MKE TO FOLD
Special to the Readers of Milwaukeeworld.com
By Michael Horne
MKE, the weekly urban lifestyle publication of Journal Communications, Inc., has folded, according to a staff memo distributed today, Wednesday, June 11th, 2008. Apparently it was literally bleeding red ink.
The tabloid, launched in 2004, never really took hold in the community. Although it was attractive enough, it was yet little but fluff. Although the Journal company has launched or purchased news outlets in suburban communities, it never permitted the writers of MKE to cover the news in the downtown - east side - near south side - Riverwest and Harambee communities, the only locations in the metro area that the company did not serve with a community newspaper. What a missed opportunity, especially when upstart publications like Riverwest Currents and the Bay View Compass put its efforts to shame. Its relentless focus on a youthful demographic did not appeal to advertisers, and did not satisfy members of the demographic. There is little about the Journal that is able to comprehend hip, let alone emulate or inspire it. MKE was pretty darn lame, and I'm surprised it made it this long. This will not be the last newspaper to go out of business.
| Milwaukee Journal Sentinel |
To: MKE Team
From: Rick Groth
CC: JS Publishing Managers
Date: June 11, 2008
Re: MKE Changes
MKE and MKEonline will cease production effective July 10. MKE launched with plenty of fanfare in 2004. It set a new standard for a major Journal Sentinel product launch thanks to the efforts of its staff, its sales teams, and support from marketing, production and circulation.
It comes as no surprise to those closest to the product that MKE struggled to gain advertising revenue. Ad revenue peaked in 2006, and trended down consistently since then. The softened advertising climate of this year and rising newsprint prices have placed additional focus on it. Websites (developed by Journal and others) have competed for ad dollars and it is progressively more difficult to make the case for a free weekly targeted to younger adults with advertisers – especially when the same advertisers make the Journal Sentinel their primary ad buy.
Every firm needs to be constantly questioning how it deploys resources as it goes about serving its market and achieving its business plan. We realize that our younger adult market is served first and best by the Journal Sentinel and JS Online, but also by our other specialty publications and websites.
The MKE team can be proud of a number of journalistic and reader successes. A word of thanks and gratitude must be extended to the dedicated team members who created this lively, well-designed, upstart weekly addition to the Milwaukee marketplace. All MKE employees will be encouraged to apply for any Journal Sentinel openings. Those unable to find a position will be offered a transition package.
Please let me know if you have any questions.Our Journal Sentinel sales management team will meet soon with MKE advertisers. We want to help them identify advertising opportunities in other Journal Sentinel properties to retain and perhaps receive additional exposure in the Milwaukee market. MKEonline users will be redirected to an appropriate JSonline page after the final issue. Our Specialty Publications group will continue to work to build our group of titles, and expand the market reach of Aqui Milwaukee, MetroParent, Milwaukee Home & Fine Living, Packer Plus and Wisconsin Trails.
posted by Michael Horne @ 11:37 AM
9 comments
links to this post
9 Comments:
Sonya has left a new comment on your post "MKE FOLDS":
As a former editor at MKE (ex Jan. 2008), I think your mean little characterization of the publication is off-base -- MKE has had plenty of good, locally oriented news/feature offerings and employed some interesting new ways of telling stories and doing photos and design that other publications couldn't match. It also has done a great job of focusing on people in Milwaukee, including people and events in the very neighborhoods you list. Your broad-brush dismissal of an entire 3 1/2 years of publication is simplistic and inaccurate.
Sorry Sonya,
Michael's characterization was neither mean nor off-base. The sole reason for MKE's existence was the attempt by Journal Communications to siphon ad dollars away from The Shepherd Express, and to a lesser extent, The Onion. MKE never had appeal with the alternative press audience because their sole (and rather transparent) mission was to generate revenue, not serve the market. Please find me one MJS vet who wasn't embarrassed by that rag.
I shall join the Geek Chorus on "The sole reason for MKE's existence was the attempt by Journal Communications to siphon ad dollars away from The Shepherd Express" - I heard that from more than one source at the time. (Keep in mine Louis and the salesmen like Corny or Mark state that the purpose of the paper is to provide enough content to sell ads.)
At the time I remember wishing the MKE'ers I knew 'good luck' and stopped reading the paper in 2005 as I was not finding anything interesting in said paper.
You are certainly entitled to your opinion, but Nah. It wasn't to siphon ad dollars from other pubs (though that may have been the result). It was simply to try to attract what was perceived as an untapped audience for the Journal Sentinel (25-35-year-olds) with a locally focused features- and event-oriented publication. If you're familiar with trends in media country-wide, many daily papers launched similar publications geared towards engaging younger readers who tended to not read newspapers (and in a way that was intentionally not like the alt-weekly rags). And, as a business, of course the goal was to make money by selling ads. That's how businesses, specifically journalism businesses, pay their bills.
When I was editor at MKE, I had fairly regular e-mails coming in from the MJS vets you refer to, complimenting reporters or editors on various stories. Reporters I worked with there were some of the best I know. They've won multiple awards locally and nationally, including Sarah Hoye's recent National Association of Black Journalist's award for Emerging Journalist of the Year.
I've found that most people who like to put on the journalistic holier-than-thou attitude, while dismissing MKE out of hand as pure fluff and nothing else, never really spent any time reading it.
Sonya,
Typical arrogance. If I criticize MKE and Journal Communications, it must be because I am not familiar with media trends. If I don't like the publication, it's because I never read it. What hogwash. MKE may have had talented team of reporters and editors, and I am truly sorry for those who will be left jobless, but the publication served no purpose, other than trying to eat someone else's lunch.
It failed despite typical Journal BS deep pocket tactics; buying distribution points to push out competitors & adding a classified section to hide lack of content, to name just two. Despite several redesigns it never attracted the audience it was after, and therefore advertisers, because it never understood the market it purported to serve. Main stream is main stream, alternative is alternative and never the twain shall meet. BTW, the letters to the editor section is much improved.
I was going to say something, but it's not really worth the time and energy to argue. Especially when that time and energy is much better spent elsewhere right now. Think whatever you want. It doesn't matter now, anyway.
Sonya, I am incredibly proud to have worked with you.
Just a quick follow-up for Mr. Anonymous, which I more eloquently explained in a comment that Michael tells me must've somehow disappeared into the ether...
Asserting that MKE's only purpose was to eat someone else's lunch implies that you believe Milwaukee is better off with fewer, not more, media options. That's an odd argument. If you hated the publication, fine. Many people didn't, but arguing against a business on the grounds that is a business is nonsensical.
Does any publication have an inherent right to the money of its advertisers so much so that it is wrong for any new publication to start up because it might infringe on the established publication's income? Of course not!
Unless you're an employee or owner of one of those other publications with your own business interests to protect, how do you support such an opinion? Competition and diversity in media is generally seen as a good thing by most media consumers.
Sonya, as part of the original team of people working on what the JS called the "U-35" project, and now an employee of the Shepherd Express, there's some truth in what you say, but maybe not the whole truth.
I always welcomed MKE as a competitor and would have been happy for it to continue. I agree with you that more voices are always better than fewer.
However, to say that MKE was anything more than an attempt to grow ad dollars is simply not true. I sat in the meetings and I heard what was said both before and after the current publisher arrived. It was not about growing a new audience.
I am sad to see MKE go. MKE is an entertaining magazine, fun and useful. I found out about fun shops and bars in MKE and about cool people. It has no pretention or negativity-- instead of yet another whiny paper bitching about the Marquette interchange or the governor or whatever, MKE had stories about people that make this an interesting place to live. I moved here just a couple of years ago and pick MKE up as often as I pick up The Onion (in which I read Savage Love & News in Brief and then promptly pitch into a recycling bin).
I am not certain where all this meanspiritedness is coming from. Clearly, our economy is totally screwed, and a big business is losing money-- boo hoo, i know, but people have lost their jobs. If you think yours is safe, you're probably wrong. I hope you don't get canned, but celebrating a society's collective loss is crap.
Post a Comment
Links to this post:
Create a Link
<< Home