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Birmingham, Mobile and Huntsville to publish three days a week

Discussion in 'Journalism topics only' started by alanpagerules, May 24, 2012.

  1. JayFarrar

    JayFarrar Well-Known Member

    What I read is that the papers' web sites will remain free. FREE!

    If the market can't support a daily paper in New Orleans and its 75 percent penetration or papers in Birmingham, or Huntsville or Mobile, then how can you justify daily papers in Memphis or Nashville or Jackson?

    If it works in, and it won't, because the model in other places has shown that it doesn't, regardless you'll still see other media companies make this switch.
     
  2. Hank_Scorpio

    Hank_Scorpio Active Member

    Just to follow up on this:

    Annarbor.com did not send a reporter with Michigan softball in the super regional. They used photos from Tuscaloosa paper. Story didn't have a byline on it, so not sure if it was rewrite or stringer.
     
  3. Mark2010

    Mark2010 Active Member

    Softball? I wonder how many papers do travel with softball.

    As for the Alabama thing, I still can't see how anyone is making money on these web-first ideas. OK, so you have a reporter who writes a story, even breaks news. You put it on your website. I read the story on your website, which just gives me one less reason to buy your printed product, thereby decreasing circulation.

    So where are you making revenue? Is anyone making substantial revenue on web only advertising? (Hell, I never even notice ads on websites.) On pay services? How is this supposed to be working?
     
  4. Armchair_QB

    Armchair_QB Well-Known Member

    Even if they were still printing a daily paper I highly doubt the AA News would send a reporter to Tuscaloosa for a softball super regional. The softball CWS? Probably.
     
  5. mjslovin91

    mjslovin91 Guest


    Yeah, they ran a rewrite. Much easier when the game is nationally televised.
     
  6. slappy4428

    slappy4428 Active Member

    Couldn't help but notice what was lacking in today's Birmingham News.
    Had another employer in town made such a drastic change in its business model, the News would jump all over user opinion.
    While the TV stations were like vultures on a carcass before the 5 p.m. news on Thursday, with standups outside the building and reader reaction, in the print edition on Friday the changes were trumpted, but never was heard errr.... printed.... a discouraging word.
     
  7. SixToe

    SixToe Well-Known Member

    Maybe they're saving the big news for the expanded Sunday edition.
     
  8. Yodel

    Yodel Active Member

    In 2001, (I think) I was a stringer for Ann Arbor when Michigan played in the softball regional in Tuscaloosa. So they didn't travel even back then for softball.
     
  9. JosephC.Myers

    JosephC.Myers Active Member

    Talk about a very subjective word.
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Dec 15, 2014
  10. TGO157

    TGO157 Active Member

    The idea is you would pay to read the Website. Ads on a Website cost much less than ads in print, but the production of an actual newspaper (design staff, paper printing costs, a press or outsourcing the actual printing job, etc) costs more than it does to maintain a Website. That stuff was all explained to me by someone.

    So, I can assume that this is the economic side: while the actual revenue is lower, the expense is also lower and the idea is the difference in expense from before to now is greater than the difference in revenue from before to now.

    I could be wrong but it makes sense to me.
     
  11. podunk press

    podunk press Active Member

    There's an online model that works, but it involves almost constant work to pull it off. And a staff of, oh, about six people. Preferably two of whom write for free.

    BLOGGERS! are slowly figuring it out.
     
  12. Stitch

    Stitch Active Member

    Online revenue cannot support a news operation as we know it on the local level, with the exception of the largest papers in the country. What will happen at most places if they stick around is the Huffington Post model with a couple of paid reporters for investigative work or major beats, but everything else covered by low-paid or unpaid contributors.

    Subscriptions and rack sales are supposed to be a break-even proposition to pay for pritinting and distribution. Print ad revenue pays for everthing else. I doubt online ad revenue would approach 15 percent of print ad revenue.
     
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