Keep an eye/ear out for Tampa

You aren't converting them to Sunday only. You're converting them to WEB only. At least in theory, and I'm sure that's what they're hoping. If it works, great . . . good luck, though.

 

Indeed. The future happened a lot quicker than it seemed it would just a couple of years ago.

I think we all knew this would happen at some point. I just wish it would have been tried first on a smaller scale, like some college town paper or something. Tampa is the one that just a year or so ago thought it was leading the way in "convergence" by partnering with th local TV station that had the same ownership, right?

So their management seems to always be trying to figure out how to stay alive (yes, even if they screwed over a couple of board favorites in the layoffs). But this . . . . how could they not end up a sacrificial lamb and a cautionary tale?

 

Here's the best parallel with which I can come up:

In 1979, the car market was changing dramatically. Detroit had for years been providing variations of the same formula -- a six-passenger, body-on-frame, rear-wheel drive sedan. Millions upon millions of Chevrolet Impalas, Dodge Polaras, and Ford Galaxie 500s prowled the roads, sucking down gas at 12 mpg and getting families from one place to the other.

Then the game changed. Gas hit $1 a gallon. People didn't want six-passenger, body-on-frame, rear-wheel drive sedans anymore. But Detroit kept churning them out. Then they "downsized" them, turning a big, comfortable gas-guzzler into a smaller, oddly designed, less-comfortable gas-guzzler that was also less reliable than before, because there were many fewer people putting them together (and the ones left behind were demoralized.)

One company faced sure bankruptcy. But Chrysler Corporation, with some help from the government, ditched the six-passenger, body-on-frame, rear-wheel drive sedan like a bad habit and came up with a better idea. Two, actually: the K-Car and the minivan. Neither will ever be a classic, but both showed some sign that Detroit was actually reading the market. The minivan, as it turned out, was a game-changer. It served the purpose of the big sedan (moving the family comfortably) while also providing front-wheel-drive, relative efficiency and reliability. Chrysler lived another 20 years (just long enough to get itself into another financial mess, but that's another story.)

All along, the naysayers said, "You're going to alienate the traditional customer" -- the one who wanted the six-passenger, rear-wheel-drive, body-on-frame sedan.

We see what happened. Honda and Toyota won by giving the market what it wanted (and, yes, by adapting its products to full-size American tastes). The six-passenger, rear-wheel-drive, body-on-frame "traditional customer" can still buy a Ford Crown Victoria.

Folks, the daily "paper of record" is the six-passenger, rear-wheel-drive, body-on-frame sedan. It has its place with its devotees, but the general-interest print publication, for all intents and purposes, is dead. It's time -- past time -- for somebody to try a different approach. And of all the big newspapers, the Tribune (not unlike Chrysler in 1981) has the least to lose, because 1/its print product is a Dead Paper Walking anyway and 2/they have staff already trained for many different platforms.

If they're actually going to do this, I'm rooting for them. I hope it's a hit with advertisers and readers. I hope they build it into a host of niche publications (both print and online) that look good, read well and can be marketed effectively.

Who knows? Maybe they can even, I don't know, CHARGE FOR THE CONTENT, because it is truly unique content that can't be found any place else.

I gotta be optimistic about something.

One thing of which I am certain: Trying to do a better version of the six-passenger, rear-wheel-drive, body-on-frame sedan isn't the answer.

 

For example, these guys. And also these folks.

 

The bigger shock, in my opinion, is that Tampa is the only newspaper strongly considering this option.

It seems radical on the surface, but that's because we're all used to having a daily, physical newspaper as some part of our lives. This doesn't necessarily change, only the method of delivery (to the internet) and format (from paper to web) changes.

If this works, I expect just about everyone else to jump on the bandwagon.

 

Ding, ding, ding!

 

Or the XFL.

 

Actually, my point wasn't that the Internet people won't have a chance. It was actually the opposite, that the Sunday takeout writers, who I assume will be expected to come up with hard-hitting! in-depth! investigative! pieces won't have the needed credibility. If, that is, that staff is separate from the daily Web staff. If it's not, then that's a whole other set of problems.

I'm not even saying it can't be done. I am saying it can't be done by snapping one's fingers and making it so, which would appear to be the Tribune's strategy, if past experiences are to be any indicator.

 

Why would the Sunday staff be separate from the daily web staff? How many papers have dedicated Web-only writers now?

 

If I seemed to imply that it would be (and I don't think I did), it was only because I can't imagine people who have to do constant updates for the Web -- now Tampa's primary news delivery device (by its own assertion) -- would have the time to write anything substantial enough for Sunday to make that day's edition "sing" and make that kind of reorganization anything more than cost-cutting.