Obscene Obituary Rates

[daytonadan1983]

Dad died last week.

Mom did want more than the "complimentary one sentence" (Like we're supposed to be GRATEFUL!?) in the newspaper.

$150 for three sentences so we could get the service info in the paper. She wanted it, I ordered it and bit my tongue.

Funeral home web site was free, including photos. THAT turned out nice.

I mean, the least they could do was offer a couple free copies... BUT NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

What the hell happened? And how does management justify pissing off a fading market at the worst time?

I'll listen.

 

[SEeditor]

Rates are all over the board. Our papers charge on average between $150-$250. It depends on length. But I’ve heard neighboring papers charge a heck of a lot more than that, closer to $500-1,000 easily for the same obit.

 

[Fredrick]

I know Fredrick can be crabby and is seen as a hateful jerk, but I'm glad you started this thread. Anybody trying to bury a loved one in a "big" city has experienced this disgraceful disgraceful disgraceful money-grubbing tactic of newspapers charging exorbitant amounts for obituaries and funeral service information. You know what ... boomers who read the paper and were our best customers are dying. And their obits cost 500 to 1000 dollars. All because newspapers are trying to scrounge enough money to make sure the CEO's can keep their boats filled with gas and get new roofs and paint jobs for their vacation homes. Also buy more motorcycles and snowmobiles and pay for a couple more vacations per year.
Shame shame shame. For all the years boomers supported the newspaper when nobody else knows what a newspaper is. ... The suits hold up families for this kind of money for a service that used to be FREE. It's sick and sad and I'd like a suit on here to defend the practice. Seriously folks ....

 

[Fredrick]

And Daytonadan sorry for your loss and sorry you hate to bite your tongue experiencing that shake-down. Bless you and your mom.

 

[DanOregon]

I know when I wrote an obit for a family member, I would have loved to have made what the paper made per inch. Also - the funeral home's "obituary service" is them taking your obit into the newspaper and charging you $100.

 

[ondeadline]

I remember in the last 1990s when I was copy desk chief (news side) at a newspaper and obituaries were free. The suits thought of it as a public service.

 

[Evil ... Thy name is Orville Redenbacher!!]

Our paper would charge an arm and a leg for obits. But, - get this - wedding and engagement announcements were free.
I argued the reverse should be happening for years.

 

[daytonadan1983]

Frederick, my good sir, I DEMAND this conversation and wish I could unload on the local shop MANAGEMENT without adverse affect on my teams' coverage.

I didn't want one extra ounce of anguish for Mom -- we have those members of the family for that, so I did what I'm supposed to do -- crank out the 3 sentence for the paid, mutter obscenities under my breath and had them run my debit card. Then I cranked out a nice 500-worder for the Funeral Home web site that included a sentence about his cat.

The SID in me did what I'm supposed to do and was the first one to arrive at the funeral home and the last to leave both the cemetery after the graveside service and the chapel after the reception. (I'm my ward's membership clerk and have a key to the chapel. Mom's impressed with that).

The journalist still in me honored the great Jimmy Breslin and went over to the gravediggers and thanked them. Everyone plays a role, right? Why can't newspapers.

And since I'm supposed to write it out -- here's my 3 best lines (I posted to facebook)

1) You wanna know the moment I knew my brother would crush the eulogy? When he asked me "How do you spell eulogy?"

2) I've known the funeral home owner for years and he always chuckles when I go "we gotta stop meeting like this?"

3) The person who graded out the best? (Yes, my brother and I did that...) My ex for delivering a heartfelt blessing on the food at the reception. I was even more impressed she didn't burst into flames the moment she stepped foot in the church. BOOM!

Thanks, everyone.

 

[CD Boogie]

I'm sorry for your loss. Seems to me I would not put it in the paper, I would just share it on social media. It's free and everyone will see it. Heck, can even put a rider on it: "If you think someone who is not on social media won't see this, please let them know."

I quit Facebook a few years ago for like five weeks, and no joke I almost missed the funeral of a friend's husband. That's where it'd been shared. Granted, I'm now reading paper obits on the regular, because I'm 46 and nosey. But I still expect to be apprised of things on social media.

 

[wicked]

Sorry for your loss.

My dad died five years ago. The pair of obituaries cost probably $800. I can only imagine what the rates would be now.

 

[playthrough]

Our paper would charge an arm and a leg for obits. But, - get this - wedding and engagement announcements were free.
I argued the reverse should be happening for years.

Heck yes. Look at the NYTimes and their often obnoxious announcements, which people go nuts to try to get in print. The paper doesn't charge but if it wanted to, they could probably underwrite a job or two for a year with what those well-off folks (and their parents) would pay.

I'm sorry for your loss, daytonadan.

 

[Fredrick]

Sorry for your loss.

My dad died five years ago. The pair of obituaries cost probably $800. I can only imagine what the rates would be now.

Very sad. This should be a free service even if we have to lay off two more people a year in the newsroom as we head toward closing the doors for good.

 

[maumann]

Dad died last week.

Mom did want more than the "complimentary one sentence" (Like we're supposed to be GRATEFUL!?) in the newspaper.

$150 for three sentences so we could get the service info in the paper. She wanted it, I ordered it and bit my tongue.

Funeral home web site was free, including photos. THAT turned out nice.

I mean, the least they could do was offer a couple free copies... BUT NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

What the hell happened? And how does management justify pissing off a fading market at the worst time?

I'll listen.

I'm sorry, Dan. Sending condolences from us.

 

[CD Boogie]

Heck yes. Look at the NYTimes and their often obnoxious announcements, which people go nuts to try to get in print. The paper doesn't charge but if it wanted to, they could probably underwrite a job or two for a year with what those well-off folks (and their parents) would pay.

I'm sorry for your loss, daytonadan.

They don't charge for those monstrosities? Unreal

 

[LanceyHoward]

Very sad. This should be a free service even if we have to lay off two more people a year in the newsroom as we head toward closing the doors for good.

Daytona Dan

My condolences on the loss of your father. My father died in 2014 and I still am trying to come to grips with it. And I had the same experience with my family so we wound up buying an bit for a coupe hundred bucks in the Denver Post, a periodical my father had subscribed to for 47 years.

But the reasons papers are going this is that obituaries are now a big source of revenue. When I hit a town I usually buy the local paper and then count the pages and ads (I am weird). It is rate that I see a paper on weekdays with much more than 8-10 pages of as. Usually the paper will have at least a half page of obits. And they are priced at premium rates. So obits are driving a lot of revenue.

Bit I can tell you that when my Mom died last year we did not buy an obituary in the Post.

 

[MTM]

My first daily was in a retirement community and we could have up to 20 obits each day in the late 80s, early 90s, written by an obituary writer and edited by an editor. And they ran for free.

We started charging the funeral homes $25 to put their logo on the bottom of obits, and they didn't balk, because I think they were charging families to fill out the forms for the free obits.

Now families are paying hundreds or thousands of dollars and writing the obits themselves, often poorly. Nobody edits them and there are often spelling or other errors. It's probably nitpicky stuff that only us journalist will notice -- "Bob worked for Chevy Motors for 30 years" -- but they are sloppy nonetheless.

 

[DanOregon]

Do newspapers still get the "public notices" money from governments. I'm wondering if social media's growth and newspaper circulation declines make the rules requiring public notification (which newspapers benefitted from) moot. There have been a few dust-ups when a local town's leaders, peeved at the coverage of the dominant local daily would used a small weekly instead.

 

[MileHigh]

Condolences.

I'll have to go back and see what we ended paying for when my sister and her family died. It was all part of funeral home package, but I know we severely edited it down because it was long already and there were four of them. The one on the funeral home's site and it still resides there today.

 

[I Should Coco]

Do newspapers still get the "public notices" money from governments. I'm wondering if social media's growth and newspaper circulation declines make the rules requiring public notification (which newspapers benefitted from) moot. There have been a few dust-ups when a local town's leaders, peeved at the coverage of the dominant local daily would used a small weekly instead.

You bet ... newspapers and their state associations pay quite a bit of money on lawyers, who fight tooth and nail to keep those legal notices in the paper.

Obits and legal notices are perhaps the only sources of ad revenue that haven't tanked in the past 10, 15 years.

 

[DanOregon]

And it's absolutely ridiculous with so many papers having various forms of paywalls - which defeats the purpose of legal/public notices.