Skip to Main Content
HBS Home
  • About
  • Academic Programs
  • Alumni
  • Faculty & Research
  • Baker Library
  • Giving
  • Harvard Business Review
  • Initiatives
  • News
  • Recruit
  • Map / Directions
Faculty & Research
  • Faculty
  • Research
  • Featured Topics
  • Academic Units
  • …→
  • Harvard Business School→
  • Faculty & Research→
Publications
Publications
  • March 2020
  • Case
  • HBS Case Collection

Minneapolis Star Tribune

By: Joseph L. Bower, Elizabeth Hansen and Michael Norris
  • Format:Print
  • | Language:English
  • | Pages:24
ShareBar

Abstract

In the summer of 2019, Mike Klingensmith, CEO of the Minneapolis Star Tribune, the Twin Cities metro region’s largest newspaper, reviewed subscription trends and plans for future experimentation. The newspaper industry across the U.S. had suffered a steep decline for the previous several decades as digital offerings supplanted print subscriptions. Under Klingensmith’s leadership, the Star Tribune had fared better than many papers, emerging from bankruptcy with a robust newsroom and with print profitable and digital growing. But given ongoing shifts in consumer media habits, flat EBITDA was still the best-case scenario that the Tribune could reach for. To meet this goal, Klingensmith and his team had put in place new digital offerings and had developed a number of creative additions to the print paper to offset subscription declines and print ad losses. Klingensmith believed that the plans they had put in place would allow the paper to survive in the new news landscape of the 21st century, but as he prepared to meet with the paper’s owner, a local, family-owned holding company, he wondered how confident he could be in his forecasts.

Keywords

Financial Performance; Industry Evolution; Business Earnings; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Strategic Planning; Journalism and News Industry; Minnesota

Citation

Bower, Joseph L., Elizabeth Hansen, and Michael Norris. "Minneapolis Star Tribune." Harvard Business School Case 920-302, March 2020.
  • Educators
  • Purchase

About The Author

Joseph L. Bower

→More Publications

More from the Authors

    • October 2023
    • Faculty Research

    JPMorgan Chase in Paris

    By: Joseph L. Bower, Dante Roscini, Elena Corsi and Michael Norris
    • April 2021
    • Faculty Research

    JPMorgan Chase's Path Forward

    By: Joseph L. Bower, Nien-hê Hsieh and Michael Norris
    • 2020
    • Faculty Research

    Capitalism at Risk: How Business Can Lead

    By: Joseph L. Bower, Dutch Leonard and Lynn S. Paine
More from the Authors
  • JPMorgan Chase in Paris By: Joseph L. Bower, Dante Roscini, Elena Corsi and Michael Norris
  • JPMorgan Chase's Path Forward By: Joseph L. Bower, Nien-hê Hsieh and Michael Norris
  • Capitalism at Risk: How Business Can Lead By: Joseph L. Bower, Dutch Leonard and Lynn S. Paine
ǁ
Campus Map
Harvard Business School
Soldiers Field
Boston, MA 02163
→Map & Directions
→More Contact Information
  • Make a Gift
  • Site Map
  • Jobs
  • Harvard University
  • Trademarks
  • Policies
  • Accessibility
  • Digital Accessibility
Copyright © President & Fellows of Harvard College.