|
News-Gazette switching to morning-only on June 1
CHAMPAIGN, Mar 20, 2009 (The News-Gazette - McClatchy-Tribune Information Services via COMTEX) --
The News-Gazette will move to being a morning-only newspaper beginning June 1, following a decades-long industry trend.
Editor and Publisher John R. Foreman cited readership trends, cost efficiencies and changing ways of delivering news as reasons for moving to morning-only.
Currently, The News-Gazette is a morning paper on Saturdays and Sundays. On weekdays, there are both morning and afternoon editions.
The morning edition currently is for home delivery in Vermilion County and news racks in Champaign, Urbana, Savoy, Rantoul and St. Joseph, while the afternoon edition is for home delivery and news racks in the remainder of the circulation area.
Discussions of moving to a morning-only paper date back more than 20 years, Foreman said. Market research indicated readers were split on whether they preferred morning or afternoon papers. But industry consultants consistently urged moving to mornings.
"Until a year ago, that wasn't an option," Foreman said, noting that The News-Gazette Inc. printed the downstate edition of the Chicago Tribune until early 2008.
Online reading habits also influenced the decision. Foreman said an increasing number of readers are going to the Internet for news, with peak hours for online reading coming between 8 a.m. and 5 p.m.
"The logical way to approach the news cycle is to put it in the morning paper and update it online with the freshest news," he said.
Plus, he said, it's more efficient to publish one edition a day instead of two. Going to one edition will save the company roughly 1 percent of its operating costs, he said.
In a memo to staff, Foreman said the size of the work force will be reduced "a little" through both layoffs and attrition, producing most of the savings.
Once The News-Gazette moves to morning-only, subscribers can expect to see the paper on their doorstep by 6 a.m. Beginning in April, carriers will be encouraged to deliver weekend papers by 6 a.m., but the deadline won't be enforced until May, said Pete Jones, the newspaper's director of circulation.
The News-Gazette is delivered by about 300 youth carriers and 200 adult carriers, Jones said.
"We anticipate some of the youth carriers won't want to deliver in the morning," Foreman said. But some will want to do so, and The News-Gazette will be glad to retain them.
"We won't throw anyone out just change their working hours," he said.
In recent years, there has been a trend toward using adult carriers, partly because "fewer and fewer kids want to be news carriers," Foreman said.
Jones said he hasn't gotten much feedback from youth carriers about the move to mornings, but he did hear from a parent.
"One parent felt like we were abandoning the carriers, and I had the opportunity to explain we've been heading that direction for a long time," Jones said. "We're not able to recruit youths as easily as we used to. They're so busy." Jones said The News-Gazette takes pride in youth carriers and won't take away their routes as long as they're able to adhere to the delivery schedule.
Foreman said papers will continue to be delivered directly to carriers' homes, and carriers will continue to deliver papers to subscribers' doorsteps.
"We're not going to drive by and throw it on your driveway," Foreman said, though that has been common practice among some morning papers.
The News-Gazette has published morning editions before, but not for home delivery in Champaign-Urbana. Last year, after the morning edition got an expanded presence on area news racks, the newspaper saw 15 percent growth in news rack sales.
Foreman said he believes it will be easier to expand The News-Gazette's circulation base with a morning paper than with an afternoon paper.
"We think it certainly creates an opportunity to grow circulation," he said.
According to the latest audit by the Audit Bureau of Circulations, The News-Gazette's Sunday circulation was 44,683, its weekday circulation was 41,938 and its Saturday circulation was 40,566.
Vermilion County will still enjoy its own morning edition, Foreman said in a memo to staff. The press run will be divided into two parts, with one focusing on news of particular interest to Vermilion County and the other modified to focus on the rest of the circulation area.
Nationally, the move to morning newspapers has been pronounced. In 2007, there were 867 morning newspapers in the United States and 565 afternoon newspapers, according to the Editor & Publisher International Yearbook.
That's a big switch from 1970, when there were 334 morning papers and 1,429 afternoon papers. By 1990, the number of morning papers had grown to 559 morning papers and the number of afternoon papers had dwindled to 1,084.
Only in the last decade have morning papers outnumbered their afternoon counterparts. By 2000, the number of morning papers crept up to 766, while the number of afternoon papers sank to 727.
To see more of The News-Gazette, or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to
http://www.news-gazette.com. Copyright (c) 2009, The News-Gazette,
Champaign-Urbana, Ill. Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services.
For reprints, email tmsreprints@permissionsgroup.com, call 800-374-7985 or
847-635-6550, send a fax to 847-635-6968, or write to The Permissions Group
Inc., 1247 Milwaukee Ave., Suite 303, Glenview, IL 60025, USA.
[ Back To it.tmcnet.com's Homepage ]
|