Newspapers suspend a delivery day, save a publication

Posted by Lisette García on October 30, 2009 at 10:00 AM

In the style of some museums and restaurants, The Hannibal Courier-Post in February gave up on Mondays altogether, according to The Associated Press. Slicing the slow ad day from "Missouri's oldest daily" may have interrupted its record of continuous publication (since 1838) but, at least, it kept the newspaper as a whole in operation, according to its publisher Jack Whitaker.

The Courier-Post is not the only U.S. newspaper experimenting with changes in print delivery in search of continued viability as a going concern. Just yesterday, Superior Publishing Corp. announced it would also suspend one print day per week at its three Minnesota newspapers.

"These changes are part of overall strategy to enhance the newspapers' multi-media presence and leverage the value of the Internet while maintaining full news coverage for the community," President Charles Johnson was quoted by Business North as saying.

The suspension at Superior - effective next week - follows last month's switch to online access fees for nonsubscribers of the print edition.

Besides these two examples, a handful of the 90 daily newspapers operated by GateHouse Media Inc. have cut publication days as well, VP of News & Interactive Brad Dennison told The Associated Press yesterday. According to Dennison, newspapers that cut a day or more of production expenses experienced an improvement in their finances.