Alternative Reality Creative Loafing files for bankruptcy - Goes the Lehman way
Source: http://recoveringjournalist.typepad.com/recovering_journalist/2008/10/alternative-reality.html The Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing this week by alternative-newspaper chain Creative Loafing may portend the future for a few of the more traditional newspaper publishers. A lot of mainstream daily journalists and executives look upon alternative papers as a different breed, seeing them as somewhat scruffy, hippy-dippy, entertainment-focused rags that seem to spend a lot of ink sniping at the big papers in their markets. But in reality, alt-weeklies are more like the big dailies (or community weeklies) than a lot of people suspect. They've been largely supported by classified advertising and a core of devoted display advertisers, and they have a lot of the same editorial, production, printing and distribution issues as their more establishment counterparts. Consequently, the alternative papers have a lot of the same problems as the mainstream press to which they're supposed to be the alternative. Facing all sorts of new competition? Check. Classifieds decimated by craigslist, et al? Check. Declining display advertisers without finding replacements? Check. Aging readership? Check. Rising printing and production costs? Check. Failure to move quickly to the Web (despite a younger audience that's naturally Web-savvy)? Checkin fact, when it comes to the Web, a lot of alternative papers make large papers look like denizens of Silicon Valley. Sounds familiar, doesn't it? The solutions the alternative papers are trying are similar, too: In the past couple of years, Creative Loafingwhich has weekly papers in Atlanta, Chicago, Washington, Florida and elsewherehas cut staff, aggregated and centralized operations, radically redesigned its papers, grown by acquiring more papers (and increasing the company's debt) and, recently, announced a Web-first strategy (about time!). Just like the dailies. (And just like its alternative-press doppelganger, Village Voice Media, nee New TImes.) Creative Loafing even has its predictable share of disgruntled editorial staffers and alumni chafing against the company's changes. And now Creative Loafing is in Chapter 11 bankruptcy. "The company owed more money than it can pay back right now," says CEO Ben Eason. Gee, that sounds familiar, doesn't it? Like its overextended daily cousins in Minneapolis, Philadelphia, Newark, San Francisco and other cities, Creative Loafing has fallen victim to the same forces that are buffeting all newspapers, alternative or notand that are being exacerbated by the current economic and credit crunch. Creative Loafing, to be sure, operates on a somewhat different scale than the big daily newspaper chains. But its challenges and problems (and strategies) are very much the same. It's more than likely that its bankruptcy filing is a foreshadowing of things to come for many daily newspaper owners. They're likely to haveI can't resistno alternative.
