Fresno, Modesto Bees to cease Saturday print editions

Starting in January ...

https://www.bizjournals.com/sacrame...to-cut-saturday-print-delivery-of-fresno.html

 

I get the feeling this will happen at many, many places in the next 1-2 years. I fully expect my shop to move to 5 days a week by the end of 2021 even though we're a daily publication right now.

 

Remember "hyper-local"? Publishing the stuff nobody could get anywhere else? To me - that's preps coverage. Of course, the current generation of kids probably have parents that didn't grow up with newspapers at the kitchen table either.

 

You can be hyper-local and cover stuff no one else does without having a Saturday print edition.

 

He's right though. No medium sized papers or larger or anybody that's had significant cuts in staff are covering high schools. Obvious exceptions are newspapers without pro teams nearby, etc. Those newspaper fishwraps actually will probably last longer than the papers that abandoned preps completely. The suits have no clue. At least praise Fredrick for pointing that out.

 

I know that Fresno and Modesto are printed in Sacramento. I would guess, Wichita, which went to six says a week, is published in Kansas City. It appears that Gannett is going to six days a week where they do not locally print.

I wonder if Fort Worth and Miami would go to six days a week given the presence of metropolitan editors competitors that print seven days a week.

 

The State in Columbia is dropping its Saturday print edition effective Jan. 25.

 

What I've noticed is more local television news covering HS football at 6 and 10 on Fridays, at least (or perhaps especially) in the South. If I'm 15 and playing ball, I'd rather see my team on television Friday than in the paper the next day.

 

The local NBC/ABC affiliate here has "High School Playbook Blitz" on Friday nights as part of the 11 p.m. newscast. Regular news segment to open the show, weather moved to second segment and the rest of the show is highlights of just about every team in their broadcast region. Imagine it's the same in a lot of markets.

 

As does FOX40 with "Final Quarter."

 

Local Fox affiliate does this here in Boston, where interest in high school football is, to be kind, patchy. There are big Catholic powerhouses, and Everett could be in Alabama for how the town (city here) is behind it, but otherwise, nobody cares except players, students and parents. Which is as it should be.

 

Olean (N.Y.) Times Herald ditching Sunday edition, using U.S. Postal Service to deliver.

Changes announced at Olean Times Herald