The company that owns them announced exactly four months ago that they would begin publishing only on Wednesday, Friday and Sunday "in the Fall". They have not said what date that will happen, but another of the company's papers, The New Orleans Times-Picayune, will go to the new schedule starting next week...thus my calculation that today will be the last Monday paper for the three Alabama publications. Not sure about the others, but The Birmingham News will increase the charge to $1 for its Wednesday and Friday papers in machines. Sunday will remain at $2.00
There are still many other questions still unanswered, like what will happen to the new multi-million dollar printing presses the company bought when they opened the paper's new building in 2006, just in advance of the arriving digital tornado. We know they will use them to print the equally three day a week The Huntsville Times too.
As part of the 2006 hoopla over their new building, the News published a story about their production department, including its 180 employees. The ironic headline? Building For The Future. It included the factoids that each year they use:
- 27,495 tons of newsprint
- 574,196 gallons of black ink
- 70,237 gallons of blue ink
- 82,473 gallons of red ink
- 61,154 gallons of yellow ink
It's not my job to help them sell newspapers, but collectors may want to pick one up today, in case my prediction is correct.
And if I am right, this morning The Montgomery Advertiser becomes the biggest daily newspaper in Alabama.
Wish I had bought one of the last Birmingham Post-Herald papers when they were forced out of business in 2005.
[PLUS: The U.S. State Department was critical of CNN for using Ambassador Chrisopher Stevens diary as a source on-air after promising his family they would not do so.]
[The Monday Morning Media Memo is a regular feature of timlennox.com]
82,473 gallons of red ink
ReplyDelete61,154 gallons of yellow ink
There you have it. They're broke, and then they ran scared.
Just so's ya know, the B'ham News street boxes have already been reconfigured to a $1 per copy charge.
ReplyDeleteThanks Anonymous! Now I need to know if my speculation was correct! Was today the last day of seven day publishing for the three papers??? There was no mention of it in the Birmingham News or online that I could find.
ReplyDelete