“How’s the Chronicle doing?” “Are you guys going out of business?”
These are common questions lately with bad news about our industry in the spotlight. Newspapers large and small from the Rocky Mountain News to the South Idaho Press have simply ceased to exist. Others have dropped their Monday editions or gone to Web-only delivery. Financial woes at Lee Enterprises, publisher of several Montana dailies in Billings, Helena, Missoula and Butte, have rocked the industry for months.
It’s fair for people to wonder about the Chronicle. However, to paraphrase Mark Twain, the reports of our death are greatly exaggerated.
The Chronicle, in fact, is alive and holding its own. That’s not to say we didn’t go through some painful cost cutting last year, including layoffs. Thankfully, we don’t answer to Wall Street. Pioneer Newspapers, the family-owned parent company of the Chronicle and several other Northwest newspapers, is not laden with debt, an Achilles heel for many a newspaper.
The Chronicle is on firm footing. And, we’re still relevant. Just look at the coverage of Thursday’s terrible explosion downtown. Our photographers and reporters were on the scene exploring all angles. Breaking news, photo slideshows and videos were up on our Web site in minutes with updates throughout the day. Friday, Saturday and today’s papers provided unparalleled perspective and analysis.
Coverage like that is what keeps the Chronicle’s audience growing. Our print readership combined with unique online viewers is larger than ever.
That’s why we’re still effective for our advertising customers. Just ask a business like Advanced Eye Care. They recently moved into a new building, advertised in both the paper and on the Chronicle’s Web site and were flooded with customers. Or Gallatin Valley Furniture, which has seen results from the paper for more than 60 years.
We hope you’ll patronize the businesses that advertise in the Chronicle. Advertising represents 75 percent of our operating revenues so without these businesses there simply wouldn’t be a newspaper.
But we’re still around, after almost 100 years. We’re proud to employ more than 110 local people through approximately $4 million in payroll, pumped right back into the local economy. We also work with more than 100 independent contractors who deliver your paper every day. And we’re happy to give back to the community. The Chronicle donates more than $200,000 per year in dollars and advertising space to such worthy organizations as the Bozeman Library, the Red Cross, public and private schools, Eagle Mount, the Downtown Bozeman Association, the Bridger Ski Foundation, the food bank, animal shelters and many, many more.
So, it’s more or less business as usual at Bozeman’s daily newspaper. As long as you keep reading n in print or online n we’ll keep publishing.
