Laurel (Miss.) Leader-Call ceasing publication

I think it was actually some weeklies that had made serious inroads down there. My old SE is the publisher of said weeklies. Haven't talked to him in a while, but the last time I did (maybe last year sometime) he said his papers were doing quite well and taking a bite out of the Leader-Call's circulation.

 

That and the fact that the market in the area is shrinking. I look for the possibility of a couple more papers in the Great State of Mississippi making drastic changes.

 

Sad news, but kudos for the Steve Forbert reference.

 

Columbus is getting beaten up by a weekly, too.

 

Also, it was pretty poorly managed, with a revolving door at the top. An early deadline (10 p.m.) robbed them of what should have been their biggest strength in sports: local preps coverage, and they couldn't keep competent people in charge in that department.

I expect Hattiesburg will pick up a lot of the coverage slack as far as preps are concerned. They had mostly abandoned that area in recent years, but there's an opportunity there to pick up some readers, so they'd be foolish not to jump on it.

 

Why are the weaklies beating up on dailies. Are the weeklies free and a paper with paid circulation can not compete? I know the small town dailies have limited resources but why would a weekly offer a better product?

 

Good question Lancey. It crossed my mind too.

 

It's so much easier to make a small town weekly profitable vs. a small town daily. The print costs alone are a huge difference. Also, many small town dailies rely quite a bit on wire copy and syndicated content to fill space. Weeklies have an easier time keeping it entirely local, which appeals to small town readers.

Besides, everybody likes to rag on the ole local paper. When a new product comes in people might see it as better, whether it is or not. Advertisers included.

 

The Web isn't helping the situation at small town dailies.

 

And weeklies don't balk at running full team pictures of lil Johnny's Dixie Youth team, as dailies typically do ...

 

Dailies that size usually run those pictures.

 

I know we do. We'd be foolish not to.