【Part 2】报纸能否在21世纪传媒丛林中保有一席之地？

JOANNE: And the answer to that question would be what? Is there a place for the newspaper?
Jonne：那么，报纸有没有一席之地？今天你对这一问题的答案是什么？

SAM: I think the answer is certainly, but the answer to whether the conventional approach to the newspaper business that has been the model since the beginning of time, I could tell you unequivocally that model is a failure, or that model has passed its time of relevance. The newspaper business basically grew up as a monopoly, and like every other monopoly, it built processes and approaches that reflected its monopoly status. One example was the rate card you give to an advertiser in order for that person to determine how he would like to participate. You needed a Ph.D. in order to understand the rate card. In the days where the customer had no options, you could give him the rate card and say, “Take it or leave it.” But today, that doesn’t work.
Sam:我认为，答案是肯定的， 但至于报纸有史以来所采用的传统经营模式能否达成这一目标，我可以毫不含糊地告诉你，这个模式不会成功，或者说，报纸的传统经营模式已经过时了。从根本上 说，报纸商业模式是在垄断的基础之上发展起来的，就跟其他行业的垄断一样，报纸建构的过程和方法和反射出其垄断地位。一个例证就是广告价目单，你给广告主 提供了不同种类的广告价格清单，以供他们决定如何投放广告。要真正理解一张广告价目表，或许得派一个哲学博士来才行。在广告主没有太多媒体选择的时候，你 可以扔给他一张价目表并告诉他说，“你爱登不登”。但是今天，这招已经不管用了。

I think the newspaper industry truly still doesn’t understand that it is in a business with customers, and the business must reflect the needs and demands of the customer. And to the extent that we don’t do that, we will disappear.
我认为，今天的报业真的还是不理解自己其实是在跟客户做生意，而这生意必须要考虑到客户的需求。否则，我们就玩完了。

JOANNE: So what is the new model? Have you figured that out yet, or are you cutting your way to…?
Jonne：那么，新的模式是什么呢？你是否已经弄明白了，或者你也在艰难寻找的路上…..?

SAM: I think the answer is we are testing and testing and changing. We’ve reformatted all eight newspapers. Among other things, we shrunk the size of the newspapers by an inch. And then we responded to our customers. Our customers have an enormous interest in our newspaper on Sunday; have almost no interest on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday; Thursday and Friday, they’re more interested; and Saturday might as well be in the desert. So we did something that was really extraordinary. It kind of came out of Econ 101. We looked at demand and we said, “Gee, we ought to reduce supply when demand is weak”—a very shocking concept, particularly for the newspaper industry. So, we’ve now done that across all of our newspapers.

Sam：我想，我们正在不断地试验和调整试图找出答案。我们重新规划了旗下的全部8家报纸。此外，我们还把报纸 的规格缩减了一英寸。同时我们还对客户需求做出回应。客户对我们的周末版很有兴趣，对周一、周二、周三刊兴趣索然，对周四、周五刊比较感兴趣，对周六刊避 之不及。于是，我们对此做了相应的调整。这有点儿像是Econ 101【译者注：经济101管理办法】的法子。我们接受了这些要求并表示，“嗯，在需求减弱的时候我们得减少供应”——这是一种有点让人吃惊的观念，特且 是在报业。现在我们已经在旗下所有报纸中推行。

We did not have a single salesperson on commission. In other words, every single newspaper had a cadre of salaried salesman.Now, you know, I’m just a businessman, but I’ve never seen any kind of a sales force that was effective if, in fact, they had no incentives. Now, part of the reason is that historically, because it was a monopoly, newspapers heavily depended, and still do, on national advertising, where the salesman is an order taker. When the guy from Macy’s calls and says, “We want six pages,” you don’t say to him, “Well, how about nine.” You just say, “Yes, sir. Send me the check and we’re on.” But, among other things, what that led to was a massive abdication of potential advertisers within the local markets using zones,so that, in effect, the zone belongs to the salesman. Nobody else can go in there. Even if nobody has bought anything in that zone for 20 years, it’s still his territory.

我们连一个靠抽取佣金拿提成的销售员都没有。换言之，我们每一家报纸都有一支付给薪水的骨干销售队伍。你知道，我只是一个生意人，我从没见到过有任 何销售人员能够在没有没有激励措施的情况下积极高效地工作。部分的原因在于，报纸是垄断的，而且自有史以来、到目前也一直都极大地倚重于全国性广告，报纸 销售人员等于是报纸的订购者。当一名来自梅西公司的客户打电话来说，“我们想要6份报纸”。你不会跟他说，“拿9份吧。”你一般回答说，“好的，先生。请 给我付款，我们将为您送到。”如果你不去主动争取对方多订购你的报纸，在某些层面上这会导致来自当地市场的潜在广告客户流失，而这些市场是属于这些当地销 售人员的地盘。此后再也没有谁能够凭空打入这一市场。甚至即使在20年里那一区域再没有人来买报纸，在以后的报纸发售中，这也仍是属于他的地盘。

I mean, this is nutty stuff. And, in effect, what we’re trying to do is address the newspaper business like a business.
我的意思是，这一发行模式是很牢固的。事实上，我们正在试图把报纸销售当作一门生意在经营。

As you and I talked about earlier, somebody has to address the home-delivery question. Right now, if you go across the street and you buy a newspaper from a vendor, you will pay 50 cents. But if you get it home-delivered, which costs the company 10 times as much, you pay 30 cents. I don’t understand. Okay? I mean, you try and make those numbers work, and it don’t make any sense.

像我和你早些时候所谈到的，一些人已经抱怨过家庭投递的问题。现在，如果你穿过街道从小贩手里买一份报纸大约需要50每份，但如果你是家庭订阅的 话，每份的价格是30美分，而报社的实际支出将十倍于此。我没法理解，好不好？我的意思是，你尽量提高订阅量，但却没有任何意义。

JOANNE: So, all the things you’re talking about are somewhat around the periphery. They’re all working within the structure of the conventional newspaper, and if you really need to blow up the business model and start from scratch, what might that model be? We saw the Christian Science Monitor just said they’re doing away with the print edition and only going to the Web. Do you see something that radical, or is there some other way of looking at this?

Jonee：呃，现在你谈到的都是一些报纸的外围话题。他们都是围绕着报纸约定俗成的模式在运转，如果你真的想要从头开始一种全新的商业模式，那么它将是怎样？基督教科学箴言报前不久称他们正准备放弃印刷版投身网络版。你认为此举是否激进，或者是一种可以接受的方式？

SAM: Well, if you want to play futuristic—and I don’t know how big an f on the word futuristic—you can make a case that the world in the future is all Kindles, and you’ll send out an email to everybody to their Kindle, and that’s how they’re going to get their newspaper every morning. That’s a real possibility at sometime in the future.

SAM: 好的，如果你想玩新潮的话——我不知道F【laohuang注：此处F应该代表False，英文中用T和 F表示对与错的判断】在新潮的（futuristic）这个单词中占到多大的比重——你可以设想这一情形，未来全世界都是Kindle【laohuang 注：Amazon于2007年11月发布的一种名为“点燃”（Kindle）的便携式阅览器，它能够从互联网上下载数字格式的图书，报纸与杂志。零售价大 约是399美元】，你可以给每一个人的Kindle上发送电子邮件，这也成为他们每天获取报纸的方式。未来这一情况极有可能发生。

But most importantly I think the newspaper has to acknowledge the reality of the world we’re in. When I grew up—and I hate to tell you I’m that old—but when I grew up, the definition of “breaking news” was your front door. So you run…you go up in the morning, you open up the front door, you see what happened. Okay? Well, that’s not the case anymore. Now, you hit your homepage, now you turn on CNN, or some other news-TV program, and that’s how you find out what the latest news is.

但是我想最重要的一点是，目前报纸必须认清楚当下的现实。当我长大成人——我可真不喜欢告诉你们，我已经老了——但是当我长大成人的时候，“爆炸性 新闻” 来自于你的家门口。你每天早上起床来，冲到门口，打开大门，然后你在报箱取出报纸得知发生了哪些事情。那么，如今事情已经不是这样了。现在你点开你的主 页，你打开CNN，或者其他的电视节目——这才是现在你获知新闻的方式。

So then the question becomes: Is there a role for newspapers? And I think the answer is yes, there’s a role for newspapers,providing the newspapers understand what that role is and are able to adjust to it. So, for example, most of my newspapers do not have a comparative advantage on international news. I’m not going to compete with Bloomberg or Reuters to, in effect,secure the latest international news. On the other hand, I’ve got staff and people and knowledge locally that nobody else has. So…and when you do focus groups with people and you ask them, “What do you want from your newspaper?” they tell you,”local, local, local.” And they say it over and over again, “I want to know what’s going on locally because that’s the onlything I can’t find from 10 other sources.”

接下来的问题是：报纸还有自己的位置吗？我认为答案是肯定的，倘若报纸能够理解自己的角色是什么并能够适应该角色的耍，那么报纸仍将有自己的舞台。 比如，我的大部分报纸在国际新闻方面并不具备比较优势，我并不打算和彭博社或者路透社去竞争有效、可靠的最新国际新闻。另一方面，我拥有其他家媒体都不可 能具备的本土职员、读者和知识。所以，如果你举行焦点座谈会并跟参与调查者提问，“你想从你的报纸上获得什么？”然后他们会告诉你，“本土新闻，本土新 闻，还是本土新闻。”他们会反复说明，“我想要知道本地发生了什么，因为只有这些东西才是我从其他10家另外的消息来源无法获知的。”

【Part 1】早知今日，会有当初的收购吗？

EMCEE: Thank you, gentlemen. And now Sam Zell will be in a conversation with Joanne Lipman.
主持人：谢谢，各位绅士们！下面我们有请Sam Zell和Joanne Lipman开始对话。

JOANNE LIPMAN: All right. Welcome, Sam Zell. It’s great to have you here. Thanks very much. You barely need introducing, but a quick recap. Sam, of course, made his reputation buying up distressed real estate, earning himself the nickname, “The Grave Dancer.” In his more recent incarnation as a media mogul, that nickname might be more apt than ever. Last year, Sam, of course, bought the Tribune Company, which owns newspapers and local television stations, for $13 billion. Since then, the newspaper industry, as we all know, has been in a free fall, and Tribune properties, which include the L.A. Times, the Chicago Tribune, the Baltimore Sun, and the Orlando Sentinel, have also been in a free fall, along with the rest of the industry. And so it’s apropos that we talk with Sam today. And everybody here wants to know the same thing, which is: If you knew then what you know now, would you have made this deal?
JOANNE LIPMAN: 好，欢迎Sam Zell。很高兴今天你能来到这里。非常感谢。你都不需要我再多做介绍了，当然，Sam在房地产行业中树立了自己的名声和威望，并赢得了“坟墓舞者”这一 雅号。现在他转身成为媒体巨头，也许这一雅号用来形容现在的Sam更为贴切。去年，Sam以13亿美元的价格收购了Tribune公司——该公司旗下拥有 好几家报纸和地方电视台。正如我们所知，从那以后，报业开始了自由落体运动，Tribune旗下包括洛杉矶时报、芝加哥论坛报、巴尔的摩太阳报、奥兰多哨 兵报在内的报纸及其他产业也同样难以幸免。因此这也是为何今天我们和Sam在这里进行探讨。此刻这儿的每一个人都想知道的同一件事情，就是：早知有今天的 局面，当初你还会做这一笔收购吗？

SAM ZELL: Well, obviously, the newspaper business and advertising, generally, has gone off a cliff. And it didn’t go off a cliff in October or September. It went off the cliff in January. When we looked at the historical numbers, we saw an average erosion of about 3 percent. At the time we underwrote the transaction, we used a 6 percent erosion.  And the last time I checked, 19 percent erosion is bigger than 6.
Sam Sell：好的，很显然，大多数报纸的行情和广告都已经掉下了悬崖。而且，它不是在今年10月或者9月才开始 掉的，而是在今年1月便已经开始。回看媒体过往历史数据，我们看到下降的速度大概是3%，我们在确定财务细目的时候，我们使用的数字是6%，而在我最近一 次的数据核对中，我发现这个数字是19%，比 6%要多得多。

JOANNE: Yeah.
Jonne:的确。

SAM: And so it’s just a whole new ballgame. Just like if you asked the guy would you have stepped on the tracks if you’d known the train was coming, the answer is no. But once the train is here, you’ve got to deal with it.
Sam：所以，情况完全不一样了。就像是你问一个人，如果知道明火车就要开过来了是否还会走在铁轨上一样，答案当然是No。而一旦火车已然在这里了，你就不得不去面对它。

JOANNE: Right. Would you actually have gone into the newspaper industry, or would you simply have wanted to adjust the price accordingly?
Jonne：没错。那么你是否会因此深入报业，或者你仅仅只是想要相应地保住当初收购时候的价值而已？

SAM: I don’t think that I ever woke up in the morning and said, “I want to own a newspaper.” I think that the attraction to the Tribune deal was the ability to put the deal together, to apply a business patina to what has historically been a nonbusiness business, and ultimately test the thesis as to whether or not there is a place for the newspaper in the 21st century.
Sam ：我并不是在某个早晨醒来忽然一拍脑袋说，“我想要拥有一份报纸”。我想我当初之所以看中了Tribune这笔交易，很重要原因是，给一直以来作为一项非商业性目的的事业加上商业色彩，并最终来检验报纸在21世纪能否保有一席之地，这两者可以在这一桩买卖中结合起来。

(未完待续)