It ain’t easy being a daily newspaper…
Not around these parts. Editor Mike Fannin’s recent column pleading with locals to subscribe to the Kansas City Star got me thinking.
With paid readership fading fast, online advertising producing a fraction of the dough print ads used to and subscribers waking up to the fact that they can bargain down the price of the paper to a fraction of what they’ve been paying, what exactly is it that’s keeping the ship of state afloat?
Think about it…
Take away four advertisers and the newspaper’s house of cards is in deep doo-doo.
Their new, out-of-town editorial board would have nobody to carp at except each other; sports columnist Sam Mellinger would have bump around with the drunks in the parking lot at Arrowhead; and “investigative” reporter Steve Vockrodt would be hard put to cough up the cash for a cabana rental at Schlitterbahn, let alone take the fam duck boating.
Which four advertisers, you ask?
Start with the hearing aid and erectile dysfunction businesses.
Once upon a time Royals legend George Brett was better known for his hemorrhoid problem than his hearing.
These days, the only thing anybody under 30 knows Brett for is the shit-eating grin he wears in the gigantic hearing aid ads. Which judging by their frequency must be quite lucrative…for him and the newspaper.
And although no local superstars have stepped into the advertising limelight for limp appendages yet, we can still bask in former Kansas presidential candidate Bob Dole’s having been the unofficial godfather of Viagra.
A tip of the hat to the Star for helping keep that conversation going.
Moving right along…the remaining pillars of the newspaper’s financial underpinnings are its obituary ads (“We see dead people”) and the puppy classifieds.
(Remember when retailers like Macy’s ruled the roost?)
Now about all that’s left are gone-but-not-forgotten oldsters and the four-leggeders the Star calls, “Your Best Friend!”
Given that much of the remaining readership continues to grow long in the tooth, the plethora of obit ads comes as little surprise. And they’re not cheap (though back when the Star’s ink was still black, they were free).
Nowadays you have to seriously matter or else die in a duck boat or on an amusement park ride to get a free death notice in the paper.
The $64 million question: where will everybody go to learn about dead folks when the print edition goes bye-bye?
Last (and undoubtedly least) are the pet ads.
Once the Internet reared its hungry head, almost every form of classified advertising from cars, to real estate to personals went away…except this one.
So if you’re local and you want to sell your “Rag Doll” kitty, German Wire-haired Pointer or Maltipoo, who ya gonna call?
I’ll tell you who – the classified ad desk at the Fort Worth Star-Telegram.
That’s because the Star blew out the loyal employees here that used to handle obituary and classified ads and handed off the biz to its sister newspaper in the Lone Star State.
Unlike the pricey dead people classifieds, the pet persuaders get off for a lot less money – and for some strange reason (according to the classifieds sales lady I spoke with in Ft. Worth) – buy a whole lot more pet ads than the folks down there do.
Think about it though.
If these four critical advertisers went away, Fannin wouldn’t be kissing up to locals for paid subscriptions, he’d be down on the Plaza in front of Barnes & Noble taking Jerry Mazer‘s place hustling cheeseburgers.
I must say, I don’t like that newspapers everywhere are becoming toast. I grew up reading newspapers, and still like doing so, even if I’m already going to know the most “breaking news” portions of the coverage due to the Internet. And even though I’m not yet approaching the age of 88, I actually would consider re-subscribing to the Star for the first time in about 15 years — in a fit of nostalgia and response to Fannin’s plea — IF the Star had even ONE Iota of Shame when it comes to presenting the news in a somewhat even-handed fashion.
But alas, the Star seems about 10,000 times more devoted to its partisan ideologue slant than it does to maximizing revenue, keeping or bringing back subscribers, or existing beyond another year or two more. Methinks the Star will soon be planted in the same grave it has dug only for itself. And considering what the Star has become — I have to say, Good Riddance.
Unfortunately, there are far too many potential readers like you rage – unfortunately for the Star…
And yes, seems like a light bulb would go on in someone’s head to even things out editorially, but that has yet to happen. The reason being that the people in the print journalism game believe that they and they alone are in the right…unless of course, like Stomper, your views mirror theirs.
But they are no more going to chance philosophies than the leaders of a given church would be – that’s how married they are.
The church analogy is highly appropriate, because so many partisan ideologues on both extremes (such as the leftists of the Star) basically embrace their politics as their religion. It’s what they think about every day from the moment they wake up until the point when they fall asleep. They’re like The Terminator: There is no talking, discussing, or reasoning with any of them, and they never take a day off or ever go away. The two parties historically didn’t used to be controlled by these people, but now they are. Which, all kidding aside, is truly frightening heading into the future.
That sounds a tad extreme, but they do believe fervently in their views
Well, we’ll have to agree to vehemently disagree on that count. Because I think I pretty much nailed it.
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