Newspapers: The Un-Funny Pages
Newsweek July 19 issue - The newspaper comics are suffering more indignity these days than Charlie Brown on the football field. In the past year cost-conscious local newspapers in cities like San Francisco, Dallas and Atlanta have reduced the size of their funny pages to save on newsprint and paper. Other publications are considering similar moves. Last January the cash-strapped Philadelphia Inquirer even asked syndicates for some strips free of charge for a year (they declined).
But now there's a whole new reason for comics characters to groan: media consolidation. The major syndicates that distribute the funnies are increasingly dealing not with the individual newspapers, as they're accustomed to, but the big chains that own thempublic companies that obsess about earnings growth and cutting costs. In current negotiations, NEWSWEEK has learned, the San Jose, Calif.-based Knight Ridder, which owns 31 daily papers around the country, is demanding a 20 percent reduction in the rates its papers pay for comics, while threatening the cancellation of more than $100,000 worth of business if the syndicates don't comply.
"We're not allowed to collude as syndicates, but they're allowed to blackmail us into reducing rates? It feels wrong," says one beleaguered syndicate exec. (Knight Ridder did not return a request for comment.)
"Dilbert" cartoonist Scott Adams says he worries not only for himself ("Yes, I am that selfish") but for artists trying to break into the business who could inject new life into newspapers. "There are several up-and-coming cartoonists who I have great hope for. If you have fewer spaces, these new guys aren't going to get a chance."
Brad Stone
© 2004 Newsweek, Inc.
Yes, I know. Very childish...
