Statesman news
Don Day | December 6, 2008More big changes are coming to Curtis Rd. – with the transition to a press-less world for the paper. Starting early next year, the Idaho Statesman – which has printed its own paper since the beginning – will put its fortune in the excellent hands of the Idaho Press-Tribune and its world-class printing plant in Nampa. The plant already prints the Press-Tribune, Boise Weekly, many high school newspapers and community weeklies throughout the region.
- The paper will again be smaller – this would be the fourth shrinkage in my memory.
- There will be fewer sections
- The features pages may be created as part of a regional syndicate producing this type of content for papers around the region. There will likely be less local feature content
- The Statesman will have an earlier press deadline, and will be printed before rival Idaho Press-Tribune
Also, you may have noticed the paper is now occasionally putting ads above the fold on the front page.
UPDATE: The New York Times says McClatchy is looking to sell one of its largest papers.
I would guess the Statesman will go completely paperless in about two years. The expense of newsprint compared to the cost of of a less expensive web presence should be considerable. Too bad the content will not be as strong, however. This seems to be a trend in radio, television and newspapers across the board.
Call me wacky but I fail to see how reducing the amount of local news in a LOCAL NEWSPAPER will entice more people to buy it.
People who actually BUY a newspaper WANT information, right? So, reducing the amount of it will tend to chase some of them out of the habit of buying it, I’m thinking.
Will reducing the amount of information cause other people to START buying the paper? That seems highly unlikely to me.
Yes, I get that nearly every business is in a cash crunch right now. I just don’t see the “logic” in the strategy of making the product less valuable to your customers. Is there a “tipping point” which, when reached, means that the customers you’ve lost by degrading your product will NEVER come back?
There isn’t any logic to taking out the local content, unless the focus is on a more regional approach to meet the possible expectations of a more national and international audience who would not be interested in the latest Boise experience.
In some ways this is akin to watering down the booze, hoping no one will notice while still buying.
I get the sense they have simply given up on the local market at the Statesman. They don’t seem to be as involved (or as important to the community) as they were just 10 years ago. Sad. Really sad.
“There isn’t any logic to taking out the local content, unless the focus is on a more regional approach to meet the possible expectations of a more national and international audience who would not be interested in the latest Boise experience.”
But what non-local presence does the Statesman really have? Yeah, it’s read around Idaho to some extent, but wouldn’t even people across the state be looking for local content?
Maybe I’m crazy, but I don’t see that there’s going to be much international audience for a Boise, Idaho newspaper.
Oh, as long as we’re on the subject of newspaper companies being in trouble, Tribune is apparently talking to consultants to avoid filing for bankruptcy, as reported all over the Internet.
It’s not looking good for print and a friend of mine who has been in radio on the sales and management side for close to 30 years tells me he’s never seen revenue as bad as it is right now.
Remember when media was supposed to be “recession-proof?”
I dont see any future for the Stateman at its current pace. It’s getting away from all that readers want and expect from a “local” paper.
I wish I could say I disagreed with, you, R.A. but I can’t.
I came up with this theory today that newspaper sales will soon skyrocket because of job classifieds…
(there are so many in the paper that you can never find online)