Newspapers All Thumbs On 'Rules'

By: Mark Fitzgerald Everybody knows that daily newspapers are shrinking newsrooms and newshole, right? Not necessarily, according to an analysis of newspaper industry "rules of thumb" by the Inland Press Association. Using data from the most recent Inland National Cost & Revenue Study, the Des Plaines, Ill.-based organization came up with some findings that defy conventional industry wisdom.

Take newsroom staffing. The rule of thumb is 1.1 to 1.2 so-called FTE's (full-time equivalents) per 1,000 paid circulation. "It turns out newsroom staffing is actually up, and newspapers are 'overstaffed' at all circulation levels," says Inland Executive Director Ray Carlsen. Papers under 10,000 circulation are staffed at 1.5 FTEs per thousand, as are papers from 25,000 to 50,000. Papers with circulations between 50,000 and 100,000 are staffed at 1.4 per thousand.

In a pattern that emerges repeatedly from Inland's data, it's the biggest papers ? those over 100,000 circulation ? that are closest to a rule of thumb. But even those newsrooms are slightly "overstaffed," at 1.3 FTEs per thousand.

It's a similar story with newshole, which the rule of thumb states should be at 50% of available space. Only the biggest papers are below that, at 49.1%. The other circ groups range from 54.3% to 55.5%.

And for all the talk about belt-tightening in newsrooms, every circulation group is comfortably within the rule of thumb that newsroom expenses should account for 14% to 15% of total costs.

Almost all newspapers are also spending on the high end of the rule of thumb that says employee expenses should account for 76% to 80% of newsroom expenses. In this category, the big papers even slightly exceed that with a figure of 80.4%.

Newspapers are running lean, however, when it comes to production. Conventional wisdom says to keep total production cost to 12% to 14% of total expenses, but every category is comfortably below that, with the biggest papers' average at 10%. Measured by production expense versus total revenues (the rule says keep it within 10% to 12%), newspapers are even more efficient, with the biggest papers running at just 8.2%, the next biggest at 8.7%, and the 25,000-circ category comfortably below the "standard" at 9.3%.

Carlsen notes, "You see the same thing with composing and pressroom hours [per standard page]. Newspapers are becoming more efficient."

Ironically, the 100,000-plus papers, which might be expected to have the most efficient presses, are the only ones lagging in pressroom hours. At 2.8 hours ? including platemaking ? per standard page, they don't meet the rule of thumb of 2.3 hours. The speediest papers, as it turns out, are the smallest: those under 10,000 circulation spend just 1.4 pressroom hours per page.

Just about every size paper, though, shares a more doleful statistic: Classified ad revenues for every circ category except the largest fall below the rule that classified should represent 35% of total advertising dollars.