By RICHARD MULLINS
The Tampa Tribune

The Tampa Tribune plans to lay off 70 employees, change several sections and shift more resources to delivering news online.

“We know from research that our readers want news that is hyperlocal and useful to their daily lives,” Denise Palmer, president and publisher of the Tribune, said Tuesday. “We plan to provide more focused products to better serve changing reader and advertiser needs. At the same time, we will accelerate efforts to operate more efficiently.”

The changes are part of a plan to adjust to unfolding changes in the news market, Janet Weaver, the paper’s executive editor and vice president, told newsroom employees Tuesday.

“Florida newspapers for a time were insulated from many changes in the business that have driven other papers nationwide to make changes like this,” Weaver said. “That is no longer the case here.”

With the real estate boom beginning to fade, Florida newspapers are starting to experience trends that have been seen at papers across the nation; newsprint costs are rising and advertisers are shifting their spending online.

Executives and editors at the paper announced a series of changes to employees Tuesday.

The newspaper plans to consolidate some operations and outsource others, which will result in 70 full-time jobs being eliminated. Fewer than 10 will be cut from the 280 employees in the newsroom.

Open positions probably won’t be filled, Palmer said. The Tribune currently employs about 1,300.

The Tribune also will redirect many newsroom employees to focus more time on delivering news and other content to the paper’s online partner, TBO.com, as part of a continuing evolution, “to take those walls down,” Weaver said.

The Tribune also plans to merge several neighborhood editions in Hillsborough County with weekly newspapers owned by the Tribune’s corporate parent in the same areas.

The paper has six neighborhood sections in Hillsborough. Once those are merged with the weeklies, the newspaper will publish eight neighborhood editions in the county twice a week.

For example, readers in the South Shore area receive the Brandon edition of the Tribune three times a week and a weekly edition of the South Shore News. Once merged, they will receive two neighborhood sections a week focused exclusively on South Shore.

The company also plans changes to its Sunday and Friday newspapers. On Sunday, the Commentary and Business & Money sections will be combined. Mutual funds listings in the Business section will be reduced. On Friday, the BayLife section will be merged into the Friday Extra tabloid.

“Changes to make us more intensely local, more relevant are all useful to readers and good things,” Palmer said. “Clearly, when you start to pull pages out of the paper, there can be a bad connotation to that which the reader may have, but I hope they believe we are trying to do this in the best way that meets their needs.”

Palmer also said the newspaper will shrink in size in the fall, cutting a half-inch off each page width. That is in step with similar moves by dozens of papers nationwide.

The paper will also cease distribution in Citrus, Manatee and Hardee counties.

The changes at the Tribune follow scores of similar moves at newspapers across the country.

Time Inc., which publishes Time and People magazines, announced 300 job cuts in January. The Philadelphia Inquirer also started laying off 68 newsroom employees, a 17 percent reduction. The Boston Globe and a sister publication laid off 125 employees in January. In September, the Dallas Morning News announced 111 newsroom job cuts.

“This is a period of adjustment for the newspaper industry,” said Colby Atwood, president of newspaper consultant Borrell Associates Inc. Readership continues to move online, Atwood said, and advertising dollars are following.

“I think newspapers are going to be around a long, long time, but not with the same look they have now - smaller, and with a different role than they’ve had traditionally.”

While the Tribune circulation has remained relatively stable, Weaver said advertising revenue has fallen off “precipitously,” starting last year and continuing this year, most notably with real estate advertising.

Rather than a predictable economic cycle that happens to newspapers periodically, Weaver said she thinks there is a “fundamental shift in where advertising is going.”

Nielsen Media Research recently reported that Internet advertising rose 35 percent in 2006, while advertising in local newspapers fell 3.6 percent.

The advertising slump has hit ownership of newspaper chains. The Tribune’s parent company, Richmond, Va.-based Media General Inc., recently said it anticipates a first-quarter loss of 26 to 30 cents per share. Newspaper analysts on Wall Street had predicted a 20 cent-per-share profit.

Weaver said The Tribune remains a profitable enterprise. “This is still a very good business,” she said. “But for the rest of our careers, we are going to be asking, ‘Are we the right size?’”

Researcher Buddy Jaudon contributed to this report. Reporter Richard Mullins can be reached at rmullins@tampatrib.com.

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