'Boston Herald' May Consider Radical Changes to Survive

By: The Boston Herald ownership's decision to sell off suburban newspapers leaves the metropolitan daily to chart a financial course on its own at a time of declining newspaper circulation and fewer U.S. cities with two dailies.

To survive against The Boston Globe in a city with a big appetite for news, the feisty Herald must continue to emphasize local coverage, reach out to younger readers and strike a different editorial tone than its larger rival, observers say.

But some outsiders say the Herald also may have to consider radical changes, including switching to free distribution or even abandoning newsprint a few years from now in favor of online-only distribution.

"What I would do is make the Herald a 21st Century tabloid newspaper-slash-information source, and put a lot of my focus online," said Tobe Berkovitz, associate dean of Boston University's College of Communication.

Berkovitz said such a move would address the importance of younger, Web-savvy readers to advertisers, and the high rate of Internet use in the Boston area.

Herald Publisher Patrick J. Purcell has said he's open to considering possible free print distribution for his tabloid paper, which sells for 50 cents apiece at newsstands.

While free distribution can draw advertisers looking for a wider audience, it's difficult to offset the loss of revenue from newsstand and subscription sales, said John Morton, of Morton Research Inc., which follows the news industry.

"It is, however, a new strategy that second newspapers in major metro markets can try, because all the other strategies to keep plugging away and relying on paid circulation haven't worked," Morton said.

The Herald's emphasis on shorter stories and local news could help win over readers who don't want the Globe's longer pieces, more serious tone and greater attention to national and international coverage, Morton said.

"Having differentiation is helpful for the second paper, but unfortunately it doesn't always make the difference," Morton said. "History is telling us that most markets can only support one metro daily newspaper."

On Monday, the Herald published a front-page message from Purcell in which the publisher declared, "The Boston Herald is here to stay."

The message followed the Herald's announcement that its parent, Herald Media, is selling its chain of suburban papers to an Illinois-based publisher.

GateHouse Media announced Monday it has agreed to buy substantially all the assets of two newspaper groups in a deal shifting ownership of many suburban Boston papers out of Massachusetts. GateHouse will acquire four dailies, 92 non-dailies and 25 specialty publications from a Herald Media subsidiary. Herald Media will lose revenue from the lucrative suburban papers, but gain cash from the sale to support the Herald.

Purcell said the suburban papers' sale will make the Herald essentially debt-free.

As for the Herald's plans, Purcell said in Monday's message, "The packaging may be changing but our product is sound ... This newspaper and what it does are my passion. You bet we're alive - and kicking."

Purcell did not immediately return a call Tuesday to comment for this story.

The Herald traces its roots back 160 years, and has undergone several ownership changes and editorial shifts. The paper switched from broadsheet to tabloid format in 1981. Hearst Corp. sold the paper the next year to a firm led by media executive Rupert Murdoch. Purcell, a former executive at Murdoch's News Corp., bought the Herald in 1994 and established it as an independent paper.

The Herald announced layoffs and buyouts in late 2003 and last spring in an effort to reduce its newsroom work force and save money.

The Herald also has suffered falling circulation. Data released Monday put the Herald's daily circulation at 227,583, down 9.1 percent from a year ago. The Globe suffered a drop of 8.5 percent, to 397,288.

The falling Boston circulation comes despite the city's embrace of newspapers. Boston consumers are 24 percent more likely than all adults nationally to read a daily newspaper, according to the firm Scarborough Research. Boston consumers also are 27 percent more likely than others to spend 20 hours or more a week online.

Scarborough data also show Boston area residents with household annual income above $150,000 are more than twice as likely to read the Globe's non-Sunday editions than the Herald's. While the Globe is far more popular than the Herald among older readers, the Herald is comparatively strong among men, as well as young readers in the 18-24 and 25-34 year-old age groups.

Globe Publisher Richard Gilman said today's diversity of news sources gives Boston consumers more choices regardless of how many dailies the city has.

"The notion that this could become a 'one-newspaper' city unfortunately misses the point of what's happening in today's media world," Gilman said. "There's not one or two but many daily newspapers as well as other media information sources that are competing for the attention of readers and advertisers in this area."