Reporters delivering Boston Globe

Our paper decided to deliver mail only about five years ago. We had to switch to mornings to make it work (we also stopped printing on Mondays and had to switch the Sunday paper to Saturday) but the paper should be in your mailbox every day we print it. Some people still don't get their paper, then call us. We'll bring another one by but advise them to call the post office first to see if they failed to deliver it.

We have odd days we can't publish because of postal holidays. We can't have an issue on Veterans Day, for example. And since we're only four days a week, this has led to some weeks where we don't publish our first issue of the week until Wednesday. And since we don't do Thursdays anymore, we end up going Wed-Fri-Sat that week. There's been others where we print Tue-Fri-Sat only.

But we couldn't get reliable carriers anymore, especially after liability issues came up and we had to stop using anyone under the age of 18. And within two years, two other papers near us switched to all-mail. They also did it in Garden City, but the readers revolted and they had to go back to carriers.

 

It could be worse (I suppose.) Back in the 1980s and before, newspaper distribution in NYC and New Jersey was completely mobbed up. At least no one has to deal with any Luchese family associates any more.

 

Globe has agreed to split duties between two vendors (ACI and the old company), starting Monday.

John Henry's apology: www.bostonglobe.com/opinion/2016/01/05/apologize-our-loyal-readers/S0uNqQOjkx3UD7jD3WbbgL/story.html

 

Didn't the OCR also have some sort of plan where home-delivery subscribers could come to the paper's office to pick up their home-delivered papers?

 

Yeah, something like that. There were so many laughable decisions that it's hard to remember them all. I'm sure hundreds of people were driving from San Clemente to Santa Ana to get their hands on a Register.

 

Another big problem with mail delivery is where your home is on the mail route. Tough to read the paper at breakfast if the mail isn't delivered until mid-afternoon.

But you're right about the ability to find drivers being a huge problem, especially for dailies at 20K or below circulation.

 

That's one of the issues we have. When I lived on the east side of the tracks, our paper never came before noon. Since we moved to the other side of the tracks, we get it around 10:30. One guy said to me, "It's neither a morning nor an afternoon paper. It's a 'you-get-it-when-you-get-it' paper." You want it first thing in the morning? The only guarantee is to go to a news rack.

The whole "you-get-it-when-you-get-it" thing was the reason for the readers' revolt in Garden City, I believe. My parents even told me they cancelled their subscription to the Telegram because you should be able to read your morning paper before 4:30 p.m. Even after they changed back to carries, my parents didn't renew.

 

It would be interesting to figure out how big of a route you would need that a) is doable between the time the papers are "dropped" and the desired delivery time (I know some places say by 6 a.m., some earlier) b) and worth the effort given the time, gas and expected "profit margin." Unless you live in a high-density area, I figure it would be tough.

 

Let's say there are five million people in the home circulation for the Globe. That will translate to about 1.8 million homes. Home delivery circulation is about 205,000. So the penetration rate is about 12%. If the carriers are making seven bucks a month per paper and deliver 200 they have to drive by 1,600 homes. And I bet they don't make six bucks a paper and have to deliver more than woo to make six bucks a month.

Since daily newspapers economic function now appears to serve as a wrapper for retail circulars I wonder at what point it just makes more sense to go to mail, especially as papers continue to shrink in size.

 

It makes more sense to drop down to three times a week. Think it's funny grocery stores in my area try to sell the Sunday paper for $1 throughout the week so people can buy it for the coupons. The stack seems to be the same height by the end of the week.

 

This would be a good survey question. Any of you reporters or editors out there ... if you were asked to deliver the newspaper to porches and stores, etc., for 3 days out of a week for an upcoming six-week period, would you do it? Or would you tell the higher ups to go fuck themselves in a nice way? No way I'd deliver newspapers. Sorry I'd be fired before I do that. And this might be a good spot to ask this question. When do you think most newspaper companies will cut the print edition to five days a week or four days to start a quicker movement to online only? I say it'll happen before the end of this year. Gannett or somebody will announce there will be newsprint five days a week only. And then by the end of 2017 there will be no newspapers anymore, just the online product.

 

Boston Globe delivery problems persist - The Boston Globe