Detroit papers DOUBLE their daily newsstand price

The Fort Street entrance has been closed for about two years and everyone enters on the side (Third Street) or the front (which now closes at 6 p.m.), which is Lafayette.

Also, to clear up a few other misconceptions on the thread: Detroit's unemployment rate is 22%. Michigan's is 15%. There are people who live downtown, including me. It does seem a lot to raise the price but they figure they'll get more money in, I guess. And anything that brings in money and doesn't involve more layoffs, I'm all for.

 

I don't think it's safe to assume that Gannett is raising the price to bring more money in and avoid layoffs. As discussed earlier, it is hard to see how this will increase readership, which is how ad prices are set, and papers have never made their money on newsstand prices.

I think the question is, exactly what is this move calculated to do?

 

Yeah 22 percent seems staggering, but when a much higher percentage of the overall population lives in the areas with only 15 percent it is not as high as it seems.

 

Regarding living downtown: I visited a college friend in July who has a fantastic place in Corktown that she got for a great price. She showed me around town (good parts and bad) and I learned a lot. She's relentlessly optimistic about it, sure, but gosh, I'd love to see Detroit come back in some way.

 

Everyone would... but it's not.

 

The idea of letting the city return to its city limits from back in the early 20th century might be the only way that can happen. Somebody raised that point in, I think, the Kwame Kilpatrick thread earlier this year.

Scale back the size of the city and focus on saving the core.

 

I went to my neighborhood Walgreens at about 8:15 this morning to buy two copies of the Free Press (I buy one for an elderly neighbor). I knew I'd have to cough up $3 instead of $2, but many other customers didn't know about the price hike.

The guy in line ahead of me had to go out to his car to get another 50 cents to add to his $1. The older guy behind me, dressed in a suit and looking like he was heading to church, refused to buy the paper. Both are regular customers, as am I.

The clerk told me that several people already had refused to buy the paper once they learned of the price hike. She said that there likely will be a bunch of leftovers for the delivery guy to take back with him.

Congratu-freakin-lations, Detroit Newspaper Agency. You officially effed up.

 

How would this work? You shrink the city and give the other parts of it you don't want to ... ?

 

I'm rooting for Dave Bing

http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1925798,00.html?xid=rss-topstories

http://www.freep.com/article/20090923/BUSINESS06/909230370/1318/Bing-to-Detroit---Change-...-or-get-left-behind-

 

Raise that price of the print product; cut that staff; worsen the product; don't beef up the ad staff or give the ad staff further incentives, training; don't think of innovative ways to keep relationships with long time advertisers; give the product away for free online.

Great business model. It's nonsensical really. I know successful businesspeople who are amazed at the clowns running newspapers.