From the publisher: Serving the public for 144 years

Almost everywhere I go these days, somebody greets me with the words, “I am praying for you.” Usually, I thank them and hesitatingly ask what they see in me that is in need of divine intervention.

The most common answer? They’re praying for me to succeed at “keeping The Pilot from going out of business.” With humility and confidence, I want to inform you that we are not about to go out of business. We have been striving to contribute to the welfare and prosperity of this region for 144 years. There is still work to be done, and today we are as committed to this mission, and as capable of achieving it, as we were in 1865.

Let me share a few reasons for my confidence.

First and foremost, The Virginian-Pilot Media Companies is a profitable, debt-free enterprise. Several parts make up our company: The Virginian-Pilot, the largest daily newspaper based in the Commonwealth of Virginia; The Pilot’s Web sites, PilotOnline.com, HamptonRoads.com and HamptonRoads.tv, the most visited local Web sites in the region; our Targeted Publications, a collection of 20 niche publications (print and online) including Tidewater Parent, Inside Business, skirt!, The Flagship and The Apartment Book; and Pilot Direct, our direct marketing business.

In addition to our financial health, the demand for our news, information and advertising continues to be robust. On Sundays, more than 519,000 adults read The Virginian-Pilot. That’s more people locally than watch the biggest television event of the year, the Super Bowl. Every Sunday, in other words, is Super Bowl Sunday in The Pilot. Every single day, more than 404,000 adults read The Pilot in print. More than 72,000 individuals a day – over 1.2 million unique visitors a month – seek information from our online sites. We print and distribute more than 400,000 copies of our niche print publications. And when it comes to advertising, collectively our products carry about 40 percent of all local advertising.

But we’re not settling for the status quo. We continue to innovate. In the past 12 months, we launched a new community tab newspaper, called Your Corner, for residents and businesses in Northern Suffolk, Western Branch and Churchland. We launched skirt!, a women’s lifestyle publication and online site. This month we enhanced the Thursday Daily Break in The Pilot, creating Pulse to serve readers hungry for information about arts, culture and entertainment and enterprises attempting to reach these readers. Last week we launched an online Outdoors Channel featuring an interactive fishing map. Coming in June is an online social networking Web site for busy moms. We are launching new products and businesses because we are thinking about both our present and our future. We’re looking forward to the next 144 years!

Our public service mission continues to be our priority. We are committed to investigating and reporting on state and local government, offshore drilling, transportation, health, safety and other issues that affect the region’s future and quality of life. We will continue to aggressively cover stories such as the fly ash contamination in Chesapeake and the heartbreaking homicides of teenagers in our community. We will continue to hold those in power accountable for their actions.

To serve the public with excellence, we must produce outstanding business results. As the saying goes, “No margin, no mission.” During this unprecedented recession, advertising revenue – our biggest source of income – has fallen dramatically. This fact has caused us to make some tough decisions to pare costs, stay healthy and remain competitive. We’ve reduced the average number of daily pages in The Pilot, Monday through Saturday, from 58 to 46. We closed LINK, PortFolio (in print), MIX and other businesses. We eliminated 250 jobs, the most difficult and painful part of our restructuring. We have frozen wages, instituted furloughs, reduced salaries and circulation. We are making the same difficult choices that businesses in our region and around the world are making.

These actions are already paying off. In March, we generated the best business results we’ve had since last fall. During the same month, the Virginia Press Association recognized The Pilot as the state’s best newspaper for the 24th time in the past 30 years. Our alternative newspaper in Richmond, Style Weekly, was the runner-up in its category, Best Specialty Publication. The Flagship, which we publish and distribute on Norfolk Naval Station, was chosen the best newspaper serving a Navy base in the country. The Globe, which we publish and distribute on Camp Lejeune, was recognized as the best Marine Corps newspaper.

Because we have made tough decisions, we are a smaller enterprise than we were 12 months ago. We still have the largest newsroom in Virginia. Our employees’ commitment to producing excellent, public service journalism and business results has not declined one scintilla. We are well positioned to serve readers and businesses in our community far into the future.

My prayer for all of us is that this recession is slowing and better times will come sooner rather than later. This region is rich in assets: its people, ports, tourist attractions, military, educational institutions, businesses, nonprofits, faith institutions, to name a few. Those blessings make me optimistic about our region’s future. Likewise, I am confident that The Virginian-Pilot and the Virginian-Pilot Media Companies will be a significant part of that future.

Thank you for reading us, viewing us, advertising with us and providing us with feedback to help us get stronger. Your partnership is indispensable to our growth. If you have any questions, advice, criticism or other feedback, please do not hesitate to contact me by telephone at (757) 446-2056 or email at maurice.jones@pilotonline.com.

Sincerely,

Maurice A. Jones

President and Publisher, The Virginian-Pilot

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