Tulsa World lays off 28 employees

[Conan71]

quote:Originally posted by sgrizzle

I heard that the Lortons were heavily invested into buying another newspaper earlier this year (likely why they cut back in March) and were close to completing the sale when the economy tanked. Now they can't secure the financing and can't complete the sale which hurt them.

Also, they had upped the individual paper cost and upped the pay to their box route carriers (retail stores and vending machines) in response to gas prices, then gas prices subsided. That had to also hurt.

As far as less advertising, that is untrue. There were more end-of-year sales ads this year than previous years. They may be predicting less advertising early in '09 but the first part of the year is always low on advertising revenue for papers.

Can't get financing???

They are always eager to finance any new county and city projects via the Lorton family finance arm.

Media in general is struggling, daily print is dying a slow death (maybe not that slow anymore, just agonizing).

[TheArtist]

I wonder if their apparent financial situation will have any effect on getting the new Music/pac thing built at TU? If I recall correctly, I think the Lortons were a major donor for that.

[patric]

The Whirld's lawsuit reminds me of the music industry blaming their falling sales on kids copying CD's in their dorm rooms to share with friends, instead of looking at their own failed business models.

If Lorton starts taking from the RIAA playbook, he may alienate the remaining readers that hadnt yet formed an opinion.

[joiei]

It looks like the Dallas Morning News is laying off.  To the tune of 500 jobs plus no more free parking.  I don't think they would make a good replacement for the Tulsa World.  The DMN only cares about the rich parts of Dallas.  Rumors are that the Star Telegram will also be laying off staff.