The Battle of Bonita

But one thing all agree upon is that Bonita is a valuable market, well worth the battle.

Legris is clear on what it will take for either paper to win. "A consistent effort," she says. "It can't be something that is started and then stopped."

Whichever paper wins in Bonita will find itself the stronger paper, in a better position to plot its own future and go wherever it wants.

Every War Has A Home Front

Both The News Press and Naples Daily News come from distinguished family backgrounds. Since it is a business axiom that the competitor with the most resources -- the deepest pockets --most often wins, it is relevant to look at who is keeping each paper's home fires burning.

Gannett

The parent company of The News-Press is Gannett, the largest newspaper publisher in the United States with 74 newspapers and more than 6.7 million paid daily subscribers. USA TODAY is perhaps Gannett's best known holding; it accounts for 2.2 million of its total circulation. It also publishes USA WEEKEND to 21 million subscribers in 564 papers of varied ownership.

Gannett's annual revenue is more than $5.1 billion and comes from 21 television stations covering 17 percent of the US and cable television systems in major U.S. cities. Other revenue producers include Gannett News Service; Gannett TeleMarketing, Inc.; Gannett New Business and Product Development; Gannett Direct Marketing Services; Gannett Offset, a commercial printing operation; Gannett Media Technologies International; Gannett Retail Advertising Group; USATODAY.com.

Gannett was founded in 1906, was incorporated in 1923 and was first listed on the New York Stock Exchange in 1969. It employs more than 45,000 people.

Gannett, in 1999, acquired Newsquest plc. the largest regional newspaper publisher in England, and the publisher of Berrow's Worcester Journal, the oldest continually published paper in the world.

source: www.gannett.com

E.W. Scripps

The E.W. Scripps Company, America's eighth largest newspaper publisher, is the parent corporation of Naples Daily News and 18 other daily papers. Scripps's papers dot the landscape between Bremerton, Wash., and Stuart, Fla., with well-known papers such as Memphis's Commercial Appeal and Denver's Rocky Mountain News.

It's annual revenue of about $1.4 billion is split between these 19 newspapers (60%), nine broadcast television stations and three networks (23%), category television producers such as Home & Garden Television and The Food Network (10%), and licensing and other media (7%). It employs about 8400 full time people and 2700 part-timers. Scripps boasts 31 revenue producing websites.

Scripps was founded in 1878 in Cleveland, Ohio, and has grown to provide news, views and ads to 1.4 million subscribers daily and 1.6 million on Sunday. It owns its own news service, Scripps-Howard, and its own features and comics syndicate, United Media.

Scripps is not afraid to grow by acquisition. It bought Harte-Hanks Communication, a seven paper chain, in 1997.

Source: www.scripps.com

The War of The Web

If the best indicator of the immediate future is the immediate past, then the best indicator of how well the Naples Daily News and The News-Press each will pursue new markets is how well each has pursued them in the past. The most recent new market is cyberspace, and there is significant difference in the results each paper can boast. Here, we have viewed the two websites on Jan. 18 of this year.

The Daily News' website, www.NaplesNews.com, is active, clean and easy to navigate. It is updated daily, around 3 a.m., and reads very much like the hard copy version. It sports an index, headlines with lead paragraphs and links to the complete stories. On the right side of the page is a column of one-inch ads, often animated, that tease readers to click on them, whereupon they are taken to a site with a more complete pitch for whatever product or politician is being sold.

Each story has a hyperlink entitled "e-mail this story to a friend" which is somewhat misleading. When clicked, the story itself is not e-mailed; rather, the site address is sent as a hyperlink embedded in the e-mail. While slightly inconvenient to the recipient, this approach is a benefit for the Daily News' advertisers who have yet another reader exposed to their messages.

The extras are nice, too. The Daily News' online archive allows you to search all of the stories for the past several months by topic. If you are shopping for a particular item, you can request that all of the Daily News's classified ads matching your criteria be sent to your e-mail address. There are links to a live Naples Bay web camera, and you can listen to a live Naples police scanner.

The News-Press website, www.SouthwestFloridaonline.com, on the other hand, does not seem to accomplish the same purpose. When visited recently, the same three teasers (headlined "Todays's [sic] stories...") that made up the home page appeared two days in a row, promising updated, full stories by 10 a.m., an unusual time for a morning paper to deliver the news. In any event, no update had appeared by afternoon.

Although there is a link to archives, when clicked, you are told that no online searches are possible. When the classifieds link is clicked, you are told "Sorry, the document does not exist."

At cyber-publishing's current level of utilization, no newspaper will live or die by the effectiveness of its respective web offering. However, Bonita Bay Properties recently reported that it had sold its first $1 million home over the Internet, with no other interaction with the buyer. It and others surely hope to sell more.

Advertisers choosing to cast their lots with one or the other regional newspapers to sell houses or tourism-based products will more and more often include web reach in their decisions.