 Newspaper seems intent on driving print subscribers away ·May 12, 08:53 AM When your most-profitable core business is declining — and in the newspaper world, I assume that would be subscribers to the print edition — is the smart move to make decisions that increase the rate of decline? I can’t imagine so, but that’s exactly what the Chicago Tribune seems to be doing with their Sunday edition, my subscription to which I’m going to try to cancel later today. We live in a world now where you’ve probably read all of the facts that your local newspaper publishes hours, if not days, before you read them in the print edition of the paper. But what will keep newspapers alive? The most emotionally satisfying part of the newspaper-reading It’s the physicality of the experience that is the one thing that can’t be replicated by going online to the paper’s website. So what does the Tribune do a couple of weeks ago? I assume this was a pre-Randy Michaels decision, but what they did, naturally, is that they got rid of the comics section! To be precise, they shrank the comics down to a virtually-unreadable size and stuck them in a new tabloid-shaped section that combines the unreadable comics with TV listings and Internet recommendations. The Internet recommendations adjacent to the unreadable comics are a nice “screw you” to any remaining fans of the print version of the newspaper. It’s like they’re reiterating, “We really don’t want you any more. Here are some websites you can go to. Now get lost!“ Okay, fine. I can take a hint. share: del.icio.us.  Reddit  Digg  Yahoo  Wink  Windows  Google  Newsvine 
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experience is, I think, for a lot of people, the Sunday morning experience — coffee, bagels & salmon & cream cheese, the various sections spread out on the table and the sofa, reading the comics (perhaps with or to your kids), enjoying the Arts and Business and Perspective sections, and so forth. 
I thought I was the only one that hated the new comic section!
— john r gehron · May 12, 03:55 PM · #
Well said.
Don’t know the Trib carries Opus, or if this is still the case—but when Berkley Breathed resurrected the character a while back, the original syndication contracts actually had several requirements regarding the display including a minimum size (which this format would surely violate). Too bad there’s so little respect for the readers or the creators at work here.
No doubt there’s a poorly constructed and/or badly interpreted bit of market research underpinning the cost-cutting foolishness.
— Greg Newton · May 15, 12:44 PM · #