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Newspapers scolded for charging more on Thanksgiving
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This is why...
Posted by
Jeffrey Knight
12/1/2009 2:25:52 PM
...I buy the "Early Sunday Edition" of the Miami Herald which boasts the Sunday features and coupons but Saturday's news at 50 cents, instead o...
...I buy the "Early Sunday Edition" of the Miami Herald which boasts the Sunday features and coupons but Saturday's news at 50 cents, instead of the $1 on Sunday.
(I don't have time to read all of it...but it makes darn good catbox filler.)
Advertising is content, too ...
Posted by
Larry Lough
12/1/2009 1:37:38 PM
and, unlike much of the "news," it has value that consumers will pay for.
and, unlike much of the "news," it has value that consumers will pay for.
Ads don't sell?
Posted by
Barbara Phillips Long
11/30/2009 3:10:54 PM
Why do people buy all those extra copies of the Thanksgiving paper? To have the comics and crossword to entertain them after dinner?
Funt imp...
Why do people buy all those extra copies of the Thanksgiving paper? To have the comics and crossword to entertain them after dinner?
Funt implies there are no "unavoidable increases in the cost of production and distribution."
So carriers who wrestle bigger papers aren't entitled to extra money for the heavier papers and the extra gas? Carriers might not have even received much extra unless they also handled single-copy papers and got a small amount for those, since subscribers received their Thanksgiving papers as usual. Given the extra time involved in bagging a delivering a large paper, the carriers deserve every extra cent they received.
Newspaper office staff and ad salespeople probably devoted extra time to selling the advertising and managing paperwork for the inserts.
Workers who run inserter equipment may have had overtime, and the equipment may have been stressed from the longer running times or the heavier loads. Let's hope nobobdy's back gave out wrestling those heavier bundles around.
Newsroom staff members tried to squeeze a week's worth of work into four days so they could actually have a holiday, and the writers, editors and photographers who worked Thanksgiving Day may have earned overtime. Here's hoping the Thanksgiving paper was profitable enough that newsroom employees won't have to take "furlough" days in December.
Newspapers were also printing extra papers on spec. They hoped people would buy at the higher prices. If the experiment didn't work, look for prices to drop next year. That's capitalism.
Newspapers took a chance to earn some money by charging more for a product in demand. That's different than offering a free product while paying production costs and hoping the advertising on the Internet will pay for it.
Why shouldn't customers who normally spurn the printed product help pay for the total cost of the online-and-print product? Funt, after all, should know the value of a commercial break.
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