Many of us were sort of surprised on Thanksgiving when we went to buy our morning Fort Worth Star-Telegram. They recently raised prices for the weekday edition to $1, and some of us were getting used to that. But the Thursday paper was $2, the same as the Sunday edition.
Looks like newspapers around the country were doing that as well. Columnist Peter Funt chides the newspaper industry for these holiday price increases in this column. And the reasoning newspapers gave for the price increase? The holiday paper had more ad inserts than a normal weekday, so they thought you should pay double the price for that esteemed right to look at Wal-Mart and Target ads.
So this is what the newspaper game has become. Give less editorial content, charge more, and get a little more money by claiming readers should pay extra to look at ads. I sort of thought it was the other way around.
Well, wouldn’t it serve logic that if they have MORE advertising inserts that THEY already made more money? Just thinking….
Not only do they screw their readers with a per copy increase, they give a giant crotch kick to advertisers by increasing ad rates every six months while their circulation declines. What a bunch of crap. I wish our daily paper was in better hands every day of my life.
Perhaps the paper is effectively giving away its ad space, charging less for bigger chunks of the printed product: a losing proposition. For the paper.