"If we tried to charge 25 cents a week for it, there would be a crowd of senior citizens at the front door with pitchforks and torches! Any increase in revenue would be offset by a loss in circulation. It just would not make sense."
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This idea is insane, even for Gannett. Why would you make subscribers pay more for something they've been paying for all along? How low can we go?
ReplyDeleteOur site offers the paid book and still distributes the free book. The paid version is a 32 page expanded stapled tab. If your a subscriber to the paid version that's what you get with you Sunday paper. If you do no subscribe to the paid you still get a 16 page freebie. The 32 page carries 5 pages of advertising and the 16 page 4 pages of advertising.
ReplyDeleteHistrionic comments such as the one featured in this post do nothing but cloud the issue when it comes to decisions of continuing the TV book. It's a lazy argument. Circulation folks have Chicken Little'd this issue to death for more than a decade. Five phone calls from some grumpy seniors should not be the basis for a business plan about the book. If the readership was really that rabid (or, frankly valuable...) then advertising would have long ago found a way to monetize its pages. The fact is, the audience is neither sufficiently large nor sufficiently rabid to continue tens out thousands of dollars in expense for the benefit of a few readers.
ReplyDeleteJim, I truly believe we are witnessing a corporate reenactment of the bizarre, oft-parodied military quip, "We had to destroy the village in order to save it." The TV Book decision, while rooted in expense reduction and the philosophy of being bonus content that we can no longer afford to buy for free, it will be remembered as one of the failed efforts made extend the life of a dying patient for a few more uncertain years.
ReplyDeleteOur company is morally bankrupt, emotionally calloused and unable to balance the demands of its stockholders with the decisions necessary to make us truly innovative. As a result, we make silly, short-term decisions that we know in our heart of hearts will be ill received and unlikely to affect real change. Revenues are in decline now, not only because of the uncertain economic conditions but also that we've improperly managed our transition and, in doing so, made Gannett a place where the best and brightest will not come or will not stay. As such, we're getting smaller, duller and less compelling. And, unfortunately, less relevant.
McDonalds doesn't attempt to address flagging revenues by making the Big Mac smaller, putting less meat between the buns, watering down the special sauce, then charging more for customers who want it served warm. Yet that's what we're doing, not just with TV Books, but everything.
The cuts of Quarter 4 are coming, folks! Those few of us in the know who are secretly adding content to this blog are like Cassandra: Able to see the future, but unable to change it. We are a company without a soul, without a leader and, worse, without a vision. Therefore, we're trapped in an endless cycle of diminishing returns, exchanging the remnants of our humanity and engagement in a futitle gestures to save plunging revenues. God help us all.
9:09am When combined with other reductions in the newspaper size and content, charging for the TV book is "just another nail in our coffins". My co-workers and myself have heard from many people who don't know why they still subscribe - out of habit, grocery inserts and tv book - are common responses. Charging for the tv book that has always been free, might just be the reason subcribers cancel or at least wonder, again, about stopping their subscription. The people who would be the most upset - senior citizens - are our most loyal subscribers. Build up the tv book so more people and advertisers value its worth instead of simply charging for it or cutting it out completely.
ReplyDeleteI'm in a market that made the transition to a paid TV book. Shockingly, none of the four horsemen have yet appeared.
ReplyDeleteAnd if you're looking to make the "you can't increase profits by shrinking the product" argument, the food industry is probably not the place you want to look for examples.
9:09 you must be a cubicle person and have nothing to do with sales, as far as actual dealings with the readership. You would expect 4 complaints? Clearly you have no touch with reality. 11:06 is right. Just as I believe papers should do with the entire paper, make it more worth the price you are asking for it. It will sell. Regardless of what the tech heads say, people still want a newspaper...they just don't see the justification in spending what they are asked to for a mere shadow of what it once was.
ReplyDeleteThe competitor paper here a year or so ago tried to not put a TV section in their paper. Lasted 3 weeks. The outrage and lost sales to our paper was more than they anticipated.
Newspapers are still wanted. They just have to be worth it, especially in this economy.
Historically, the TV Book has been a tough sell in the Rochester market. It was a quarter fold for many years and popular with the readers. But it contained just a single back page color ad and maybe one or two other small ads inside. When they changed it to a tab (with even less advertising), there were the usual howls from the folks with 24-inch Zeniths and outdoor antennas, but it stayed that way until this week when the Democrat and Chronicle is also offerinhg a 24-? or 32?-page product for a quarter. I declined and doubt very much that I'll miss it. And at this point in newspaper history, the demise of the free TV Book will hardly make a difference.
ReplyDeleteThe Rochester Retiree
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ReplyDeleteDeja vu. Didn't everyone eliminate grids and change books a few years back? Stock grids anyone? Box scores? Let's move on, please.
ReplyDeleteMay be insane, but over 7,000 readers purchased the product in Wilmington. Go figure! Never would of expected it.
ReplyDeleteAnd 7,000 is just the kind of number that makes it profitable and worth doing from a dollars and sense standpoint. Doesn't take many, really.
ReplyDeleteSo, that's why.
I work for a different chain, thankfully. We killed our TV book a few years back. Didn't get a lot of pushback -- our reader surveys showed it was one of the least-used features in the Sunday paper -- but after doing the math the publisher determined if we charged a quarter we could offer it on an opt-in basis to make the oldsters happy and make a (small) profit. There are a few ads in there, too. It's worked for us.
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