Changes at Syracuse University

This may interest a few out there. The student-run newspaper at Syracuse University will eliminate its print edition on Fridays.

http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003845936

 

Sad, since you would think a student paper rakes in the cash.

 

Berkeley's paper also is going without a Wednesday print product.

 

Shudder the thought Batman, how long before professional papers begin doing this?

 

I don't know if this is the norm at other major universities, but when I was in college, the weekend basically started Thursday night and the campus was practically deserted between Friday and Sunday. Our student newspaper delivery guys always reported back that there were more leftover papers from the Friday edition than the rest of the week.

 

Thanks for posting, BigSleeper. I misread the initial post and thought it was eliminating it's print edition starting Friday, not just on Fridays.

This makes much more sense to me.

 

Anything for you, milady.

 

:-* ;D

(I can't remember the actual order)

 

A well-run student newspaper can turn a decent profit, even in a downturn. The question is how well they adapt to changing revenue.

National advertising at student papers is way, way, way down from two years ago. I could see how a paper could have been caught flat-footed by the loss of a traditionally strong revenue stream and be forced to react the way the Syracuse and Berkeley papers have.

http://www.bizjournals.com/sanfrancisco/stories/2008/08/25/daily9.html?ana=from_rss

I buy the Daily Cal's explanation faster than I do the Daily Orange's drop in readership argument.

The sad thing is that a well-managed student newspaper should've been able to stockpile cash during the good years to help it through the lean times. It doesn't have any investors it needs to be returning profits too. And they should make a nice little profit each year.

 

Our paper, I believe, had a circulation of 12,000. We always used to laugh about sticking the worst designers on Thursday night because who cares? Nobody read it on Friday anyway.

It was true - we probably had around 8,000 copies kicked back on Mondays because people didn't care.