So how's your tab coming?

[bumpy mcgee]

Fall is nearing, school is starting, so here's my question:
How's your tab coming?
Feel free to vent at the incompetence that athletic directors are or the lack of your ad department being able to sell a tab.
Swing for the fences, ***** away.

 

[zebracoy]

Nonexistent.

Just had to be the first.

 

[Lollygaggers]

The lack of ads never ceases to baffle me. We've got 12 pages, maybe five or six ads and none more than a quarter page (only one of those). Shouldn't this be the one section we sell better than any other? Anyway, copy deadline is this week, still finishing up the cover story and a couple of sidebar things and waiting for team previews from a few people.

 

[2underpar]

we start laying out the 48-page prep tab tomorrow. has to be done by thursday at midnight. then, we dive straight into the 16-page college preview. it has to be finished by Monday. still missing some rosters and three stringer-authored stories. Oh yeah, and i still have to write the centerpiece. other than that, it's going swimmingly. Nothing else is going on this time of year except that prep volleyball starts saturday, cross country next week, football jamborees this thursday and friday, and of course the local D-2 college starts volleyball and soccer next week and is looking for previews.

 

[mediaguy]

No tab this year. Not missing it at all ...

 

[JakeandElwood]

We've had some problems with incompetent ADs, but I think we're off to a good start.

 

[albert77]

Wrote the last story Friday, prints tomorrow, hits the streets this coming Friday -- a day after the first prep game of the season.

 

[Den1983]

I've been told we will have a tab, but that they've yet to start selling for it. Nice.

As far as the actual content, that's not a problem. We've done a feature for each team every day since preseason camp started so we're pretty in tune with how things are going to be.

Though with the way things are going, I'm getting more worried with each day whether we will have a tab. Our ad people can't sell at all.

 

[CM Punk]

Beats me. I don't really give a **** anymore either.

 

[Johnny Dangerously]

First August since 1984 or '85 for me to have no involvement in a football tab. I do not miss it. I've had a lifetime supply.

 

[Wenders]

I've gotten ahold of one coach, still have another, goes to press Thursday, prints Friday. The ad people at my shop are idiotic and never bother to ask us where we want ads or what we want out of a tab, so we'll be fudging with where they put them so we can have a real centerspread.

 

[Colton]

48 broadsheet here... four 12-page sections.

Just checked the ad log: 544 inches of ads listed -- 48 broadsheets is 6048 inches of space. Uh oh.

I'm supposed to receive the dummies today. For some reason, I'm guessing at 9 percent advertising, I won't be receiving those 48 pages that were promised... not that I blame them, if that's what happens, but the work has already been done in terms of writing, photographs, graphics to fill the 48.

 

[Football_Bat]

Our page count was reduced from 40 to 32 tab pages this year. They said they wanted to make it 36, but the press configuration meant they could only reduce in increments of 8 pages (it made sense when they diagrammed it.) Ad sales were about the same as a year ago, so that means an extremely tight tab — and less work for me. I'm breezing right now.

 

[HejiraHenry]

Knee-deep doesn't begin to describe it. Looks like (no more than) a 48-page tab.

 

[novelist_wannabe]

I'm going to have to have Pablo Picasso sign an autograph to pay it.

 

[Walter Burns]

Copy deadline's today. I've got most of my stuff. We get dummies tomorrow. For the first time since I've been here, someone else is laying it out. So all in all, we could be in waay worse shape.
We print early 8/26. It should be an adventure in another week.

 

[bumpy mcgee]

We have a 40-pager, wasn't at this shop last year but told we're waaaaayyy ahead of where they were at this time a year ago.
Ad space looks good, made the budget for it last night and the stories are progressing nicely. Other than the ADs being unable to email or fax rosters and questionnaires after multiple phone calls, not too much to complain about, but then again it's only Tuesday morning, see me the night before the beast is due.

 

[TrooperBari]

No tab ... in fact, no HS football at all.

God, I love this job sometimes.

 

[Calvin Hobbes]

We finished our 29-team, 120-page preview yesterday at about 5:30 p.m. Went straight from the newsroom to my daughter's soccer game, grabbed some dinner, walked the dog and was asleep by 9 p.m. Slept until 11 a.m. today.

Friday, Saturday, Sunday and Monday were absolute bears. Five of us killed enough diet pop (two kinds of Mountain Dew, Vernor's and, yes, Tab) to float the Titanic.

Started at 10:30 a.m. on Sunday and worked until 5:15 a.m. on Monday morning. Slept from 5:45 until 6:30, then did a 70-mile round trip to get a team photo and some mugs. Slept for an hour, then back to the office for more caffeine and the final push.

Now it's time to get started on our college and pro tab.

BTW, I thought our ad count was very good, considering the area's economic issues. Props to our ad people.

 

[Colton]

We finished our 29-team, 120-page preview yesterday at about 5:30 p.m. Went straight from the newsroom to my daughter's soccer game, grabbed some dinner, walked the dog and was asleep by 9 p.m. Slept until 11 a.m. today.

Friday, Saturday, Sunday and Monday were absolute bears. Five of us killed enough diet pop (two kinds of Mountain Dew, Vernor's and, yes, Tab) to float the Titanic.

Started at 10:30 a.m. on Sunday and worked until 5:15 a.m. on Monday morning. Slept from 5:45 until 6:30, then did a 70-mile round trip to get a team photo and some mugs. Slept for an hour, then back to the office for more caffeine and the final push.

Now it's time to get started on our college and pro tab.

BTW, I thought our ad count was very good, considering the area's economic issues. Props to our ad people.

Calvin: I look forward to seeing your new concept. For me, Diet Coke is the drink of... necessity.