Tampa reaction: Not good

That's kinda my point, IJAG. And it's a big reason MG is swirling the bowl as we speak.

Drip, I know MG's affinity for the Tampa/St. Pete market. I saw it with my own eyes for years. If the talent at the Trib wasn't at the level it needed to be, MG did exactly zero about it ... until the cuts started coming hard and heavy.

And folks, wouldn't you know the one time MG tried something, it would fail miserably? And the first time any suit tries to explain this was done with the reader in mind, the person should be smacked with a fresh-caught marlin right across the chops.

 

Tampa's also in a competitive situation with a newspaper that prints money

 

Editor: "But the focus groups really LIKED the re-design!"

 

Then either step up to the plate and swing from the heels, or sell it to someone whose reflexes match the power you're facing from the fireballing pitcher.

Turning the paper into a single section did neither.

 

To be fair, the single section paper had a lot going for it. Such as ... er ... um ... well, it's singlenicity and all.

 

echo the fact that the MG community daily papers are pretty much reflecting Tampa's screwups. My 32ishK is switching from 4 sections to 2 four days a week, when we had just been doing it for Monday papers, and it's a Media General mandate.

This comes right after dropping to a 22-inch web width from 24. Another MG mandate that our pub fought tooth and nail.

It won't kill sports as much as it will eliminate wire/national stuff, but it will hurt on those three days.

 

As I'm watching the ALCS, I'm noticing the giant "TBT" signs out in the outfield. How much did the Tampa paper waste on sponsoring Tropicana Field's lame "party deck"?

 

All the lovely and talented people are a twitter out there... you be nice...

 

cutting edgy

 

And legal edgy. It's to indicate that it's an abbreviation for "Tampa Bay Times" -- a fact that went to court because the name "Tampa Times" is owned by the Tribune. It's the name of a defunct afternoon sister paper.

About three years ago, the St. Petersburg Times, noticing that the Tribune never did much with the name "Tampa Times" brand, decided to poke the bear and created a weekly tabloid called TBT* (with "Tampa Bay Times" in very small type underneath the logo).

The whole thing went to court and was settled. The upshot is that the St. Petersburg Times can call its product "TBT* Tampa Bay Times" -- restricted use for now, with complete, unfettered rights to the name "Tampa Bay Times" in a few more years.

TBT* has become so popular in the time since, it has gone from weekly to daily. And the Tribune? It gets to keep "Tampa Times" as its own.

For what it's worth, about 17-18 years ago, sensing that the St. Petersburg Times might try to lay claim to the name "Tampa Bay Times," The Tampa Tribune briefly renamed its "Friday Extra" weekend section as such. Then, after about two years, they reverted to the old name, which had tremendous marketplace recognition. But according to the grapevine, the Tribune never filed for a trademark to the name "Tampa Bay Times," thinking that its history of publishing a section under that name would be enough to substantiate any legal rights to the name.

It wasn't.