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While we remain convinced that the major reason newspapers are in decline is because they've consistently refused to change and employed strange dinosaurs long after they should have kicked the bucket, this just plain sucks.
There is absolutely no refuting the Tribune Company's revenue decline, and the people who run the newspapers aren't stupid, but it's been a long time since Ben Franklin posted classifieds on his front page. We think a front page clean of marketing ploys is one of the things American newspapers have done right when compared with their global counterparts. There is enough advertising throughout the rest of the paper, and the rest of our lives, for that matter.
The newspaper's editors opposed the move, basically arguing it wasn't in the best interest of the readers. We agree. We also agreed with L.A. Times Editor O'Shea when he fought the same losing battle, saying that the move would cheapen the front page. We don't care if it seems naive, but we are sincerely upset that advertisers know just what buttons to push so that they can get their way. They held the one clean space in American media for ransom and, because the publisher knew the readers were either too lazy or too nonexistent to complain, they got away with it.
Image via currybet.net, of an old front page of The Mirror.
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From the Trib article:
"Smith said Tribune will limit the front-page ads to advertisers looking to burnish their brand names with tasteful, full-color ads -- not those promoting price-off promotions or other blaring messages."
...that is, until they decide that front page ads could bring in more money if they were BIGGER!
what's a newspaper?
this is fucking bullshit.
Save the fury for all other forms of media that have offered more compelling and more flexible advertising options, and for your government for not issuing any regulations for that. It's not advertisers pushing buttons per se - they just move their dollars where they want, they don't put that kind of pressure, they just pull up the stakes and go elsewhere. What it is is newspaper owners realizing the checks aren't coming in, they look at their competitors and realize they need to ante up to the other media that is changing rapidly.
Turn your fury to the product placements in your tv shows, the in-game "play of the day" sponsorships in your Cubs games, and ESPECIALLY the banner ads on your own web site (gasp! above the masthead!). What hypocrisy. Trust me, these have all been used as examples of why front page advertising is a viable way to attract ad dollars in a new media landscape.
If not for newspapers, where will google and the rest get its news? Newspapers are losing money. The clock is ticking. If you don't like front page ads, you can naively bitch about it, or you can do something productive - help brainstorm alternative revenue growth opportunities on behalf of newspapers.
Newspapers, unlike all other media, have been hamstrung with legacy rules of what ads can and cannot do. Newspapers, more than any other media, have been mocked for being inflexible to changing reader and advertiser needs. That's a tough spot to be in.
If we're going to pretend that readers will be up in arms about this, then no one is recognizing that the Wall St. Journal and the USA Today are two of the largest newspapers in the country - both experience enviable circulation gains every year - and both have had front page ads for years.
You might be surprised that newspapers are the only medium that people buy in part for the ads. People truly seek out ads in papers, some plan their shopping trips around the ads in the paper, especially the Sunday paper. You never get that with radio or tv or out of home. To have ads on the front page might actually synch in with these reader habits.
But I'm sure all the chicagoist staffers will cancel their many many subscriptions in light of this.
No, I do not work for a newspaper.
Ha! I *just* clicked over from Beachwood Reporter's take on this. Guess which one offered more insight.
who cares? not me.
also get rid of print and put the shit online. jeesh.
I have the urge to play puzzle pirates
this should be a non story. Newspapers need to compete with other media outlets and need more revenue to survive the shrinking subscription rates. Explain to me this. Chicagoist has ads on their front page and noone is complaing about this. what truly is the difference?
Yeah, and the front page of Chicagoist is clean, no ad revenue there.
Oh no! If newspapers go out of business, where is Chicagoist going to get news to republish?
kookybites, the Trib, like a lot of other newspapers, has already shrunk the size of its pages to save money on printing costs. It's sad that papers are resorting to putting ads on the front page, but desperate times call for desperate measures.
It's hard to believe people are still clinging to the old print. Freebies like the Reader and Red-Eye are one thing, but why not just bring it all on-line? It's already there, so why not just do away with the print altogether?
Do any of you actually pay for news content anymore?
If not, you are a bunch of freeloaders and shoud quit complaining.
I pay for news content.
I read the Tribune every night after afterwork.
I miss the days when they had a concise Metro section, and a thick international news laden front page.
I won't be canceling my subscribtion to the Trib any time soon. But I wish it were more like the LA Times.
The idea that newspapers are losing money is silly, of course. They are pulling in around 20% profit, on average. Which is a nice return, just not good enough for a Wall Street that is high on the crack of Google stock and 4000% returns.
I'm looking forward to newspapers returning to private ownership, and am excited to see what Sam Zell will do with the paper.
I'll add that unlike most American newspapers many foreign rags make more revenue from subscriptions and rack sales than they do from advertising. How do they do this? By providing content that people will actually pay for.
Many floundering newspapers seem oblivious to this, so they cull their newsroom staff and produce cheap, vapid, ad-driven commuter papers. Next thing you know, they're fudging circulation numbers to sustain their ad rates. Who loses when the plan collapses? Certainly not the publisher. Just ask the folks at The Dallas Morning News.
Old farts like my father will never be techno enough to read the internet. The newspaper is still relevant in spite of what you youngsters think. There's nothing like a Sunday morning waiting for football while reading the paper.
End-all-be-all as the Internet may be, kiddies, it, too, will succumb to something "better" in 30-40 years (or 3-4 if that "direct-to-eyeball" subscription service I'm working on every finds a backer). And you'll be lamenting the days when a few banner ads were all that stood between you and your site of choice.
Curmudgeon is correct in siting newspapers as relevant since they actually employ and pay honest-to-goodness j-o-u-r-n-a-l-i-s-t-s. Those are people who research stories and fact check and build sources. The Internet, on the otherhand, is mired in opinions and stories gleened from other sources...um, mainly, newspapers and well-placed press releases for big agencies. Any monkey with a keyboard and a feeble grasp of the search engine ratings game can post "news" on the Web.
Crap - what are all those kids just entering Medill gonna do? Ah, well, there's always TMZ.
Even if print fades, real j-o-u-r-n-a-l-i-s-t-s can still produce news for the net, guest 17.
The "battle" between print and the net should be merely a dicussion about delivery methods.
The news value of blogs that steal most stories from MSM is another matter.
as an aside, has anyone noticed that almost all of alicia dorr's posts are her complaining about some minor inconvenience?