Abramson faces toughest test of any NYT boss

Reflections of a Newsosaur: Jill Abramson will have a tougher job than any of her predecessors when she becomes executive editor today of the New York Times, because she is being thrust into completely uncharted territory where she will have to choose between two irreconcilable paths. She either will have to cannibalize the flagship print product to build the strongest possible digital franchise for the Times – OR – she will have to concentrate on sustaining the commercial strength of the print edition at the risk of channeling insufficient resources into assuring the strongest possible digital future for America’s newspaper of record.
Although it would be nice to have it both ways, that is not going to be possible in a time that resources are unlikely to increase – and, in the worst case, could shrink – at the most well-endowed newsroom in the land, where the editorial payroll tops 1,000 individuals.
The problem for Abramson is that the print and digital media demand significantly differentiated products, which the Times has not been able to produce to date with even its enviable strength. While the Times is formidably staffed to produce its estimable print edition, its digital business has not gotten the same resources and attention as the print product.
...With most demographic and commercial trends suggesting that print readership and advertising revenues will continue to decline as the Boomer generation rides into the sunset, newspapers today rely on the print product not only to keep the lights on but also to fund the innovation they hope will successfully transition their franchises to an increasingly digi-centric world.
But the stakes in this balancing act are higher for the NYT than most publishers because the growing success of its digital product – it is the top pure-play news site in ComScore rankings – could cut deeply into the sale of the print version of the national edition that is responsible for some 60% of the newspaper’s circulation. The most recent audits show that total average circ for the Times is 916,911 on weekdays and 1.3 million on Sunday, meaning that 550,000 daily subscribers and 780,000 Sunday readers live out here in the hinterlands where it costs nearly $1,000 a year to buy the national print edition of the Times.http://newsosaur.blogspot.com/2011/09/abramson-faces-toughest-test-of-any-nyt.html