LA Times sports section

Another six-pager today, with ads.

 

The lean economic scene and sickly-looking sections notwithstanding, I'm going to say the Times sports department is likely saving up some of its now-slashed allotted space budget for the next two to three weeks.

 

All the bean counters will do with declining subscriptions is blame editorial and cut further. Or blame advertising for not getting ads when advertisers can see the product's going down the drain. Or blame circulation when they're not getting the tools they need. Or blame production even though it has equipment that should have been retired at the start of the millennium.

They'll NEVER blame themselves for their "do more with less" mantra.

 

The LAT needs some Starrman justice.

 

Good god! WE get six pages with ads. Circulation 22,000.
I'll never bitch about space again

 

that makes me depressed.

 

How much of this is the economy and how much is an attitude that "entertainment and obituaries of people who were in the movie industry are more important than sports" ?

 

The progression of most viewed stories is an even nicer touch.

 

One of the guys in the office noticed this tonight and said it didn't look like anything was missing ... except the horse agate, which they stopped running.

 

i'm sure there must ber LATers here who can answer fully, but before this round of cuts, sports was still getting whacked and had been for last couple of years.

i don't remember calendar suffering -- at least not notably so -- but of course the section is jammed with movie ads, and idiot TV series summaries, and stories in the monday health section like "was that disease on LOST really medically accurate?" seriously, 20 inches a week on whether something in TV series was actually medically feasible.

sucking up to the industry is big business out here. perhaps some of that has been a nod to david geffen in the ongoing hope he would buy the paper, but IMO entertainment has at least held its own as sports -- and probably every other section -- has suffered.

 

Come to think of it, Bill Dwyre has been awfully quiet through all the turmoil out there. Would love to know what he thinks of his dear paper's nosedive.

 

Not even LAX strip club ads?