Detroit's newspapers are kicking off their grand survival experiment Monday by giving away redesigned print editions and announcing a new TV partnership.
Starting today, the
Detroit Free Press and the
Detroit News will be delivered to homes only on Thursdays, Fridays and Sundays. On the other days, smaller editions of the papers will be sold at stores and newspaper boxes. Both papers will be given away free on Monday at retail locations -- an offer that does not extend to the papers' coin boxes.
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Steve Dorsey/Detroit Free Press
Monday's Free Press |
Steve Dorsey, deputy managing editor for presentation and innovation at the
Free Press, began distributing photos of the Monday editions of the
Free Press and the
News at about 10:30 p.m. Sunday night. He sent them via Twitpic, the Twitter photo sharing service.
The
Free Press explained the changes in a four-page guide published in Sunday's paper and announced a new venture with CBS affiliate WWJ-TV to produce morning news updates between 5 a.m. and 7 a.m.
In a speech scheduled Monday at the Detroit Economic Club,
Free Press publisher Dave Hunke is also expected to tout the
paper's partnership with Plastic Logic on a new e-reader.
By limiting home delivery to
the days that produce 82 percent of their ad revenue, the papers are hoping to hang onto the most lucrative part of their business -- the print advertising revenue on those three days. Meanwhile, they're trimming the expense of delivering on the four days that generate much less cash.
If it works, rather than signaling the end of print, the plan could end up prolonging print's lifespan beyond what would have been possible in a world of seven-day home delivery.
As the new plan unfolds Monday, don't expect references to the original code name for the experiment, Project
Griffon.
In a bold, 17th-century journey,
the French sailing vessel Griffon was the first European ship to explore the upper Great Lakes. Just one problem: It sank.
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Steve Dorsey/Detroit Free Press
Monday's redesigned Detroit News |
"I'm sure more than one person said, 'Somebody, kill that slide!'"
Hunke said last week of references to
Griffon in early PowerPoint presentations about the delivery strategy.
The slide was never killed, he said, but the project name seems to have died a natural death as the papers got closer to launching the retooled print and digital editions.
As for historical references, Hunke said, "We're proud that Detroit -- despite everyone's image that this would be the least innovative, the most stuck, the most (bound by) union rules -- that this is the first place making one of the most dramatic changes."
Instead of
Griffon, which
divers last year claimed to have found at the bottom of Lake Michigan, Hunke said, "We simply talk about this being 'Detroit's Plan,' for better or worse."
There's no doubt in my mind that readers want the...
