NEW YORK - Florida hasn't been hit by a major hurricane since Wilma slammed ashore in October 2005. But at least one publisher believes newspapers in the Sunshine State might be better off if one had. "Don't get me wrong," says Steve Erlanger, "I hope I never see another hurricane again. But we had four hurricanes in a matter of two years, and it brought in billions of dollars in spending money. People had $21,000 worth of damage, and got $100,000 checks. And they spent it."
While newspapers in much of the nation struggled to recover from the economic devastation of 9/11, Florida was becoming the best, albeit most competitive, place to publish a newspaper. "Florida has been and will continue to be probably the most competitive newspaper state because everything is right to make Florida a great place for a newspaper to do business," Dean Ridings, executive director of the Florida Press Association, told E&P at what turned out to be the peak of the market during the summer of 2005.
Florida's bubble burst as 2006 dawned. Investors skedaddled, and construction crews followed them home.
Newspaper real estate advertising cratered, and soon so did the ad categories that were fed by the boom: furniture, auto, help wanted, financial services. Newspapers tightened their belts, then cinched them again and again as the housing crisis deepened as foreclosures soared and prices sank 20% or more from their peak.
And economic slowdowns that might be shrugged off elsewhere cut Florida to its very core.
Stan Smith, director of the University of Florida's Bureau of Economic and Business Research, adds that this is a boom-and-bust on steroids. "The years from 2002 to 2006 were the four biggest years of population growth in Florida's history," he says. "So this isn't just a decline from a normal economy."