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Plaster On WSM Afternoons

firepoint525 said:
Actually, it's the reverse of that. They LOST subscribers BECAUSE of the lack of locality, not the other way around.
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In my market, the Palm Springs, CA, metro, 20 years ago I would buy the local Desert Sun or subscribe always. I converted to digital only 5 years ago, and now I do not read it most days and am going to cancel at the end of my subscription. Like so many local papers, the quality of the paper has declined, the coverage of local items of interest has disappeared, the writing seems not to be copy-checked or edited and they go on wild, lengthy excursion into advocacy journalism that are politically motivated and boring (as well as poorly written).

One of the local TV stations does a far better job of covering local news and it much better at social media than the paper.

Smaller and medium market papers are going to be gone when the Boomers are no longer around.
 
TheBigA said:
That ignores the multiplicity of other free sources of local news. Once you can get what you want for free, why pay?

All of the TV stations have free local news on their website. Why subscribe to a newspaper?
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While I certainly don't disagree with you, BigA. This does beg to open up the Nashville board to further discussion (which would NEVER be allowed on say the Seattle Board...) Radio ain't that far removed from newspapers.....look at all the other thousands of (mostly online) "free" music options and even those that cost. Why listen to radio? So, it begs to ask the parallel - what can local radio do to survive the new car and computer technologies that don't promote radio, local signal issues and provide something exciting and not mundane, vanilla and/or boring without drowning people in 30 and 60-second commercials for 12 minutes each hour that they simply refuse to put up with, today? If you say websites for radio stations, well, there are more and more online "music new sources" attached to hundreds of music options. Can radio really even avoid not becoming the next lifeless old Main Street or defunct newspaper or even the next failing retail business that has been demolished by high rents, bad customer service, lack of employees that even will take the job, theft and easy online service? Fed Ex is going to seven days a week, cutting out using the US Postal Service for some deliveries and using more robots. Substantial growth, while radio is beyond broke, selling off properties and trying to simply survive tomorrow.
 
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Tibbs4 said:
Radio ain't that far removed from newspapers.....look at all the other thousands of (mostly online) "free" music options and even those that cost. Why listen to radio?
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Tibbs, you know we've had this discussion before. People listen to radio because it's cheap and easy. And because for the majority of people, it plays enough of the songs people want to hear. That's on the music side. With regards to this particular thread, maybe they want to talk sports with George Plaster. If so, there's only one place to do that. BTW if you're willing to pay me a monthly fee, I can find you an FM station that doesn't have 12 commercial minutes an hour.
 
BigA, you know how I truly feel about radio. I throw things out "here" for people to discuss and hope to get some thoughts and opinions that help actually keep the industry I truly love alive. Speaking of which, did you read the Billboard interview by Ron Hart (5/30/19)? Great interview with Jim Kerr about the demise of WPLJ. Allow me to post this, because, well - to me it explains why people DO (or should) listen through the commercials! :)

All credit and quotes below go to the fine folks at Billboard, except the "Amen!"

Ron Hart: "Do you believe radio still triumphs above the din created on the Internet with streaming services and podcasting?"

Jim Kerr: "Broadcast over-the-air radio still reaches 93 percent of the entire population of North America. Radio was supposed to die when TV came along, and every time a new technology comes along, it's always like, "Oh radio's going to die." But radio didn't die, and radio is still alive, and it's going to stay alive for a long time -- because it's a very special and personal medium. It's ubiquitous, it's easy to use, it provides a connection to the world, it provides companionship. It's very different from having your own personal music playlist.

That's fine, too. That's like having a record collection -- only it's now in the cloud, [rather] than against your wall. But that's only cool if you want to sit and home and listen to your own music or in the car. But if you want to connect with the world, you can still turn on the radio and know that tens or hundreds of thousands of people are listening to the same song at the same time as you."

Amen!
 
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firepoint525 said:
I'm 55 (last year of the baby boom) and I believe that I may outlive many of these papers, at the rate that they are going.
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You certainly better, Firepoint. You matter. Newspapers have been irrelevant for over a decade. The Tennessean, once an award winning trendy leader in the industry is a complete disaster and utter joke. Now that they print in East Tennessee, the deadline is so early there are few scores from the day/night before. They raise the price every year and offer less. They deliver 90% of the time. Heck, they don't care. Why should we. I guess NYT and WSJ and maybe the top 20 market's will have daily newspapers in a decade? Interestingly enough, I think small town newspapers may be more profitable, but as David notes, the time and investment to serve so few, is not worth the time and investment.
 
Tibbs4 said:
You certainly better, Firepoint. You matter. Newspapers have been irrelevant for over a decade. The Tennessean, once an award winning trendy leader in the industry is a complete disaster and utter joke. Now that they print in East Tennessee, the deadline is so early there are few scores from the day/night before. They raise the price every year and offer less. They deliver 90% of the time. Heck, they don't care. Why should we. I guess NYT and WSJ and maybe the top 20 market's will have daily newspapers in a decade? Interestingly enough, I think small town newspapers may be more profitable, but as David notes, the time and investment to serve so few, is not worth the time and investment.
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I remember coworkers (and this was close to 25 years ago!) complaining about the quality of The Tennessean, and I believe that the vast majority of them were younger than me! Doesn't bode well for newspapers. Of course, if I wanted USA Today, I would just go out and buy it! I don't really like The Tennessean basically contracting out a section or so of their paper every day to USA Today. Some of my current coworkers still buy the daily paper, but I believe that most of them are also older than me.
 
firepoint525 said:
I don't really like The Tennessean basically contracting out a section or so of their paper every day to USA Today.
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Gannett owns both papers, so they use USA Today as a source the way other papers use AP or UPI. They've been running it that way for a very long time.
 
I wonder what percentage of actual local residents of Nashville still read or subscribe to The Tennessean? Has to be pathetic.
 
TheBigA said:
About a half million subscribe to the Sunday edition
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The Tennessean has estimated circulation of 85,000 and Sunday circulation of 157,000.

In 2011, they had 120,000 daily and 224,000 Sunday. That was the last audited statement released by the Alliance for Audited Media.
 
TheBigA said:
Gannett owns both papers, so they use USA Today as a source the way other papers use AP or UPI. They've been running it that way for a very long time.
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Gannett is to newspapers what Clear Channel has been to radio. I don't necessarily blame them for doing that, but cost-saving measures are usually offset by a loss of subscribers. As I said earlier in this thread, my parents noticed the declining quality of The Tennessean, and cancelled their subscription last year.
 
I have seen more recent daily numbers in the low 70's and Sunday is near 150,000. Hey, BigA - I guess one bright side of the equation is the average readership age is above the "too old to matter demo" in radio, so it's NO competition. Hehe.
 
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