Shrinking Newspapers, Part 2

I posted last week about the policy of newspapers, faced with declining readership, responding by cutting costs and reducing what it offers to remaining readership.

Our paper changed the weekly television magazine to a less expensive format and the result was a flood of reader complaints. Nobody liked the new format and no few of the complaints threatened cancellations. The newspaper's response was to drop the television magazine altogether. Needless to say, there were many complaints about that, so they then discontinued weekly television listings on Sundays and now provide daily listings in the daily paper, and only for prime time.

That is what our paper was doing before it was recently sold to a holding company. It has deteriorated to the point that the Sunday paper is about the size of the daily Chronicle, and I can read it (Sunday edition) in about 15 minutes. The Sunday “Home” section is a single page of content.

Three days after the sale to the holding company was consummated, the Union-Tribune announced the end of the employment of 192 long-term employees, including news staff. A spokesman admitted that it will mean less coverage of local events.