.

They also promote the company products through many marketing and advertisement campaigns

through social media and other components. This department involves marketing communication

officer, multimedia specialist, media assistant, digital journalist etc
(Amron and Mahmud, 2017).
4.2. HR capabilities

The following are the roles of HR department in an organization-

Recruitment and selection- It is the primary function of HR department to recruit and
select the candidates for the firm. The department recruits, interviews and select the

candidates for different position as per the requirement of the news company. The

department is responsible for selecting the right candidates ate the right job within the

company.

Training and development- The human resource department handles the training and
development of the staffs in an organization through conducting various training

programs for the newly hired as well as the existing employees of the company. They

make the candidate capable and efficient enough in performing the tasks of the company

and are also responsible with the contract of training providers and monitoring training

budgets
(Martínez-Ferrero, Rodríguez-Ariza and García-Sánchez, 2016).
Handling Compensation- The HR department is responsible for various components of
the employee's compensation and benefits. The department handles the employee payroll

and ensures whether the employees are paid on time.

Employee Relations- The HR department handles the relation of employees within an
organization. It involves the participation of the employees in different organizational

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activities and maintain the relations between the employees and the management of the
company. It also handles the disputes among the employees and the management, labor

unions etc.

Legal Responsibilities- The HR department is responsible for enforcing employment
and labor laws such as equal employment opportunity, fair labor, standards, benefits and

wages and work time etc. The department monitors and investigates the problems and

dissatisfaction among the staffs and workers.

4.3. Financial position

Loss and decline in revenue have severe effects on the financial position of the company.

The reduction in the revenue leads to the loss in the company as further resulting in the lower

market share due to lower consumer demand which in turn leads to the lower operational output.

This could also results in the laying offs of the employees and selling off the assets of the

company which could lead to the winding up of the company. If the financial position of the

company is not strong and capable enough to face the loss and decline of the revenues of the

newspaper company than it can further lead to the stoppage in the operations or even the shut

down and bankruptcy of the company. The company must avoid the bankruptcy of the business

and instead come up with the strong financial plan which can include the merger with the

competitor company to survive in the market
(Peleckis, 2015).
4.4. Marketing/ sales capabilities

Marketing and sales capabilities include various techniques and ways that newspaper

companies must undertake in order to increase the sales and revenue of the company. It may

include the various advertisements and promotions of the company through sponsoring in events

as well as in the TV advertisements which will promote the company brand as well as grab the

attention of the people
(Wieland, Hartmann and Vargo, 2017).
4.5. Operational Capabilities

The operational capabilities of The Chronicle Gazette is quite good enough as the

company has the paid circulation of 225,000 customers and a better delivery channel to supply

them and serve them accordingly. The company is efficient enough to serve more subscribers as

well as its writers have won several awards for their work. The problem lies with the adoption of

the new technology which includes establishing the online platform for the company that will;

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include the setup of website where all the news and the information related to the newspaper
articles. The company must come u with better technology advancements in order to deal with

the issue.

4.6. Strength and weakness of the company

Strengths-
The main strength of The Chronicle Gazette company is its number of circulations in
the market. The company has strong customer base
which serve as an better advantage to deal
with various issue arising for then organization. Also the writers of the company has won several

awards related to their content writing which in turns serve as another strength that the company

supplies and publishes the relevant information in their newspapers. Another thing is The

Chronicle Gazette is the leading newspaper in its major metropolitan area and has maintained its

first rate position over the years
(Bierbooms, van Oers and Bongers, 2014).
Weaknesses-
The main weakness is the company is not progressing or implementing the new
technological changes in its organization. The company does not have any online platform or

websites where all its contents is available rather than newspaper. Another thing the company is

totally dependent on printed and published articles and newspapers which is drastically declining

over the emergence of the internet. The company has not utilized the internet and digital platform

for its expansion and dealings with the current issue it is facing through.

5. How companies in the publishing industries are adjusting their strategies to

cope up with the challenges

The following are the changes and the strategies being implemented by the publishing

industry to cope up with the challenges-

Changes in the organizational culture-
This was the major change being made by te publishing
industries by avoiding up some core values in the culture of the organization such as “focus on

tradition” and adopting the general trend that include moving away from these traditional values

towards more flexible and adaptable outlook. The changes stated the companies must be fast and

flexible so that it can grab the opportunity and perform its activities accordingly. The main

purpose and objective of the company was to go on and adopt the new trend and culture and

leave behind he old traditional culture to cope up with the arising issues and

challenges
(Gryshova, Voronzhak and Shestakovska, 2017).
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Changes in the product portfolio- Due to some external changes and factors affecting the
publishing industry has resulted in the discontinue of some products by showing interests in the

new ones. The publishing industries have started experimenting with the new type of print

products that included specialist magazines in order to target the niche audiences in a particular

locality and region such as- regional sports, arts and event magazines. Also the companies

published these titles with the partnership of local business and community bodies in order to

increase the strategic relationship in the new market environment
(Redmond, Walker and
Hutchinson, 2017)
.
Changes in financial models-
Various publishing industries are changing their financial models
to maximise the revenues and minimising the cost. Most of the industries have started increasing

their advertising costs in the newspapers in order to earn more revenue through it. Another

strategy includes increase in diversification of the revenue streams on third revenue streams. This

include activities like merchandising activities, events, travel and insurance services, education

and training or affiliate marketing where the publishers get a paid commission for linking the

vendor with the audience. The industries carry out these activities through their local channel and

with the hold of their contacts with their customers.

6. Steps The Chronicle Gazette might take in order to deal with the challenges

6.1. Short-term steps

To analyse the current market trends and to find out the main causes behind the decline of
the revenues and circulation of the newspapers.

The company will establish its strong financial position in order to deal with the
challenges.

The company will promote its brand through advertisement in theatres, channels as well
as well as the sports events as in order to grab the attention of new customers.

The company will also sponsor in various other cultural events in order to promote its
brand.

6.2. Long-term steps

To adopt the technological advancement in the current business.
To adopt the use of internet for promoting and advertising the company brand.
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To establish and set up online platform and website for its company and take advantage
of the technological trend.

To change the organization culture and policies and adopt flexible conditions of work to
beat up the challenges.

To increase the product line or change the product portfolio in order to target different
market in a region or locality.

To increase the overall profitability through increasing advertisement prices in newspaper
which will establish a strong financial position as well.

CONCLUSION

From the above report it is observed regarding the various trends and analysis of the data

in declining revenue of the publishing company as well as the current status of the newspaper

leaders in the market. The report also observes and studies various external factors and

competitive forces as well as external factors evaluation in order to find out their impact ojn the

newspaper publishing company. Further the report studies the internal assessment including

organization culture and operational capabilities along with the strength and weakness of the

organization in order to find out the position of the organization. Further the report observed the

various strategies being implemented by major publishing industry to cope up with the

challenges. Finally the report concludes by stating the short-term and long-term steps that will

help The Chronicle Gazette to deal with various issues and the changes.

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