NY Times joins the share table cull

Posted by Jeffrey Blyth on 14 March 2006 at 14:40
Tags: Associated Press, Journalism, United States

Thee New York Times is joining papers that are cutting back on their stock market pages. Starting 1 April, the paper will drop its Monday-to-Friday listing of share prices - and reduce the number of stocks listed from several thousand to a few hundred.

Instead the prices will be available on a new web site. The cutback is expected to save the paper at least $10 million a year in newsprint and editorial costs.

The Los Angeles Times is making similar cuts to the share price listings beginning today and other papers in the US that have eliminated stock listings lately include the Chicago Tribune, Newsday, the Denver Post and the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Others now expected to follow the New York Times.

The trend is expected to mostly hurt the Associated Press, which for years has provided America’s 900 or more papers with its daily stock tables.

Cutting the stock price agate has been a widely-discussed option in American newspapers for some time. Those in favour of cutting share price tables note that they are of interest primarily to a small number of older, affluent readers, and they can be displayed in a much more detailed and timely manner online.

Tags: Associated Press, Journalism, United States