The St. Petersburg Times is a major newspaper circulated throughout the Tampa Bay area and it touts itself as being, “Florida’s Best Selling Newspaper”. Like most newspapers of today it’s failing because it doesn’t know how to be profitable in a rapidly deteriorating business climate.
The paper is privately owned and doesn’t release financial statements like its chief rival the Tampa Tribune. Despite keeping a lid on their business reports, the state of the paper’s financial condition can be seen by its dramatic drop in classified and display advertising over the last two years.
During the same two year period Craigslist.com which is a FREE classified ad site has seen an explosion in use which has propelled it to being one of the most highly trafficked sites on the net.
According to alexa.com the St. Petersburg Times site, which goes by the URL tampabay.com, ranks 5,352nd place. Craigslist.com ranks 26th place. It’s almost a certainty that as the economy deteriorates further Craigslist will move up a few more spots whereas tampabay.com will drop many spots right along with their print edition’s rapidly decreasing circulation.
Like hundreds of newspapers across the country, the St. Petersburg Times will continue to have financial problems until it’s put out of its misery and files for Chapter 7. A few years from now people will look back and say the 5% pay cut will have marked the beginning of the paper’s end.
by John Ubele
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