Birmingham, Mobile and Huntsville to publish three days a week

I wonder how much local advertising the out of town paper, even one that prints daily in competition with a tri-weekly, will pick up? I don't see many advertisers changing their allegiance.

I think a lot of papers will always be happy to fill a box at a gas station in order to jazz the circulation a bit but I don't know of any that get a lot of out of town advertising.

 

We're about to find out. The Tuscaloosa News is coming in and promising expanded B'ham coverage to boot.

http://startmytnews.com/

 

Good for them. Smart folks.

 

Hmmmm. Obviously, they've noticed what Baton Rouge has done.

 

Wasn't someone on here saying Montgomery's starting to creep north when it comes to places to find the Advertiser?

 

That was me. Seen it for sale a couple of places in Shelby Co., the (excepting yours truly) upper-middle-class suburbs just south of Birmingham. So far it has been inside stores. Haven't seen a box. Curious if Pensacola plans something similar for Baldwin County next to Mobile.

 

Definitely in the works from what I'm hearing. There's no logical reason not to make those inroads.

 

If you're living in Birmingham and buying a paper from Montgomery or Tuscaloosa, you're not gonna get anywhere near the local coverage you'll get from the hometown paper, even after it's scaled back. Nice idea in theory, but the out-of-town operations won't succeed at that game in the long run if they don't spend a lot of money. And they won't. What Birmingham businesses will enter longer-term contracts for ad campaigns in an out-of-town paper?

It's been tried a lot with far-ranging zoning, and it's hard to conquer another paper's hometown territory. In the end, you can't keep up with the local coverage: schools, government, business and sports.

 

Valid points, Riptide... but what papers are doing this to combat others that have trimmed their circulation? It's a new era here.

 

Dunno. It's worth watching, but most papers that size have enough problems dealing with the home base these days. Anyone can put a bureau in another city, but how would Tuscaloosa, for example, convince readers in Birmingham that it can cover Birmingham better than Birmingham? I suppose offering daily coverage would be the big attraction up front, but it would lose ground quickly if it couldn't cover all the bases.

 

Tuscaloosa will sell some papers on the basis of Alabama coverage alone, particularly with its Rivals tie-in that puts it far ahead on recruiting news.

 

Still waiting for the 7-day-a-week shoe to drop in Florence and Decatur. It's bound to happen.