I still get home delivery of the NYTimes every day.  I am on vacation right now and am devouring The World in 2009 issue of The Economist.  Print media still has incredible content that the world wants (and needs!) to read.  Yes, they must shift content more to commentary, trends, and interviews than news (which the web has covered).  But even with this shift, their business model flat out does not work.  Here is my prescription on how to get it to work:

1.  Work together.  The music industry had no answers to their changing model and the whole thing got figured out by Steve Jobs.  Don't let this happen.  Form a real body to work on this together.  You will need to cooperate.

2.  Agree as a group to stop printing in 6 months.  Yes, that's right.  You are no longer print media.  The costs of creating and distributing your product simply don't make sense.  You have to go cold turkey.  This is a fixed cost piece of your business and it needs to be eliminated totally or you get little benefit.

3.  Get behind a digital reader.  You still have time to get control of this new format.  The Kindle is a book reader.  You need to get behind a media reader.  The beauty of your product is the random access of seeing lots of content and choosing at will.  The Kindle is a linear reading device.  I am desperate to get rid of my paper format of the Times, but the Kindle is not the answer.  You need something that will replicate the paper/magazine as we are used to consuming.  It needs to be color and it needs to be larger than the kindle (but just as thin as the 2.0).  It also needs a touch screen so you can see a typical front page and click into the paper.

4.  Give a free reader to all your subscribers.  Yes, make it free.  Ship it to all of them.  And, here is one reason why cooperating makes sense.  Combine your databases and if you share subscribers, you jointly cover the costs.  But, you will get readers into millions of hands.  Honestly, my hunch is this will cost FAR less than your inefficient distribution system.

5.  Now you own the whole chain and have much lower operating costs.  You control the device and the distribution.  There are lots of ways to monetize.  Make money on the device (for other types of users).  Sell books.  Whatever.  Sell cheaper subscriptions.  Getting a magazine now is a click away.  You no longer pay the postal systems millions.  You no longer own trucks.  You no longer own printing presses.

6.  Make the web work for you.  Add real time content along with your "scheduled" releases.  Make some content freely available on the web, but all of it is only for subscribers.  You will get people to pay because it feels like a subscription (and they get the device).  But, you have to add to the experience and use the power of the web to enrich your content.

Of course this plan has many hard issues to work through.  But, it avoids the slow death facing these great media companies.  They need to be bold in embracing the new world.  They need to take control of their destiny.  They need to view it as an opportunity.  If executed well, my guess is they could transform a broken business into a great one.

UPDATE: Some signs that some media is paying attention.  This is all incremental.  They need to get bold.

http://www.jacksonsun.com/article/20090201/COLUMNISTS01/902010306

Consider some of the many experiments being conducted by newspaper companies during this time of change. The Christian Science Monitor has ceased printing its newspaper in favor of an online edition. The Detroit News (owned by Gannett, the largest newspaper/media company in the world) will soon go to three days a week for home delivery. The other days will be online only. The Seattle Post-Intelligencer (Hearst Newspapers) will cease printing after March. The New York Times offers its print product in an exact page-by-page reproduction, ads and all, available for online home delivery.

UPDATE:  SF Chronicle at a critical phase.  

http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/Hearst-says-cuts-needed-SF/story.aspx?g...