Detroit’s two daily newspapers are leaning toward cutting home delivery to three days a week, the Wall Street Journal reported on Friday.
The Journal, quoting a person on its Web site whom it didn’t name, said a final decision has not been made. But the newspaper says it’s the “leading scenario” due to be announced tomorrow at the Detroit Free Press and the Detroit News.
The papers have separate newsrooms but their business operations are combined under the Detroit Media Partnership.
Leland Bassett, a spokesman for the partnership, said he could neither confirm nor deny the report.
“We do expect to announce a new, more dynamic business model, and the focus is on maintaining and strengthening two very strong and independent newspaper voices,” he said.
The Detroit market would be the largest in the US to lose seven-day home delivery if the strategy is adopted, said Rick Edmonds, a media analyst at The Poynter Institute, a journalism think tank in St. Petersburg, Florida.
“I think doing nothing is really not an option,” said Edmonds, noting the industry-wide revenue slide.
But there are risks, he said, especially if staffs are cut and loyal print readers find that a redesigned paper is just a “shell” of the old version.
“For some people, the newspaper is part of their routine,” Edmonds. “Those folks are not going to be happy if it doesn’t come on Monday and Tuesday.”
The Journal said home delivery would be limited to Thursday, Friday and Sunday, with an “abbreviated” print edition available at newsstands on other days. Readers would also be directed to the papers’ Web sites.
The changes likely would mean major job cuts, the Journal said.
The Free Press, owned by Gannett Co, had a daily circulation of 314,554 at the end of March; 618,324 on Sunday. The News owned by MediaNews Group Inc, had daily circulation of 178,280. It does not publish a print edition on Sunday.
Bassett said the papers recognize the “tremendous importance of digital communication and finding ways to better deliver news and information to people in ways that are most convenient to them.”
DECOUPLING? In a sign of deeper US-China technology decoupling, Apple has held initial talks about using Baidu’s generative AI technology in its iPhones, the Wall Street Journal said China has introduced guidelines to phase out US microprocessors from Intel Corp and Advanced Micro Devices Inc (AMD) from government PCs and servers, the Financial Times reported yesterday. The procurement guidance also seeks to sideline Microsoft Corp’s Windows operating system and foreign-made database software in favor of domestic options, the report said. Chinese officials have begun following the guidelines, which were unveiled in December last year, the report said. They order government agencies above the township level to include criteria requiring “safe and reliable” processors and operating systems when making purchases, the newspaper said. The US has been aiming to boost domestic semiconductor
Nvidia Corp earned its US$2.2 trillion market cap by producing artificial intelligence (AI) chips that have become the lifeblood powering the new era of generative AI developers from start-ups to Microsoft Corp, OpenAI and Google parent Alphabet Inc. Almost as important to its hardware is the company’s nearly 20 years’ worth of computer code, which helps make competition with the company nearly impossible. More than 4 million global developers rely on Nvidia’s CUDA software platform to build AI and other apps. Now a coalition of tech companies that includes Qualcomm Inc, Google and Intel Corp plans to loosen Nvidia’s chokehold by going
ENERGY IMPACT: The electricity rate hike is expected to add about NT$4 billion to TSMC’s electricity bill a year and cut its annual earnings per share by about NT$0.154 Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) has left its long-term gross margin target unchanged despite the government deciding on Friday to raise electricity rates. One of the heaviest power consuming manufacturers in Taiwan, TSMC said it always respects the government’s energy policy and would continue to operate its fabs by making efforts in energy conservation. The chipmaker said it has left a long-term goal of more than 53 percent in gross margin unchanged. The Ministry of Economic Affairs concluded a power rate evaluation meeting on Friday, announcing electricity tariffs would go up by 11 percent on average to about NT$3.4518 per kilowatt-hour (kWh)
OPENING ADDRESS: The CEO is to give a speech on the future of high-performance computing and artificial intelligence at the trade show’s opening on June 3, TAITRA said Advanced Micro Devices Inc (AMD) chairperson and chief executive officer Lisa Su (蘇姿丰) is to deliver the opening keynote speech at Computex Taipei this year, the event’s organizer said in a statement yesterday. Su is to give a speech on the future of high-performance computing (HPC) in the artificial intelligence (AI) era to open Computex, one of the world’s largest computer and technology trade events, at 9:30am on June 3, the Taiwan External Trade Development Council (TAITRA) said. Su is to explore how AMD and the company’s strategic technology partners are pushing the limits of AI and HPC, from data centers to