Monday, May 11, 2009

Tacoma paper charging 25 cents a week for TV supplement

Following other McClatchy newspapers, The News Tribune has started charging readers for its weekly TV supplement. In Sunday's paper, publisher David Zeek explains why.

A small but vocal group of readers has been upset the past month since we first announced that we would begin charging 25 cents a week to those who want to keep the TV book. The change takes effect today.

We made the decision for several reasons:


• It saves tens of thousands of dollars in annual newsprint costs.
• Fewer and fewer readers are using it. As on-screen viewing guides have improved on cable television, most readers use those to plan what to watch.
• It was the only part of the paper where much the same information appeared in the paper twice – in the case of TV listings, in the daily TV grids, and once again on Sunday in the TV book.

We are adding a daily grid to the Sunday paper, so that readers who do not choose to receive the TV book will still have prime-time listings available in each day’s newspaper.



Click here for the whole story.

Hat tip: Romenesko
.
.
.

9 comments:

Anonymous said...

Whoopee.

Anonymous said...

I tried to kill our TV guide too but the circ. director freaked out. I did get the daily grids killed out since we use the TV guide to insert into, that is the real reason to have kept it.

Anonymous said...

So a paper is trying to get with the times...they realize few if any use the guide, but still want to offer them for the few that does.

Rather than charging an arm and a leg it is just a quarter.

Wow...raping and pillaging going on here.

Anonymous said...

Nothing says, "We're Irrelevant in this area too" like 25 Cents to know what is on TV.

Could I pay a penny to have editorial labeled as editorial, or 2 cents for an advertisement notice on the one's pretending to be news?

Anonymous said...

we discontinued the sunday tv tab long ago, wish they would have offered this instead.

Anonymous said...

Enough of this. I want to read more about Internet hero John Altevogt.

Anonymous said...

The ultimate sign of success. Your own homosexual stalker. Congratulations John. bwhahaha!

Anonymous said...

i wish they kill our tv guide all together--let them try to charge $ for it and it might just happen

Anonymous said...

"John D. Altevogt, a conservative Republican advocate from Edwardsville, Kansas, is communications director for Americas Majority." source: wikipedia