Get rid of the sports department.

Oh, maybe you can keep a couple of columnists, but everybody doing stories, hard news on anything but New York sports teams, is kaput!

If I want to see who’s winning in the NFL, I go to nfl.com, not nytimes.com.  If television killed "Life" magazine, why can’t the Internet kill the "New York Times"?

It’s not about protecting your old business model, but making peace with the new world.  Lady GaGa has sold over five million digital copies of "Poker Face" in the U.S., but only two and a half million copies of her album "Fame".  What’s wrong with this picture?  Nothing!  Unless you’re looking at it backwards, trying to recapture the twentieth century in the twenty first.

Instead of figuring out how to sell more albums, how do you get people to buy this number of tracks on impulse?  That’s the question.

Just like the "New York Times" shouldn’t be trying to protect their old paper, but creating a new one, that can sustain.

Maybe you just can’t have the same overhead.  Maybe that’s the trick.  Slicing departments and getting those writers that remain to work harder for less pay.  Heretical in the journalistic world, but sometimes you’ve got to deal with reality.

Shit, I could fix the "New York Times" in a minute.

First, a complete redesign.  Steal the designer of the HuffPo immediately.  You should be able to scan the homepage of the "New York Times" in mere seconds and be able to grasp what’s going on in the world.  Doesn’t mean that the "Times" has to write every article, maybe link to someone else who does, like the HuffPo.

As for charging the way they propose…  Do you like getting pecked to death by ducks?  What, am I going to have to download an app that tells me how many articles I’ve got left each month?  (For the record, I won’t have to do that, because I pay for the physical paper, so I’m gonna get unlimited use.)

The "Times" has to remake itself for today.  Just like record labels and television networks.  TV network ratings are never going to go back up.  You’ve got to spend less on programming, or repurpose that which you do air, or both.  You’ve got no choice.

Record labels have to have fair deals, be in partnership with artists, delivering that which an individual can’t get alone.

Ever notice the Internet brings light to a situation?  Do the labels truly think they can rip off artists forever?  Shit, their misdeeds are all over the Web, and if you don’t think this will catch up with them, just ask Domino’s Pizza.

But at least Domino’s is admitting its pizza is shitty.  They reformulated it. 

"The Pizza Turnaround"

When do the record labels wipe the slate clean, admit their sins and start over?  No one wants to overpay for an album with only one desirable track.  The key is to get someone to buy more desirable tracks, one by one. Hell, GaGa has sold over 15 million digital tracks in the U.S.  Which is why her tour is selling out everywhere.  People love her.  For now, anyway.  Stop bitching about the downside, and see the upside!

Apple doesn’t even announce its tablet, and suddenly Amazon flips the deal on Kindle royalties to comport with Apple’s app world.  Yup, yesterday Amazon said publishers would get 70% of revenue instead of 30%.  Sure, there are caveats, you can read the fine print, but the point is Amazon could see the Apple juggernaut coming and adjusted.  Where’s the adjustment at the "New York Times"?

Slice superfluous departments.  Being all things to all people didn’t work for department stores, why should it work for newspapers?

Either put it all behind a pay wall like the "Wall Street Journal" and see the paper’s influence slide but its economics survive, or figure out how to make it on advertising alone.  Playing both ways is what got the music business in trouble. We can’t do good digital deals because we can’t piss off physical retail.  Meanwhile, brick and mortar stores are dropping like flies and Wal-Mart is decreasing floorspace.  Huh?

What’s going to kill the "New York Times" isn’t whether it’s free or not, or whether you can find the articles in a search engine, but independent sites with authoritative information which are aggregated on sites like the aforementioned HuffPo or are found on their own by devotees.

I follow ski racing.  I go to skiracing.com, not the "New York Times".  I used to rush to the paper first thing in the morning, now I can see the races live on universalsports.com  I used to be able to watch some on tape delay on TV, but it didn’t make financial sense for broadcasters, not enough people were interested.  But it works on the Web, in real time.  I’m happy.

Film companies have to figure out how to make their movies available everywhere on one day.  Otherwise, we’ll continue to steal.  Windows are dead.  You can cry about it, or adjust your business model.  Maybe you make less, but you don’t go bankrupt like the Tribune Company or completely out of business like the "Rocky Mountain News".

What is it with baby boomers?  They wanted to test the limits in the sixties, now they want nothing to change.  But change is happening.  Adjust or die.