Tags: 媒体
【Part 5】尾巴
JOANNE: Got it. All right, we’ve got a couple of minutes for questions from the audience. Right over here?
JOANNE:嗯，我知道了。现在，我们这里有一些时间留给观众提问。右边那一位？
QUESTION FROM THE AUDIENCE: Hi, Jim Jarvis. Mr. Zell, first, I may speak for others here when I say I wish you would do this more often and talk publicly more often. It’s great fun. I’m a journalist, and I got attacked in Salon this morning…or Slate this morning—I get them confused—for holding journalists responsible for the fate of journalists. Is it possible, do you think, to change the culture of journalism? What’s the major changes that need to be made? Are you making any progress in changing that culture, and, if so, how?
观众提问：嗨，我是Jim Jarvis。Zell先生，首先请允许我代表在场的其他人以及我自己说，希望你能够经常做一些公众对话。这非常棒。我是一名记者，今早我在沙龙或者Slate受到了攻击——我让他们很困惑——因为我坚持新闻从业者要对新闻业的未来命运负责。你认为改变新闻业的文化是否可能？新闻业所需要的主要变革是什么？你是否有在试图改变新闻业的文化？如果有的话，你是如何来改变的？
SAM: I’m on the record as saying that, you know, I think that part of the problems with the newspaper industry revolve around the fact that the newsrooms have basically never recovered from Watergate, and everybody wants to be Woodward and Bernstein, and that’s the definition of success. Obviously, the newspaper business must be a great deal more than that. So I think we are making progress. I think we are changing the paradigms, many of which were just unwritten rules that we don’t put ads on the front page. “Why not?” “Well, because we’ve never put ads on the front page.” “Well, that’s a good reason not to.” You know, “Well, what do you mean you want to put a spadia on the newspaper?” ‘Well, somebody is willing to pay us $100,000 for one day for a spadia on the newspaper.” “I know, but it will destroy the integrity of the front page.” I said, “For $100,000, you know, who’s kidding who? What business are we in?”
要知道，我现在说的都被记录在案哈，我认为报业的部分问题还纠结于这样一个事实——编辑部还沉浸在水门事件的晕眩中没有恢复过来，每一个人都想成为伍德沃德（Woodward） 和伯恩斯（Bernstein），而这就是对所谓成功的定义。显然，报业所涵盖的应该要比这多得多。所以我认为我们正在进步，我们正在改变一些范例，其中很多是不成文的规定，譬如说我们从不再头版登广告。“为什么不呢？”“呃，因为我
们从来没有在头版登过广告。”“呃，那时一个很好的理由。”你知道，“呃，你想在报纸上登一个spadia折页广告，你什么意思？”【译者注：spadia，一种折页广告，是不完整的半页版面,部分包裹在一叠报纸的折页处。】“嗯，有人想花十万美元在我们报纸上登一次spadia折页广告。”“我知道，但是这会破坏报纸头版的完整性。”我说，“为了十万美元，你知道，谁在诱拐谁呢？我们在做一桩什么样的生意啊？”
I remember one of the first things that I noticed when I took over the Tribune was that, in effect, ChicagoTribune.com, which was our website, was in gray lettering, with the hope, maybe, that nobody would notice it. I scratched my head and I said,”This is supposed to be the future. It needs to be on the front page of the newspaper in bright-red letters because you want everybody in the world to connect to the concept of it and go from there.”
我还记得刚收购Tribune后，发生有这么一件事情。我们在报纸上印了我们网站的地址ChicagoTribune.com，用的全是灰色字体，也许是希望没有人能注意到它？我看后后搔搔头皮说，“网站是我们未来的指望，它需要在报纸头版用大红的字体标注出来，因为你得让全世界每一个人都对它有印象，脑子有有这样一个概念，并去访问它。”
And the last thing I’d say to you, which is a much bigger question—86 percent of the cost of the newspaper business is print, paper, distribution, and promotion. That’s untenable long-term and…short-term. And I think when it’s all said and done, the future must attack this inherent problem, which, among other things, if you attack the problem and solve it, you then make newspapers a much more economic advertising venue. Right now, that infrastructure sets the floor. That makes newspapers uncompetitive.
最后我还想跟你说一件事，这涉及到一个大得多的问题哈！报纸86%的开支都被用于印刷、纸张、发行和推广，这样是无法长期支持下去…..短期。当所有人都在讨论并着手解决报纸难题的时候，必须得击中报纸这一与生俱来的要害，一旦你着手处理并解决了它，那么你将使报纸成为一个更经济的广告载体。眼下，报纸的这一基本结构把自己死死地钉在了地上，使得它缺乏竞争力。
JOANNE: I think we have time for one more question…in the back there.
JOANNE:我们还有一个问题的时间，好，后面那一位。
QUESTION FROM THE AUDIENCE: Richard Bilotti, GSO Capital. I would submit that today the Tribune is truly a television company that happens to sell newspapers. Your television assets probably significantly…in any environment will be significantly worth more than your newspaper assets for the next couple of years. What are the essential changes that you need to make to the television business that you own, if any, given that we’re in the beginnings of a very severe downturn in advertising there, as well?
观众提问：我是来自GSO公司的Richard Bilotti。我认为Tribune公司其实是一家电视公司，顺便也出报纸而已。你们的电视资产很引人瞩目……在接下来几年里，无论情势如何发展，都会比你们的报纸资产要更值钱。假如说我们正处在一个非常严峻的广告下滑时期，你需要给旗下电视做哪些实质性的调整？
SAM: Well, in the case of the Tribune, you’re right that we have 23 TV stations and one superstation and one radio station.Whenever you talk about TV as it relates to the Tribune you have to start with the superstation. We have one of two superstations. Our superstation earns $80 million a year. The other superstation earns $480 million a year. We hit 75 million homes. I think they hit 90. So, obviously, this is a dormant asset that needs desperately to be addressed, which is, frankly,the first place we went to work.
就Tribune目前的状况而言，你所言极是。我们拥有23家电视台和1家特大功率电台和一个广播台。无论何时何地谈及Tribune的电视业务，这个特大功率电台都是不得不首先提到的话题。我们是两大特大功率电台之一。我们这个电台每年收入约8000万美元，而另一家则是4.8亿美元。我们收入中的750万美元来自国内。我认为它们可以达到900万。所以，显然这是一个有待开掘的沉睡资产。坦白地说，这也是我们开始行动的第一步。
We also basically doubled the amount of news that all of our TV stations do, because that news is 100 percent owned by the local station, is an enormously successful revenue producer, and is very local targeted. So that’s two.
同时我们所有的电视台都把播出的新闻总数翻了一倍，因为这些新闻百分百归本地电视台所有，直接面对本土传播，这是一个非常成功、非常了不起的收入制造者。这是我要说的两点。
And then, of course, we also put all the salesmen on commission and did other irrational things like that.
然后，我们所有的销售人员也开始有所动作。当然，我们还有一些其他类似的非同寻常的举措。
But net-net, we’re very, very aware of the TV role, and we’re very aware of what we need to make it better, and we’ve brought in a lot of extraordinary people, who are beginning to make a measurable difference.
但是作为网对网传播，我们也非常清楚电视的角色，清楚我们需要做得更好，我们引进了许多特别的人才，他们正在做一些看得见的改变。
JOANNE: That’s all we have time for. I want to thank Sam Zell.
JOANNE：由于时间的关系，今天我们到此为止，谢谢Sam Zell。
SAM: Thank you. Glad to.
SAM: 谢谢你。今儿个很高兴。
（完）