Birmingham, Mobile and Huntsville to publish three days a week

[Mizzougrad96]

I actually think this is smart. Didn't the Madison paper have success doing this?

The online product doesn't change. The paper prints on the days when there's a ton of advertising.

How do you re-condition customers to buy the paper on three arbitrary days of the week? Or does the new business model disregard street sales altogether?

If that's the case, why not cut your losses now and go all-in online?

Those are the days where people pick up the paper the most often because of the ads the coupons and the real estate sections... Those three days are when the paper makes the most money. By not putting out a physical section on the other days, they save a shirtload of money...

 

[dirtybird]

I actually think this is smart. Didn't the Madison paper have success doing this?

The online product doesn't change. The paper prints on the days when there's a ton of advertising.

Which Madison?

 

[dixiehack]

The shirtload of money also gets saved because editorial gets further cuts too, whether through firings now or attrition soon. Thus the quality of the product further declines. And we go marching merrily along.

And if you thought being a politician in Alabama or Louisiana was a license to steal already, this just put a bullet in the meanest watchdogs in the yard.

 

[WolvEagle]

I actually think this is smart. Didn't the Madison paper have success doing this?

The online product doesn't change. The paper prints on the days when there's a ton of advertising.

Which Madison?

I think Mizzou means Ann Arbor. And, there's no way they're rolling in cash on that site.

 

[SixToe]

If this had been a raging success in Ann Arbor, the company would have done it earlier and other newspapers would have followed suit.

It looks now like Newhouse/Advance/Hybrid is forcing the issue.

 

[JosephC.Myers]

Wow. This is a big-time deal right here. I'll be interested to see how many other newspapers go this route.

 

[DanOregon]

I figure Bama won't be the last. Once one paper does something drastic, other papers feel they need to (or are justified to) follow along "to remain competitive."

 

[MileHigh]

Wow. This is a big-time deal right here. I'll be interested to see how many other newspapers go this route.

Copycat industry. I can see this at MediaNews properties soon.

 

[Hank_Scorpio]

If this had been a raging success in Ann Arbor, the company would have done it earlier and other newspapers would have followed suit.

It looks now like Newhouse/Advance/Hybrid is forcing the issue.

It hasn't been in Ann Arbor, as WolvEagle just pointed out.

The focus is much, much more narrower now (which is probably obvious since they have fewer people reporting).

You went from a 50K or so that covered 30-plus communities and whittled it down to pretty much one community (with occassional forays into the surrounding cities for big news).

 

[podunk press]

What I'd really love to see is someone figure out a model that actually, you know, works.

Patch? Tried the hyperlocal route. Losing money.

Metro dailies? Losing money and subscribers because the print model is dying out.

Community dailies? Cutting back on staff.

I can't see a future in this industry for myself, or anybody else, and that's hard to accept.

 

[dixiehack]

How much resources does annarbor.com devote to Michigan coverage? Are they traveling like the paper would, or staying at home for everything except maybe football?

 

[Mizzougrad96]

I actually think this is smart. Didn't the Madison paper have success doing this?

The online product doesn't change. The paper prints on the days when there's a ton of advertising.

Which Madison?

I think Mizzou means Ann Arbor. And, there's no way they're rolling in cash on that site.

Wisconsin State Journal... The Madison paper. I'm pretty sure they've been printing only on Wednesdays and Sundays for some time now...