sunday newspaper paper price increase $2 to $3

[edwardh1]

Hey its only a dollar. but what a percentage increase in income. It would almost be like pickups increasing from $30,000 or so to $60,000.

What ? ----you say that has already happened????

 

[silverrat]

Originally Posted By: edwardh1
Hey its only a dollar. but what a percentage increase in income. It would almost be like pickups increasing from $30,000 or so to $60.


Your math is off.

 

[gman2304]

Still $1.50 here.

 

[Yah-Tah-Hey]

Omaha World Herald annual subscription went up about thirty percent and the daily is just a shadow of its former self, pages and size. OWH is now same size as our local wipe.Another price increase like that and I'm gone.

 

[mrsilv04]

Locally, I get the dead tree version delivered Thursday through Sunday, and on-line access to the paper 7 days a week, for $14 a month.

Just 4 Sunday dead tree versions from the corner gas station would be $12... and I'm getting a lot more for just $2/month additional.

 

[hatt]

I tried to sub to the paper a few years ago. Price when up a couple times in a year. I dropped that. They wanted $10/month for a digital sub. No thanks.

 

[csandste]

When I started college as a journalism major back before the Peloponnesian War, we were taught that the cost of newsprint and publishing was generally twice the cost of the paper. So if a Sunday paper sold for 25 cents, actual costs from newsprint to delivery boy were close to fifty.

So, why can't newspapers make money off advertising with an e-product? One reason is there is so much competition that Google can make advertising revenue off of a far broader stream of information than the newspaper and that unit ad costs have decreased to almost nothing. I have enough junk in my house without having news print to deal with and it would be the honorable thing to subscribe to the e versions of news media and give them money to keep quality reporters in place at the local level. I live in a county of 400,000 and unless someone is killed and it winds up on TV there's very little news coverage. I suspect erosion of local news has led to problems with low information voters and non-voters nationally. However, trying to keep a physical newspaper as a viable news device seems counter intuitive to me. There's got to be some way to make money besides throwing dead trees or erecting pay walls.

 

[spackard]

When I was a kid every driveway had a paper newspaper in it; probably a third to half had Sunday;
I remember running over them with my bicycle and they made quite a bump, a little too much with Sunday.

Now - the El Segundo Times may drop off a free advertising supplement, but it looks like a community flyer in size. Almost no driveways get delivery, delivery issues are up, turnover is high.

I think my dad's getting his for $1/year (OC Register); he got that after he cancelled and they kept offering a lower and lower rate.

 

[Mantooth]

Newspaper? What's that?

I canceled our subscription years ago. Our local newspaper became so onesided, politically speaking, that I just couldn't stand to read it. Haven't bought one in years.

 

[Vuflanovsky]

I'm more surprised that papers of any size still exist with the home delivery model than I am about an increase in price. The only paper subscribers that I'm aware of close to my place are over 75 years old and that's viewed as kind of a generational anachronism.

One of the local papers here advertises on TV that the Warriors' Klay Thompson has a pre-game ritual of reading the newspaper. I don't believe they ever mention if he's a subscriber or not.

Local news, and to a lesser extent national news, has become internet news. The "OMG" news model of your average local TV affiliate will have the same plane crashes, house fires, pedophiles, car chases and infantile news as the internet. TV news begs for free content of these events you capture on your cell phone. The TV news just ends with the predictable human interest story like they have for decades...not so much of difference these days.

 

[Mr Nice]

Majority of people reading newspapers are over 60 years old.

Its a dying industry.

 

[Johnny2Bad]

Do you want to know why?

(New) Tariffs on newsprint paper from Canadian mills. Paper is about 30% of a newspaper's cost of business. Because modern newspapers also have an online business, and because online ad revenue is much, much lower than print ad revenue per reader, a disproportionate amount of it's costs rely on the paper product, so the impact is even higher overall.

US domestic mills don't make enough to satisfy demand, even though demand is way down from a decade ago. So papers must buy at least some paper from Canada, and the tariffs have allowed US mills to raise their prices to equal the market price overall. And US domestic newsprint manufacturers are not going to actually increase production, as their own bean counters tell them the demand for the product will continue to fall over time, so they are not willing to invest in new facilities or upgrades.

Along with raising subscription and single-issue prices many newspapers have laid off staff in the recent months as well.

 

[Triple_Se7en]

Originally Posted By: edwardh1
Hey its only a dollar. but what a percentage increase in income. It would almost be like pickups increasing from $30,000 or so to $60,000.


Your math is incorrect. Based on an increase from $2 to $3....
It would almost be like pickups increasing from $30,000 to $45,000.......... not $60,000.

 

[maxdustington]

Originally Posted By: Mantooth
I canceled our subscription years ago. Our local newspaper became so onesided, politically speaking, that I just couldn't stand to read it. Haven't bought one in years.

My parents still read them everyday and it's pretty gross. I'm not sure if they changed to attract more ad revenue or the world changed around them and realized that they're pretty much just propaganda now. Also, I read things online and then see them in the paper 1-2 days later.
I used to read the comics every weekend when I were a lad, I had completely forgotten about that.

 

[Johnny2Bad]

Originally Posted By: edwardh1
Hey its only a dollar. but what a percentage increase in income. It would almost be like pickups increasing from $30,000 or so to $60,000.

What ? ----you say that has already happened????


Close. It's a 50% increase in price (not income as explained in my previous post ... some US newspapers are eating the cost increases and reducing profit, although they do say it's not sustainable and price increases and / or layoffs are inevitable if their costs remain as they are).

$2 x 50% = $1; $2 + $1 = $3

 

[CT8]

News papers are only good for lining the bottom of Bird cages.

 

[Tdbo]

Originally Posted By: edwardh1
Hey its only a dollar. but what a percentage increase in income. It would almost be like pickups increasing from $30,000 or so to $60,000.

What ? ----you say that has already happened????



I'll beat your buck.
About three weeks ago, the Sunday Columbus Dispatch went from $2.50 to Five bucks.
Merely overpriced birdcage liner.

 

[Andrew1972]

Originally Posted By: CT8
News papers are only good for lining the bottom of Bird cages.


Always a positive outlook on life. Hopefully BITOG is your negative space and your life is much more pleasant!

 

[opus1]

And even better, Mom's local paper ups the price for delivery of the paper on Thanksgiving because it costs them more to print/process all of the sale ads for Black Friday.

Funny thing, I would have expected the revenue from the ads themselves to cover that cost...

 

[CT8]

Originally Posted By: madRiver
Originally Posted By: CT8
News papers are only good for lining the bottom of Bird cages.


Always a positive outlook on life. Hopefully BITOG is your negative space and your life is much more pleasant!
It is not and news papers are news.