Wanted: Newspaper ads; Ad slump presses newspapers
Apr. 24, 1990
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LOS ANGELES - In the good old days - about 18 months ago - the Concord (N.H.) Monitor printed plump and profitable 60-page newspapers. President George Wilson decided the prosperous publication deserved a new $7 million plant.
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Airlines in a hole; Expect only the strong to survive
Aug. 31, 1990
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Airline managers are living their worst nightmares.
Fuel prices have soared this month, but air travel has been soft since spring. The economy is in a recession that could make the annual travel slump after Labor Day worse than usual this year. Raising fares now will scare away even more fliers.
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Developers in a slump; Easy money,greed lead to hard times
Nov. 2, 1990
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For much of the past decade, commercial real-estate developers lived by a simple motto: "Build it, and they will come." Fueled by easy credit and a booming economy, they added hundreds of high-rises to the USA's skylines and blanketed suburbs with high-rises, office parks, shopping centers and hotels.
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Make-or-break challenge; CEOs get crash course on hard times
Nov. 13, 1990
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As president of Hyatt Hotels Corp., Darryl Hartley-Leonard keeps steady watch over 91 hotels and 14 luxury resorts. But he recently took time out to pore over the monthly telephone bill at Hyatt's Chicago headquarters.
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Construction plunging; Home starts lowest since '82 recession
Nov. 21, 1990
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Housing starts took another battering in October, setting a record with a nine-month losing streak. Construction of houses and apartments hit its lowest level since the 1981-82 recession.
"The numbers are really terrible," says Barbara Allen, analyst at Kidder Peabody in New York. "How can anyone avoid saying we're in a recession?"
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Running on the edge; Automakers face reality of downturn
Dec. 6, 1990
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The auto industy is sliding from malaise into misery.
Extensive December production cuts announced last week by General Motors Corp. and Ford Motor Co. are an admission - finally - of serious problems in the market that had been camouflaged by aggressive fleet sales and rebate-buoyed consumer sales. Late-November car and truck sales crashed 25% below last year's weak pace, underlining the problem.
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Hard times on the car lot; Dealer fears direction of industry
Feb. 15, 1991
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STERLING HEIGHTS, Mich. - Oldsmobile-GMC dealer Jim Muir has been hit with a triple barrage - the recession, war in the Persian Gulf and General Motors' attack on its corporate spending.
Showroom traffic at Muir's suburban Detroit dealership slowed months ago. "Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait and my full-sized truck sales stopped," he says.
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An unconventional mood; Empty seats greet business conference; Travel costs, economy cut attendance
Apr. 12, 1991
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The American Society of Newspaper Editors' conference in Boston is less crowded this year. Attendance, including members and their spouses, has dropped to 509 from 975 last year - the lowest since the last recession in the early '80s.
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Magazines hit hard; Recovery might not rescue some
Aug. 9, 1991
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Magazines should be celebrating their 250th anniversary in the USA this year, but they aren't in much of a party mood. They are having one of their worst years in decades.
"Almost without exception, none of us has ever seen it this severe before," says Chuck Townsend, president of New York Times Co. Magazine Group's women's division, which publishes Family Circle and McCall's.
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Hard times ravage local TV; Stations cut back as revenue falls
Nov. 26, 1991
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Your award-winning eyewitness news team isn't talking happy talk these days.
When the local newscast ends and the screen fades to black, those pearly smiles you see at 5, 6 and 11 are fading, too. In their places: the worried looks of people wondering if they can keep their jobs.
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Carmakers' mean season; Fickle buyers forecast lean, brutal winter
Dec. 5, 1991
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The odometer on Melissa Shy's 1985 Ford Crown Victoria reads 157,000 miles. She's replaced the transmission and is on her third set of tires. But Shy has no plans to buy a car for at least a year.
"I told my husband that we would keep this car until I ran the wheels off of it," says Shy.
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With bold stroke, GM turns a page; Goal: Save $5 billion by mid-decade
Dec. 19, 1991
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DETROIT - General Motors Corp., brought to its knees by a brutal auto-industry recession and relentless competition from Japanese carmakers, says it will cut deep into its North American operations to prosper in the 1990s.
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Travel still troubled; Pessimism preys upon executives
Feb. 7, 1992
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Get a group of executives from the travel industry together and you have a room full of the last great optimists.
At least, at first.
"Early signs," they say, "are positive." Last month, reservations at one airline rose 18% from January 1991. Advance bookings at one hotel company jumped 36%. Leisure travel is up 10%. Travel to Europe is up.
