The Next Crisis for the Dallas Morning News

This time it’s the U.S. Postal Service that is kicking the Morning News — and every other American newspaper — square in the jeans. This announcement was made a couple of days ago. The USPS is proposing to cut the rates it charges one of America’s largest direct-marketing companies, Valassis Communications. That would mean more junk mail for you and me, and it would mean a smaller advertising bundle in the Sunday Morning News. The newspaper industry says the move could rob it of $1 billion in annual revenue from Sunday inserts and advertising fliers it sends to non-subscribers.

Time to do some math. Last year, the newspaper industry as a whole did $20.7 billion in revenue. A.H. Belo did $461 million. So Belo accounts for 2.2 percent of the entire industry. And 2.2 percent of $1 billion is, yes, $22 million. That’s nearly 5 percent of Belo’s revenue. Gone.

Sometimes you just can’t catch a break.

4 comments

  1. I’ve never read a single story in the DMN about D Magazine or the Dallas Observer.

    @ 3:58 pm on August 17, 2012
  2. If the DMN went away……..it would be fine with me. No loss. What once was a good paper with a stellar group of writers, has not been for many years. Soooo keep chipping away at the revenue….by……by………

    @ 8:30 am on August 19, 2012
  3. Marisa,

    Maybe if you read the newspaper, you’d know how to spell…bye…bye…

    @ 2:45 pm on August 19, 2012
  4. Good catch, Jim. I used “by” b/c the DMN blog is full of misspelled words and poor English. I wanted to fit right in.

    @ 5:16 pm on August 20, 2012