RIP Medford Mail-Tribune

The Boston Globe used to have a good business section. It's down to two thirds of a page on Sundays. It costs $6 on Sunday. The sports section is the only thing that has held up.

 

Full name of Brandeen’s husband.

 

In the good old days a publisher could make a profit in a relatively small market because once established he/she had essentially a local monopoly. For example, if the town was large enough for a small shopping mall it could certainly generate enough business from circulars, local merchants, classifieds and legals. These advertisers probably had no other place to advertise because the advertisers could not afford television advertising.

Most of the aforementioned advertisers have moved to other internet advertising vendors. What no one in publishing knows is what the minimum. Boston is the only local success I am aware of, and it has a metropolitan area population of five million. The state of Oregon has a population of 4.24 million. As print subscribers die off doe the papers in Eugene, Bend, Corvallis and smaller areas die off does that mean only the Oregonian will remain?

 

I do wonder where and how local businesses advertise - obviously local television is a thing - but i don't watch a lot of local TV and the only ads for local businesses I'm exposed to is the radio. I guess the mail still works. Is it all making sure your business pops first on an internet search these days?

 

The ad reps at your local cable company, the reason station conglomerate in town and the daily newspaper if there is one are all pushing their clients as hard as possible into keyword buys and to a lesser extent SEO. That’s been the story for over a decade now. The legacy media advertising is practically a freebie throw-in, and in some cases they can’t even give it away.

 

In 1993 if you wanted to buy a car, television or piece of furniture did you look at the newspaper ads? In 023 do you bother to loom at he paper or go to the internet? If you are advertising any business I suggest you had better skip print and local television and buy the internet.

 

The only reason papers are hanging on is because of legals.

Once those go, fuggetaboutit.

 

True - but there are businesses that need to reach customers who don't know they "need" or "want" their product. An event coming to town? Some new business trying to build credibilty, a grocery store etc?

 

Penetration rates for major market metros are now frequently below 10%. The audiences are simply not big enough to make a splash. Local television ratings have declined about as much. There are people on this board who work in television news and know this better than I but I remember when the leading news station in Denver got shares close to 30. Now they get a rating of three for their 10 P.M. news. I think this is typical of the country as a whole.

 

It’s also about the demographics, which skew old, older and oldest for both newspapers and evening TV news. Not the desired customer for most businesses.

 

The future is narrowcasting, reaching a tightly defined demographic. That's why cable tv as we've known it for the past four decades is dying off right now. Streaming is on fast ascent and the media casting a wide audience net -- print newspapers included -- are soon to be history.

 

Stations here would kill for a 3 rating. Strange market, though - there are five competitive 10pm newscasts, not counting the Spanish language stations (which do serious numbers).

Still made a shitload of money in 2022, though.