MMMM # 210 -- The Big Switch

       As reported last week, three of Alabama's largest daily newspapers, owned by the same company (Advance Publications), are reducing their publishing schedule to three days a week this Fall, perhaps the biggest change in Alabama newspapering since The Birmingham News and The Birmingham Post-Herald switched publishing cycles.
         While some papers elsewhere have dropped their Saturday editions, and The Christian Science Monitor dropped print entirely, eliminating four days worth of papers in a single cut is an amazing step. The New Orleans Times-Picayune, owned by the same company, is also going to the three days a week schedule. About 50 reporters will lose their jobs there. No numbers have been announced for the Alabama papers, but they are expected to be significant.

The Advertiser's new Riverfront facility.

     The first thing our CBS 8 newsroom staff wondered was the impact on The Montgomery Advertiser, which will become the largest daily newspaper in the state when the changes take effect in the Fall.
     Unfortunately, as is usually the case when the media becomes the story, they clammed up. Nobody from that paper would talk with us. They reported the changes only by printing the AP story.

     Yet the Advertiser certainly has to be considering following suit. Their circulation has dropped as well. Dozens of positions have been eliminated through layoffs and buy-outs, and the paper itself has been trimmed in size. 
     Like The Birmingham News and The Press-Register, The Advertiser had spent millions on new presses and a new building in recent years.
    Although the printed form of the papers is going away, their online presence will remain, and Advance says grow, at www.al.com, which this week adopted an annoying bright yellow color scheme as part of a redesign timed to the announcement.  
     The question now is whether the papers will start charging readers for access, using a "pay-wall" like The New York Times and even some of Alabama's smaller papers, including the Selma Times-Journal.
     Newspapers need readers to justify their advertising rates, so adjusting to a world with a reduced number is a balancing act all publishers are trying to figure out.
     Another of the newspapers owned by Advance Publications went through similar cutbacks three years ago. Then The Ann Arbor News soon stopped publishing a print edition all-together. 
     Their building, presses and all, were sold to a Credit Union.   
     Maybe they can print money?


(An anonymous comment on my previous post about those changes suggests the consolidation of CBS 8 and two other Montgomery TV stations will reduce the number of news "voices" in the market.
     I'm not sure his or her point is on point though...the newspaper changes has zero impact on news voices. And the combination of CBS/ABC/CW this Fall will have a minimal impact. Newscast producers will have a larger story pool to select from to serve their individual audiences.
     We'll be in the new Harrison Road HD all-digital studios by the 2012 Fall TV Season, and I can't wait to share pictures of our new home with you.)

[The Monday Morning Media Memo is a regular feature of this website.]