Birmingham, Mobile and Huntsville to publish three days a week

[Drip]

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.

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.

Tuscaloosa could really do some damage. Montgomery has been a joke for decades, but perhaps, they may get it right this time. This digital concept experiment is interesting but we'll see how effective it is after the first quarter of 2013. If successful, I'm afraid others will quickly follow suit.

 

[slappy4428]

Doubtful. No paper is going to come in and do any damage unless they cover local events. Readers can get T-News's Bama stuff online. They might pick it up at the newsstand at the store on an impulse buy, but unless they start covering Hoover on a daily basis, they won't make much inroads.

 

[HejiraHenry]

I keep thinking the right response in one of these 3-day-a-week towns would be to launch a weekly product that dropped on one of the days the local "daily" didn't print. But that may be old-school thinking.

 

[Drip]

Doubtful. No paper is going to come in and do any damage unless they cover local events. Readers can get T-News's Bama stuff online. They might pick it up at the newsstand at the store on an impulse buy, but unless they start covering Hoover on a daily basis, they won't make much inroads.

I'm thinking along the lines of covering things in B-ham on a daily basis to justify the move into the market. I would hope that if the T-News or the Advertiser was serious about making it in B-ham, those organizations would put forth an effort to do so. Otherwise, what purpose would it be to go into B-ham in the first place?

 

[I'll never tell]

There are plenty more crazy ass Alabama fans than there are crazy ass Hoover fans. They will pick up a significant number of old people who want to walk out to the mailbox and read Alabama every morning.

And besides, without a Saturday paper, who really cares how good of a job B'ham is doing covering Hoover football? You could hire two reporters, but them in Bham and zone the front page and one inside page, do nothing different with sports and make significant inroads.

heck, you could even work out a deal with the car lots to where you zone the back page ad and pay for the experiment. Never underestimate the value of full-page color car ads.

 

[Pencil Dick]

On a different note, someone I know who formerly worked at one of the Newhouse papers in Alabama received a letter in the mail today informing him that the company - or the former company - will start offering lump-sum pension plan payouts starting next month in order to lower its future pension liabilities.

A friend who who worked for the NYT chain said The Times pension plan recently made the same offer, a lump sum or a monthly annuity. He said the amount he was offered was less than half than the actual value of the plan if he holds off until retirement age.

I read somewhere that the NYT's future pension liability is $1.987 BILLION. Is that possible?

 

[da man]

On a different note, someone I know who formerly worked at one of the Newhouse papers in Alabama received a letter in the mail today informing him that the company - or the former company - will start offering lump-sum pension plan payouts starting next month in order to lower its future pension liabilities.

A friend who who worked for the NYT chain said The Times pension plan recently made the same offer, a lump sum or a monthly annuity. He said the amount he was offered was less than half than the actual value of the plan if he holds off until retirement age.

I read somewhere that the NYT's future pension liability is $1.987 BILLION. Is that possible?

I can confirm that NYT made that offer. Got a letter a couple weeks ago. We're supposed to let them know by Nov. 1 if we want the money now.

 

[BTExpress]

I read somewhere that the NYT's future pension liability is $1.987 BILLION. Is that possible?

Probably. Tribune Company has about $1.3B in its pension fund.

 

[Pencil Dick]

Good to see racism is alive and well at the new and improved Alabama Media Group.

Proper grammar, not so much.

http://jimromenesko.com/2012/11/01/al-com-apologizes-for-posting-inappropriate-blackface-photo/

Then there's this nugget:

http://blog.al.com/times-views/2012/06/about_our_changes_details_on_h.html

 

[boundforboston]

Has anyone read the print version of one of these papers? What do you think?

 

[Batman]

On a different note, someone I know who formerly worked at one of the Newhouse papers in Alabama received a letter in the mail today informing him that the company - or the former company - will start offering lump-sum pension plan payouts starting next month in order to lower its future pension liabilities.

A friend who who worked for the NYT chain said The Times pension plan recently made the same offer, a lump sum or a monthly annuity. He said the amount he was offered was less than half than the actual value of the plan if he holds off until retirement age.

That's assuming, of course, that either the company or the pension are there when he reaches retirement age. If we've learned anything on the economic front the past few years, it ought to be that pensions are not the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow they once were. Whoever gets that sort of offer should seriously consider taking the lump sum and getting something while they can.

 

[Mark2010]

A bird in hand is worth two in a bush.