The Plain Dealer | Save The Plain Dealer | Cleveland Magazine
The Cleveland Plain Dealer will deliver papers only three times per week, but it will print every day, the paper announced Thursday. The change will come this summer.

The company will also reorganize as the Northeast Ohio Media Group, which will handle "advertising sales and marketing for The Plain Dealer, Cleveland.com and Sun newspapers," the announcement says. "And, Northeast Ohio Media Group will provide content for all print and digital products."

Plain Dealer science writer John Mangels described the changes as "bittersweet" in a phone call with Poynter. "It’s better than what we had expected," he said. In a newsroom meeting announcing the changes, Mangels said, management said planned layoffs would be delayed until late summer.

Plain Dealer staffers launched a campaign this past November they hoped woud ward off a move to three-day-a-week printing, which the paper's owner, Advance, has instituted at its papers in Alabama, New Orleans and Harrisburg, Pa. (more...)

Editor George Spohr says "new circulation starts have been incredible" at The (Carlisle, Pa.) Sentinel since The (Harrisburg, Pa.) Patriot-News reduced print frequency this month.

Spohr sent this picture of new sub orders and a note: "This is what happens when your competition goes to three days per week."

Seventy-six people subscribed Monday and more than 100 did Tuesday, Spohr wrote in an email to Poynter.

Spohr says Sentinel circulation director Phil Ferrara told him on a usual day, 10 people start subscriptions.

Figures from the Alliance for Audited Media show The Sentinel has an average Sunday circulation of 13,902 and an average circulation of 12,838 Monday-Saturday. The Patriot-News has an average Sunday circulation of 118,655 and average daily circulation of 70,446. (more...)

The Star-Ledger | South Jersey Times
Thirty-four employees of the (Newark, N.J.) Star-Ledger, including 18 full- and part-timers in the newsroom, will be laid off Wednesday, the paper's Ted Sherman and Kelly Heyboer report.

Publisher Richard Vezza "blamed the dramatic cuts on continuing financial pressures and the lingering effects of Hurricane Sandy, in an industry already hard hit by a steady decline in readership and sinking ad revenues."

While other Advance newspapers have reduced staff and print frequency concurrently, Vezza tells his the reporters "I've been involved in no other plans to take us to three days a week." But: "we are going to need to adjust our business as needs warrant," he said. In a letter to employees announcing the layoffs, Vezza said the Star-Ledger is "considering the possibility of outsourcing the printing and delivery of the newspaper."

The South Jersey Times also announced layoffs Wednesday. Other Advance papers in the Garden State will announce layoffs Wednesday, Sherman and Heyboer write.

Unlike many of Advance's other papers that have reduced print or home delivery frequency, The Star-Ledger -- though not its newsroom -- is unionized. Journalists at the Cleveland Plain Dealer are unionized, and they launched a pre-emptive campaign late last year against the possibility reductions might happen there. Still, the Plain Dealer announced it would lay off 58 people in 2013, reducing Guild members in its newsroom by about a third.

After Advance imported executives from AnnArbor.com and executive Lamar Graham announced NJ.com was hiring, he told The New York Times' David Carr "we don’t anticipate any changes with our New Jersey newspapers."

Previously: Will the Oregonian be the next Advance paper to reduce print? | Will other Advance newspapers face cuts like Times-Picayune, Alabama papers?

Nola.com | CBS | DashThirtyDash | Gambit Weekly
Before Sunday evening's "60 Minutes" story about the New Orleans Times-Picayune's reductions in staff and print frequency, Times-Picayune Editor Jim Amoss wrote a letter to readers saying the move seems like a success so far. He cited increased circulation and pageviews on Nola.com, the newspaper's website.

Average paid circulation is up both daily and Sunday for October and November 2012, the two most recent months since the change to the three-day print model, as compared to the average paid daily and Sunday circulation for September 2012, the most recent month before the change. ...

Meanwhile, NOLA.com's audience has continued to grow. In 2012, 41 million viewers came to NOLA.com, 7 million more viewers than in 2011.

(more...)

The New Republic | Poynter
Cleveland Plain Dealer Guild members today ratified a proposed six-year contract that raises salaries by 8 percent and protects employees from staff cuts through early 2019; the raise takes effect after 58 positions are eliminated in 2013, a cut that eliminates about one-third of the newsroom.

The Guild was part of a "Save the Plain Dealer" public awareness campaign to protect the paper from staff cuts and a reduced print schedule, which its owner Advance has implemented or is currently implementing at its publications in Michigan, New Orleans, Alabama, Pennsylvania and New York. (more...)

The Sentinel | WHTM
The (Carlisle, Pa.) Sentinel and Harrisburg, Pa., TV station WHTM have struck a content-sharing agreement that they think will give them an upper hand when the competing (Harrisburg) Patriot-News goes to a three-day-per-week print schedule in January.

“There will be a real vacuum for people who like to read the newspaper seven days a week,” [WHTM] President and General Manager Joe Lewin said. “I think the regular subscribers to The Patriot-News feel abandoned, and I know that The Sentinel management sees this as a real opportunity.”

WHTM will provide the Sentinel with weather content, and both news organizations' stories can end up on both platforms. The Sentinel competes with the Patriot-News in Cumberland County, just west of Harrisburg. (more...)