Last November, Conde Nast Portfolio editor-in-chief Joanne Lipman (whom I remember fondly from our Wall Street Journal redesign project days!), interviewed newspaper mogul Sam Zell about a wide range of topics, including Zell’s purchase of the Tribune Company, publishers of the Los Angeles Times, the Chicago Tribune and the Baltimore Sun among others.
Zell did not paint a pretty picture about his or anybody else’s newspapers. Among his comments was this one about frequency of publication:
“Our customers have an enormous interest in our newspaper on Sunday; have almost no interest on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday; Thursday and Friday, they’re more interested; and Saturday might as well be in the desert
This week, three Ohio newspapers—The Troy Daily News, Piqua Daily Call and Sidney Daily News—have announced that effective Feb. 10, they will eliminate their Tuesday editions.
Frank Beeson, a Brown Publishing Co. group publisher who oversees more than 20 newspapers in the Miami Valley, including the Troy, Piqua and Sidney newspapers, cited declining advertising revenues and increased newspaper costs. Beeson said the newspaper group already has reduced its work force 10 percent across the board to cut costs.
The 100-year-old Troy Daily News will now publish six days a week, including the Miami Valley Sunday News on Sundays. The Piqua and Sidney newspapers, which do not have Sunday editions, will print five days each week.Monday’s news will be published in expanded Wednesday editions and will be available online Tuesday on the newspapers’ Web sites: troydailynews.com, dailycall.com and sidneydailynews.com
And, an interesting twist, and plausible solution: Tuesday’s comics also will appear on the newspapers’ Web sites. Maybe Garfield and company will be animated, why not?
Also an important consideration: Current subscribers will receive extensions on their current subscriptions to make up for the “missed” Tuesdays, the newspapers said.
The editor of the Troy Daily News does not pull any punches about his newspaper’s decision to cancel Tuesday publication: “There really is no reason to sugar-coat our situation … we are in a survival mode. “
This will be a theme that will be echoed more frequently by newspapers elsewhere. Last December, The Detroit Free Press announced a first-of-its-kind plan — emphasizing more online delivery of news and information and cutting back home delivery days. Detroit Media Partnership CEO Dave Hunke, publisher of the Free Press, said that starting in spring 2009, both the Free Press and the Detroit News — also operated by the partnership — would deliver to homes only on Thursdays, Fridays and Sundays, the heaviest days for advertising and the most popular papers for readers. But the newspapers will remain available seven days a week at stores, newsstands and coin boxes across Michigan.
In the UK, the Liverpool Daily Post, has cancelled its weekend edition, now publishing only Monday through Friday. This is a part of a structural reorganization of the newsroom.
Alert: keep reading media news. For some newspapers it will start with cancelling a Tuesday or Wednesday, or a Monday, edition; then it will be, in the style of The Christian Science Monitor, online only daily, and a robust weekend edition. But I also foresee, a different kind of daily printed product, much smaller, perhaps few pages (try the 12-page summary) that acts as a take it with you giant LINK to what’s on line. The printed newspaper as sort of a search engine, the old library catalog, a “send you” rather than a destination.
For entire Lipman/Zell interview, go:
http://www.portfolio.com
To read TheRodrigoFino blog, in Spanish, go:
https://garciamedia.com/latinamerica/blog/
In Paris, doing early morning run through the Jardin de Tuileries, still dark, the city of lights waking up
TheMarioBlog posting #183