Wrap around A section

This story is on Romenesko today, and it quotes an anonymous Times-Dispatch emailer saying the news staff was "shocked and angry" over an ad section that wrapped around the A section on Sunday.

http://www.poynter.org/latest-news/romenesko/142837/newspaper-ad-covering-front-page-shocks-staff-but-its-a-real-snoozer-to-readers/

All three South Florida papers did this a month ago, and I raised my eyebrows briefly, then realized the entire intact A section was inside. they all simply ran the flag over the top of the ad, but then repeated it again on the actual news front.

I guess it's a sign of the times that as a reader and former employee of all three papers, I was neither shocked nor angry, and I think that the Times-Dispatch newsroom probably has plenty more worthy things to be shocked and angry about. Probably brought in some pretty good money, and it didn't really disrupt the real paper at all.

These days, I'm having a hard time summoning outrage over revenue producers like this.

 

Charles Apple had a post about a different recent occurance of this trend, in the Virginian-Pilot.

http://apple.copydesk.org/2011/08/07/what-i-love-and-dont-love-about-todays-virginian-pilot-front-page/

He includes links to other examples.

I'm curious as to the effect on single-copy sales. Does a paper's reputation sell single copies, or does a great cover sell single copies? My newspaper has never done any above-the-fold 1A advertising that I recall, aside from a tiny ad that appears in our flag. Does anyone have numbers?

 

See, that was a totally different deal where they basically took out the front page.

 

Must have been a Media General wide thing. My paper had the same ad on Sunday.