All-out online effort is fading, report says

A Las Vegas company's ambitious effort to overtake the lead position in the local media market could be losing steam, the victim of a recession that's making it harder to earn money online.

That's according to a recent report on Greenspun Media Group, which includes the Las Vegas Sun newspaper and Las Vegas Weekly magazine among its more than 30 publications.

The report by The Kelsey Group, a Princeton, N.J., company that analyzes local advertising markets around the country, says Greenspun Media has put an online first strategy "on the back burner" as a result of the economic upheaval in Las Vegas.

The Kelsey Group has no affiliation with Greenspun Media competitor Stephens Media nor Sun competitor the Review-Journal.

"What Greenspun has been doing is something we have all watched very eagerly," said Peter Krasilovsky, author of the report on Greenspun's online initiatives. "It is disappointing that some of the things they have done may not actually happen."

Las Vegas Sun President and Editor Brian Greenspun disputed Krasilovsky's assertion that the company is backing off of its online program.

"Nothing that we are doing there leads me to believe that this guy is even close to being accurate about the back burner stuff," Greenspun said.

He said online journalism by nature is experimental and frequently requires companies to change direction on short notice.

"This whole world and the Internet is about adjusting. It is about trying things, seeing what works, doesn't work and then adjusting," he said. "We'd be foolish not to try things."

The report by Krasilovsky comes at a difficult time in the news business in general and at Greenspun Media specifically.

The company laid off at least six people on Tuesday, including three reporters and a page designer at the Sun, and cut two positions at the magazine In Business Las Vegas, according to newsroom sources.

Greenspun said he wasn't aware of specific cuts on the print side of the business or when they occurred.

"We are constantly changing the business model. We are tinkering," he said.

Greenspun launched a number of ambitious Web initiatives last year, including a revamped Web site for the Sun and it is unfurling a video initiative called 702.tv.

Greenspun Interactive hired 65 staffers, including 27 journalists and software developers, and 18 videographers, the Kelsey report stated.

Greenspun Media also emphasized longer-form journalism in the print version of the Sun, which is an independent product distributed in the Review-Journal.

Since then, the effort has received plaudits from media industry boosters and earlier this year the print version of the Sun won a Pulitzer Prize, the top industry award in journalism, for reports on dangerous working conditions on construction sites on the Strip.

Some of Greenspun's online projects include an interactive database detailing old mob connections to Las Vegas casinos, a casino map and a timeline of casino implosions.

"They were trying to engage non-readers, which actually represents the majority of the population," Krasilovsky said.

He called some of the Sun's online content "fantastic things," and said, "I think they have a lot of major accomplishments."

In addition to accolades for the online projects, there was also some turbulence.

Greenspun Interactive Publisher Chris Jennewein recently departed for a job at San Diego News Network, a year after he started work in Las Vegas. Jennewein referred questions to an official at Greenspun Media.

"We saw the publisher leaving and we don't know the extent of what is going on," Krasilovsky said.

Also, Krasilovsky said Greenspun may have underestimated the difficulty of overtaking the Web site of the Review-Journal, the leading print newspaper in the market.

The Kelsey report cited media tracking firm comScore results from March that showed the Sun attracting 320,000 unique visitors for the month compared to 400,000 for the Review-Journal.

"The result was that while Greenspun's properties initially showed fast growth, climbing from the bottom, the Review-Journal has maintained strong numbers," the report stated.

The print version of the Sun does not contain advertising, making the newspaper's Web site even more critical in terms of leveraging the brand into revenue for the parent company.

Greenspun isn't the only media company encountering new challenges to capitalizing on online opportunities.

Last fall, the New York Times reported after 17 quarters of growth that online advertising revenue at newspapers nationwide fell to $777 million in the second quarter of 2008.

More recently, the Christian Science Monitor reported overall online ad revenue in the U.S. fell to $5.5 billion nationally in the first quarter of 2009.

Krasilovsky says it is too early to predict how the online news landscape will look in Las Vegas by the time the recession is over.

But he says the players will most certainly learn from the successes and failures of experiments by Greenspun Interactive.

"We look at that as a good blueprint for what an ambitious company can do," he said.

Contact reporter Benjamin Spillman at bspillman@reviewjournal.com or 702-477-3861.