Charlotte has lost another print publication. Alternative newspaper Queen City Nerve announced this week it’s closing effective immediately, citing financial hardships. It follows Charlotte magazine shutting down last year, after nearly six decades. For more on what the latest closure says about the state of media in Charlotte, the Charlotte Ledger’s Tony Mecia joined WFAE’s Marshall Terry for our segment BizWorthy.
Marshall Terry: Queen City Nerve began after the end of Charlotte’s long-running alt weekly Creative Loafing almost a decade ago. What happened with the Nerve? What are they saying specifically?
Tony Mecia: Sounds like things were going fine for the first few years. In the last couple of years, they encountered some issues with advertising. Some of the arts organizations and nonprofits, for example, that were advertisers started scaling back. I think we know that arts organizations have been under a lot of financial pressure the last couple of years. That sounds like it kind of trickled down to Queen City Nerve.
I saw that one of the founders talked to WFAE and said they had a chance, potentially, to sell to another media organization, but that fell through at the last minute. Because they were in a financially bad place, they had to shut things down. Media businesses are small businesses like other businesses. The statistics show that about half of small businesses close within five years of opening. So the fact that they made it nearly eight years may be better than average.
Terry: As I pointed out, this comes after Charlotte magazine shut down last year after almost six decades. What do these publications coming to an end say about the state of media in Charlotte right now? Is it a print vs. digital thing?
Mecia: I think the market's hard for local media, and I don't think it's just a print versus digital thing. I think it's a little more complicated than that. Obviously, the issue with print is that you have higher costs. It costs money to go to the printing press. So anytime you have an increased cost like that, obviously you need to make sure that those costs are covered. The main ways in media are through advertising or through reader revenue, subscriptions, things like that. It's certainly unfortunate we're seeing more of these local media companies fall by the wayside, which is unfortunate for a city like Charlotte, which is a big and growing city.
If you value things in this community, those need to be supported in some way. A lot of people assume that information out there is free. It's not free to produce. It does cost money.
Terry: Over to development now. The two office buildings known as The Station at LoSo recently sold for nearly $92 million. What does the sale indicate about Charlotte’s broader market right now?
Mecia: There have been some encouraging signs lately on certain office buildings. Obviously, the last few years have been kind of tough for office. A lot of changes with hybrid work and that sort of thing. But I think this sale indicates that newer, modern buildings — they can fetch a premium.
A lot of the developers talk about this flight to quality where there is still a strong demand for modern office buildings. Now there are also a lot of older office buildings. There's a big question about what happens with those, but certainly it’s, I think, a good sign.
Terry: Let’s end this week on some news from Charlotte’s largest carrier. American Airlines says it’s making some upgrades. Like what?
Mecia: American has been focused on trying to upgrade its passenger experience. You'll remember in the last year or two, they started rolling out free Wi-Fi in the cabin. They are now going to be putting television screens on seat backs. American, unlike its competitors United and Delta, on domestic flights typically does not have those TV screens there. They sort of made the judgment a few years ago that people have mobile devices; they'll just watch movies on their phone. Which they do, but they're trying to upgrade that experience.
They're going to start rolling those out; 2028 is what they're looking for on that. And then the other piece of it is they're going to add more premium seating, more first-class business seats, more main cabin extra seats with legroom, making a bet that people might pay more for an enhanced experience in the air.
Support for BizWorthy comes from the law office of Robertson & Associates.
