Southeast Missourian cuts Saturday pub

Prep Fridays are huge there, and that paper has done a great job of covering preps.

They've put a lot of time and work in their sports website. Still, this is an odd move. I would think if you would dump a day there, Monday would be a better choice.

 

I've been told before that dumping Mondays in a lot of markets was out of the question because Dillard's (a huge advertiser in lots of smaller papers) loves to advertise big on Mondays.

Dillard's is one of the few folks left who'll buy display advertising at the full rate and not use slicks. If they ever wised up, half the papers in the Middle South would have their doors padlocked before Halloween.

 

Fridays indeed are a big deal in Southeast Missouri. This changes presents a challenge, but we're going to use it as an opportunity to tell stories in a different way. We'll go with more feature-esque angles on football coverage and figure out basketball when we get to that. The good news is that I've been promised bigger Sunday papers. If anyone has been through a similar move and has some tips on how to make it work, I'd love to hear them. Thanks.

-- Kevin Winters Morriss
Sports editor, Southeast Missourian

 

I once worked at a shop that had no Saturday paper. I gotta admit it was nice to never have to bust your ass cranking out a prep football gamer on deadline.

Whichever of the three staffers was closest to the office just had to go by and update the "score phone" and we could hit the bar. Then whoever was in the office on Saturday could chase down all the results of games we hadn't staffed the night before.

But obviously, this is not a good trend ...

 

They still have the Sunday product so the prep scores are only a day old. Many smaller papers have gone that route. Also Saturday, despite prep football, is still the slowest day of the week for sales. I'm sure the beancounters looked at an average 13-week football season and felt that it couldn't carry the 39 remaining Saturdays.

 

Only a day old? That's pretty damn old in today's 24-hour news cycle.