You are Martín Solórzano Rivas, director general of Editorial Centroamérica, the group that publishes La Nación Hoy, Guatemala's highest-circulation daily, founded by your grandfather in 1923. Last night the advertiser that bought 35% of the group's advertising announced it is moving to digital. The board meets on Friday and will want to know where you start.
The situation
It is Monday 16 March 2026. The department-store holding that filled the paper's colour pages is moving its whole marketing budget to digital channels it can measure click by click. It is not alone: a regional bank has asked to review its contract and two property developers have postponed their campaigns. The advertising team expects ad revenue to fall by about 30% over the coming months.
The group bills about USD 3.5 million a month: 2.2 million from print advertising, 900,000 from print subscriptions and 400,000 from distribution, reprints and events. Its costs run at about USD 2.8 million a month, leaving some 700,000 a month, and it holds USD 8.4 million in cash. It employs 480 people, 150 of them in the newsroom, and owns a printing plant appraised at about USD 4 million. Its site and app draw 450,000 unique visitors a month who pay nothing, and the brand has a reputation score of 85 out of 100. Internet reaches about 62% of Guatemalans; print still matters.
Your management team reads the crisis three ways. Ana Lucía Figueroa, the CFO, sees a cost problem: a company with its own press, a delivery fleet and 480 people cannot live on an advertising market that is shrinking. Diego Castañeda, the digital director, sees a revenue problem: nearly half a million readers a month who leave not a dollar. Julio Monterroso, the content director, argues that what has value is the brand and the newsroom, not the paper, and that any way out must protect them.
This week you decide where to focus the first diagnosis, how much money to give it (Figueroa proposes USD 200,000) and how much management time it gets (your agenda assumes 60%). Your father, who chairs the board, has already called to ask where you will start.