Message from OCR ...

Friend who subscribes to the OCR got this email today:

Important Notice
Regarding Your Subscription
Dear Valued Subscriber,

Supply chain prices continue to be at an all-time high and have reached a level where we can no longer absorb the costs.
Therefore, we will be implementing a temporary surcharge related to these supply chain price increases.

The surcharge will remain separate from our usual charges and will be debited from your subscription fees. Based on your delivery schedule, the surcharge will be up to $0.15 per delivery day. Your subscription term will be shortened as a result.

We appreciate your understanding and thank you for your support of local journalism.

 

I got the same thing from my East Coast newspaper a week or so ago. The wording is almost exactly the same. Only my former paper sprung for postage to send out a card.

 

So basically, they are raising the price of each day’s paper by 15 cents — but only for subscribers. The single copy cost, at the “newsstand,” remains the same, right?

This is keeping in line with how newspapers have been treating print subscribers for the past 10-15 years: as a nuisance rather than as most valued customers. Didn’t used to be that way, but welcome to the 2020s.

 

I guess it's too much of a pain in the ass to reset the mechs in the newspaper boxes. (Actually I'm not guessing, it actually is.)

 

I haven’t seen a newspaper box in years, especially one for a paid pub.

 

My college friends stole a defunct News American box off the Baltimore streets in the mid-1980s, put it in their apartment, and put a centerfold on display in the window.

 

Given the way the announcement is phrased and the fact it only applies to home subscription I suspect that OCR management is trying to pass along the increased cost of home delivery. Papers have been having hellacious times getting help to deliver the papers. The OCR may have actually had to increase the compensation of the delivery folks.

 

Oh, no question it’s tough to find delivery drivers — restaurants here in the Pacific Northwest are still short staffed, and pay, hours and working conditions of those jobs are way better than newspaper delivery.

I was thinking about my in-laws, who have subscribed to the Chicago Tribune for more than 50 years. The cost of a subscription used to be pushed as saving, say, 50% or more “off the newsstand price” and now subscribers pay more, even with single copies going for $2 and Sunday editions $4.

 

The friend who emailed this, he called last night to see if I could interpret it for him. It sounds like now he pays for 30 days at a time. With this, the days will be reduced to cover the 15 cent increase. So he might have to pay the same rate but every 26 or 27 days, instead of a higher rate for 30 days. Semantics.

 

Sounds like a logistical nightmare for the circulation department — another newspaper job that’s tough to fill these days.

Our shop churns through circulation employees like crazy, because they get the anger and hatred from both sides (delivery drivers and subscribers).

 

Don’t forget the dogs too.