DFW suburban chain bankrupt

[Football_Bat]

http://blogs.dallasobserver.com/unfairpark/2009/05/no_more_friday_night_lights_as.php

By now, perhaps you've heard that earlier this week, Addison-based American Community Newspapers --publisher of the Plano Star Courier, the McKinney Courier-Gazette and the Frisco Enterprise among dozens of papers scattered across four states -- filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. The company said there would be "no change in the company's day to day operating activity," but today, Plano Star Courier sports writer Kevin Hageland notes a significant change: After tomorrow, there will be no Saturday edition of the Plano paper, which, he points out with great candor and courage, "is a huge mistake!" Why?

From a sports perspective I think we are doing a huge disservice to our readers. For the most part, Tuesday and Friday nights serve as game night. We always get our stories and scores out to the public for the next morning's issue, but that will no longer be the case. ...

A couple years ago I was at the Plano Senior pancake breakfast for the boys basketball team on a Saturday morning. This was in the fall, so obviously we were in the middle of football season. I didn't see anyone there with a Dallas Morning News, but I saw several copies of the Plano Star Courier and several people passing it around to look at the sports section.

After this Saturday, that won't be the case anymore and I cringe to think what the public reaction will be come football season. For those hoping for something different, as far as I know this is not a temporary move and we will not be bringing back the Saturday edition of the PSC for football season. Hard to imagine that in Texas, but that's where we are at.

 

[txsportsscribe]

i'd buy the mesquite news if they'd sell. looked into it once and got a very cold shoulder. guess i'm a sucker for still believing you can make money from a community newspaper.

 

[JayFarrar]

If it ever went up for sale and I could rustle up the money, I'd buy my hometown weekly.
So scribe, you aren't the only sucker for community papers.

 

[Pete Incaviglia]

Count me in as thinking you can make a living — which is different than making millions — at owning a newspaper, community, major metro or otherwise.

I think I could make a go of my hometown weekly.

 

[daytonadan1983]

Kevin Hageland's a good guy. Does/Did a great job with Plano and keeping the sports sections of all those papers together.

 

[SockPuppet]

DMN gets rid of almost all of its prep writers, Plano paper **** cans its Saturday edition. Hmmmmm, hyper local strategy not working so well, is it guys? Any names for the new strategy? Hyper desperation? Hyper bottom line?

 

[crusoes]

Just hyperventilating.

 

[Blitz]

i'd buy the mesquite news if they'd sell. looked into it once and got a very cold shoulder. guess i'm a sucker for still believing you can make money from a community newspaper.

I believe it, too.
There's money to be made a stories that need to be published by smaller papers.
Big ones are in trouble.

 

[highlander]

Kevin Hageland's a good guy. Does/Did a great job with Plano and keeping the sports sections of all those papers together.

All those sports sections? Which ones? There are maybe 15 sports sections in that chain.

 

[jfs1000]

Count me in as thinking you can make a living — which is different than making millions — at owning a newspaper, community, major metro or otherwise.

I think I could make a go of my hometown weekly.

When do you take vacation? Unless you start hiring people left and right. But, I have found everyone who wants to buy their community weekly wants to be the publisher, editor and writer.

To put out a product that I would be proud of, and to make ends meet, it would be impossible for someone to do both. Perhaps a news blog would work, but an outright printed paper would require a lot of experience.

And, what about vacation? Do you close down for a month and ot print in the summer?

That's just

 

[MU_was_not_so_hard]

As someone else pointed out, just count this in another bump in the road of DFW preps coverage going down the tube. Sure, it's not the Cowboys, but an awful lot of folks I know there have high school football as their No. 1 priority.

 

[Football_Bat]

DMN gets rid of almost all of its prep writers, Plano paper **** cans its Saturday edition. Hmmmmm, hyper local strategy not working so well, is it guys? Any names for the new strategy? Hyper desperation? Hyper bottom line?

Classic case of a de facto truce by attrition. The DMN made a big push into Collin County a few years ago with a zoned edition, with lots of extra pages. They were even doing subvarsity roundups. Then the circulation folks got caught cooking the books, and the retreat began. Now that the war is over, the troops at the community papers are standing down.

 

[daytonadan1983]

There are a couple of really good prep maagzines in Dallas, IIRC.

 

[highlander]

DMN gets rid of almost all of its prep writers, Plano paper **** cans its Saturday edition. Hmmmmm, hyper local strategy not working so well, is it guys? Any names for the new strategy? Hyper desperation? Hyper bottom line?

Classic case of a de facto truce by attrition. The DMN made a big push into Collin County a few years ago with a zoned edition, with lots of extra pages. They were even doing subvarsity roundups. Then the circulation folks got caught cooking the books, and the retreat began. Now that the war is over, the troops at the community papers are standing down.

They are didn't know they were shutting down all their papers? When was this announced?

 

[redsox99]

You can make a decent living owning and operating a weekly and in fact, the circ. numbers of weeklies have remained fairly steady. Two people can run a 3,000 or less. Any more than that and you'd need to add a little staff, maybe a part-timer. Weeklies are the perfect mom and pop operation, but make no mistake, you'll work your ass off. You and the misses will write most of the front page, opinion and briefs, take all the photos and do all the layout and sell ads. You'll also take a few classifieds that walk in and deliver the printed product to the post office each week. You can line up country reporters (I think now they call this citizen journalism) to send in articles about their communities. Doesn't cost you a cent. Same thing with church news ... get ladies from all the churches to submit weekly news items ... again for nothing. Plus filler from the county extension agent and your local state rep. As for sports, I'd feature everything since gamers are old news by the time you're printed. I'd have a little web presence with just the front page articles and maybe sports from Friday night football and the midweek basketball games. Just call the coach, get a little info up on the web (other than football, which should be staffed).

That's my business plan, which comes from past experience at very successful and award-winning weeklies in Texas. They still follow the same format (except for the vacation part), have had no cutbacks or layoffs and still run very smoothly.

As for vacation, you close two weeks in the summer and one week after the massive letters to Santa issue in December. Three weeks vacation is about the most you can do. You sell your subs based on three weeks outta the year without a paper and you also negotiate that into the contract with your printer. To save money on printing, I'd go all black and white unless an advertiser bought the color. And I'd special section as much as possible ... about 1 a month.

 

[Football_Bat]

DMN gets rid of almost all of its prep writers, Plano paper **** cans its Saturday edition. Hmmmmm, hyper local strategy not working so well, is it guys? Any names for the new strategy? Hyper desperation? Hyper bottom line?

Classic case of a de facto truce by attrition. The DMN made a big push into Collin County a few years ago with a zoned edition, with lots of extra pages. They were even doing subvarsity roundups. Then the circulation folks got caught cooking the books, and the retreat began. Now that the war is over, the troops at the community papers are standing down.

They are didn't know they were shutting down all their papers? When was this announced?

Nobody said anything about the papers shutting down. The company filed for Chapter 11.

 

[highlander]

DMN gets rid of almost all of its prep writers, Plano paper **** cans its Saturday edition. Hmmmmm, hyper local strategy not working so well, is it guys? Any names for the new strategy? Hyper desperation? Hyper bottom line?

Classic case of a de facto truce by attrition. The DMN made a big push into Collin County a few years ago with a zoned edition, with lots of extra pages. They were even doing subvarsity roundups. Then the circulation folks got caught cooking the books, and the retreat began. Now that the war is over, the troops at the community papers are standing down.

They are didn't know they were shutting down all their papers? When was this announced?

Nobody said anything about the papers shutting down. The company filed for Chapter 11.

It was sarcasm. Read the final note on the other post about "the troops at the community papers are standing down."

 

[txsportsscribe]

DMN gets rid of almost all of its prep writers, Plano paper **** cans its Saturday edition. Hmmmmm, hyper local strategy not working so well, is it guys? Any names for the new strategy? Hyper desperation? Hyper bottom line?

Classic case of a de facto truce by attrition. The DMN made a big push into Collin County a few years ago with a zoned edition, with lots of extra pages. They were even doing subvarsity roundups. Then the circulation folks got caught cooking the books, and the retreat began. Now that the war is over, the troops at the community papers are standing down.

They are didn't know they were shutting down all their papers? When was this announced?

Nobody said anything about the papers shutting down. The company filed for Chapter 11.

It was sarcasm. Read the final note on the other post about "the troops at the community papers are standing down."

blue font, dammit. blue font.

 

[txsportsscribe]

There are a couple of really good prep maagzines in Dallas, IIRC.

really? where?

 

[highlander]

There are a couple of really good prep maagzines in Dallas, IIRC.

That was actually my thought. I've seen some of those magazines and the writers seldom have a clue what they are writing about.

really? where?