Content sharing in Philly

And the inexorable march toward Philadelphia being a one-paper town (at best) continues:

http://www.philly.com/philly/columnists/20120227_Larry_Platt__A_better_way_to_bring_you_the_news.html

 

In theory I like his optimism (I know, spoken like a true manager). I'm all for avoiding duplication and have thought that's the best thing about content sharing. It's a waste of resources to have sister papers write two versions of the same game story. I pushed for that probably three years before my last place started doing it. Let their guy write the gamer. Let our guy write a better story, sider or work ahead on a Sunday takeout.
Problem is keeping everybody. Sounds great to say all these guys are going to focus on takeouts, enterprise, instant analysis for the web, but the reality usually is people lose jobs in mergers.
Or, when somebody leaves, the person doing the enterprise now slides into that spot.
I hope Philly can accomplish what it wants and serve as a new model.

 

Sportsweek, the Saturday Daily New section that has now become a sports tab with a little news highlighting the week in sports along with a big story, gave a glimpse of the Platt project last week.

 

Tampa tried a weekly sports magazine back in the day. I liked it, wished the Times had one. But it lasted all of about six months.
Does this replace the daily sports section on Saturday?

 

Yes Tampa tried it and it didn't work. And yes, it does replace the Daily News sports section.

 

It lasted just shy of a year, thank you very much.

Content was great, reader satisfaction scored 94% or better. Ad sales department had no idea how to sell it. It could have worked.

 

I was a fan. Like I said, I wish we had done it. But the Times doesn't copy anybody, by God.

 

At the risk of outing myself ...

In Tampa, the weekly Sports Extra magazine stood separate from the main Sports section, so the two entities existed independently (albeit with cross promotion). The magazine didn't take anything away from the main section and simply added enterprise and occasional preview sections (NHL, college basketball, auto racing, World Cup, Olympics, etc.) to the overall sports report. The magazine had to be requested; subscribers who wanted it, got it. It was also available through rack sales. All told, more than 55% of all Tribune readers received it; the magazine had a circulation of about 120,000 every Friday.

The bosses in the glass offices pulled the plug only because it wasn't making money (because, as mentioned above, the ad people didn't know how to sell it). But readers absolutely loved it ... to the point that we were still receiving letters of lament a year afterward.

 

I hope it works but it isn't surprising. When the Indy and Daily News photo staffs merged into one, it was only a matter of time before other departments were hit.