Strategic Planning at the Chronicle Gazette The Declining Newspaper Readership

The Strategic Planning

The Reestablished Mission of the Chronicle Gazette

The Human Resource Planning

The Importance of Strategic Planning

The Evaluation Criteria

The Anticipated Needs of the Organization

The Strategies of the Competitors

Internal Assessment of the Chronicle Gazette

Strengths

Weaknesses

External Assessment of the Chronicle Gazette

Opportunity

Threats

Proposed Strategic Plans for the Chronicle Gazette

The case study presents a detailed and structured analysis of how the preferences of the newspaper reader shifted from the newspapers to the E-papers. The case tends to shed light on the newspaper publishing house, The Chronicle Gazette. Susan Feinman is one of the senior publishers in The Chronicle Gazette. The newspaper enjoys a significant rather an immense paid circulation of 225000 customers. The Chronicle Gazette is a first class newspaper of the city and the writers of the newspaper are splendidly recognized as per their literally achievements. The scenario explained in the case study tends to indicate that The Chronicle Gazette is a much demanded newspaper by the citizens and is in a profitable state. But Susan is experiencing hard time as the subscription rate of her newspaper s declining steadily. Te cumulative decline in the newspaper subscription over the last eight years has been reported to 35% and as a consequence the advertisement revenue has also declined.

The fact that the declining traits of profitability are shown in an established publishing house is to better understand the consequences that are brought about by the mass accessibility of the internet[footnoteRef:1]. The Chronicle Gazette was not the only newspaper publisher that felt this set back but the other huge newspaper publishers like the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal were also in a similar subscription trauma[footnoteRef:2]. [1: Paul Elkin, Mastering Business Planning and Strategy: The Power of Strategic Thinking (London: Thorogood, 1998) null6, Questia, Web, 29 May 2011.] [2: Malcolm Macdonald Willey, The Country Newspaper: A Study of Socialization and Newspaper Content (Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 1926) iii, Questia, Web, 29 May 2011.]

Importance of the newspaper cannot be denied in the settings of the civil society. Because newspapers are considered to be one among the most primitive media to disperse the information and it has been for this reason that the significance and the need of newspapers increased over the period of time. The historical significance of the newspaper as the most potent news media has long been chanted and advocated by the educationists and intellectuals[footnoteRef:3]. But before the boom of dot com industry the newspaper sector was dominated by the advertisement era. Advertisement as a matter of fact is considered to be the revenue maker and facilitator for any and all types of media, but newspapers used to offer a great appeal to the advertisers to place in their ads and generate the buying response in the target market. [3: W. Parkman Rankin, The Practice of Newspaper Management (New York: Praeger, 1986) iii, Questia, Web, 29 May 2011.]

The case is intended to present an insight of how the internet industry has actually taken over the traditional news media. The newspaper publishers are in an utter distress about how to sustain their presence in a meaningful and a profitable manner. The development of newspapers and publications as an important news media is still prevailing across the world; the paper intends to propose a set of strategic tools to facilitate the Chronicle Gazette publisher Susan Feinman that will help her in maintaining the due position in the newspaper publishing sector.

The Declining Newspaper Readership

The declining traits in the newspaper readership are associated with the changing preferences of the target market. The newspapers and the publications are not targeted to just on class of people in the market but they are rather intended to cater the informatory needs of the entire region[footnoteRef:4]. As a matter of fact the newspaper industry was not just the only industry that was subjugated as there due existence and profitable market was taken off by the dot com boom. But the problem was face by the entire literature disbursement authorities. The book and the scholarly paper publication that was initially considered to be the den of a few authorities worldwide were now available to all the sects of the society. This caused a great disturbance in the Chronicle Gazette as well as the other prevalent newspapers including the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal[footnoteRef:5]. [4: Leo Bogart, Press and Public: Who Reads What, When, Where, and Why in American Newspapers, 2nd ed. (Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates,...

The disbursement of news using by means of the print media is a time consuming activity. As per the typical method of publishing and printing the newspaper the process calls for a long writing activities followed by then relevant editorial work and finally after the proof read of the actual material to be published the matter was send for printing. And similarly the newspapers and others forms of traditional news publishing media also faced a geographic constraints, including chiefly the timely distribution across the metropolitan regions.
The internet overcomes the two basic barriers that the print media was failing to cater efficiently. Initially the speed offered by the internet was astonishing and the masses were excited with such an efficient media that facilitates the communication as well as geographic accessibility[footnoteRef:6]. The news and important information that were taking a long time to get published via print media were reaching the mass audience within the seconds after their occurrence. This was the key reason that served to catalyze the transformation of the audiences from the print media to internet[footnoteRef:7]. [6: Leigh Moscowitz, "Civic Approach Not So Different from Traditional Model," Newspaper Research Journal 23.4 (2002), Questia, Web, 29 May 2011.] [7: Carl Sessions Stepp, "Why Do People Read Newspapers? A Massive Research Effort by the NAA- and ASNE-Backed Readership Institute Endeavored to Find out. Now Newspapers Are Heeding Some of the Findings in an Effort to Reverse the Persistent Circulation Slide," American Journalism Review Dec. 2003, Questia, Web, 29 May 2011]

At this point of time the fact needs to be acknowledged that the newspapers and the publisher did not faced such a severe challenge and set back with the invasion of television. The revenues were affected but the magnitude of the affect produced was quite low as compared to that of the internet. The critically critical competition between the internet and the print media served to affect the print media ad publications negatively. This was the persistent trait observed by Susan Feinman the publishers in The Chronicle Gazette.

When faced with long-term challenges and competitions to endure the organizations usually adapt the strategic planning and revisit its basic interest and the core competencies[footnoteRef:8]. The similar scenario will be executed by the Susan Feinman the publishers in The Chronicle Gazette so that the pace and sustenance of the newspaper can be ensured foe the longer period of time and the newspaper can operate in a profitable manner. As it has already been mentioned that The Chronicle Gazette is facing a cumulative loss of advertising revenues of 28% and the pain subscription rate is declining by 35%. The statistics are encompassing the results of eight years losses faced by the newspaper and it has been for this reason that the firm is reconsidering the strategic tools to sustain the momentum of its growth. [8: Robert G. Picard, "U.S. Newspaper Ad Revenue Shows Consistent Growth," Newspaper Research Journal 23.4 (2002), Questia, Web, 29 May 2011.]

The Strategic Planning

The strategic planning of the organization involves the activities whereby the top consultants and the executives plan to successfully implement strategies that can result in the long run survival of an organization. The strategic planning of an organization mainly deals in the implementation and the reimplementation of the organization culture to adhere to the mission and vision of the organization.

The strategic planning involves

The reestablished mission

The human resource planning

The evaluation criteria

The anticipated needs of the organization

The strategies of the competitors

The Reestablished Mission of the Chronicle Gazette

The Chronicle Gazette wanted to maintain its standing in the print media and as the same time wanted to exercise the printing and publishing activities with the same pace as it was publishing before the internet era. The basic tool of the strategic planning was to reconcile the formative agents of The Chronicle Gazette in order to ground new strategies that can help the newspaper publication to withstand the competitive market with equipped with innovative tools in a profitable manner.

The Human Resource Planning

The human resource planning is the most crucial aspect that needs to be entertained while formulating the strategic goals of an organization. It is really important for the organization to ensure that the future needs of the organization…