Stopped the Presses
One of the less visible dangers of an economic downturn is occures when corporate and political "leaders" pare back lines in their budgets where the results won’t be immediately apparent. For instance, back in the Seventies, New York City took money from its capital budget to maintain daily functions. Maintenance of the infrastructure was cut back, and problems that needed attention didn’t get them, not soon enough. Pieces of the fabled West Side Highway simply collapsed.
In business, one of the first things to during hard times is the advertising budget. Companies try to make a go of it based on the customers they have will stay with them, and at their current levels. That rarely works. As an example, a couple of recessions ago, McDonald’s experimented with cutting their television advertising in several markets and their sales reportedly dropped 18% almost immediately.
Newspapers have been having a particularly difficult time, in part because of the recession, but mainly because the society is shifting from print to the Internet. So a number of newspapers, large and small, have decided to go electronic only. They’ll have an online version and also serve mobile customers.
Doing so means a huge cut in cost – no more printing and distributing – but it also means that they lose circulation among the many steady and older customers whose mornings often started with a walk out to the curb in their pajamas to get the paper.
Another problem is that advertisers haven’t jumped on the e-bandwagon, and there was patent reluctance to do so even before the economy started to crumble.
Here in Monterey, we have just lost the paper version of a first-rate weekly that had been dropped free around the county for the past 22 years. The Monterey County Weekly walked the talk when it came to important issues, like the environment. It will be particularly missed by those who don’t go electronic because the local daily is weak.
UPDATE: As it turns out, the Weekly decided to take advantage, as they put it, of their publication date falling on April Fool's Day. Their announcement that they were closing down their print venue was a joke. I never liked April Fool's Day. Mainly because I never could decide if it should be Fool's or Fools', and because I don't like to be fooled. Also, I don't think it's something that should be done by a news outlet; they risk keeping faith with their readers.. That said, I'm glad they're sticking around on paper.
©2010 SetonnoteS
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