Newspapers Up the Cost on Day of Thanks
Tuesday, December 1, 2009
By Taylor Finch
Everyone is familiar with black Friday, but the newspaper industry created what is now known as "Black Thursday" this past Thanksgiving Day.
What many of the nation's newspaper publishers were thankful for on Thanksgiving was the "bountiful harvest of holiday advertising," for which they all hoped to make more than a few extra bucks off of by increasing the price of the overall newspaper.
The Californian was one of many newspapers that went with the price increase trend on Thanksgiving, raising its price from the usual 75 cents to $1.50. But, as the paper's vice president of content, Olivia Garcia, said: "We feel that the bargain you'll get from the specials inside is definitely worth the extra charge. Happy Thanksgiving."
Many readers of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution and Kansas City Star more than likely also felt some shock when learning that their newspapers were priced at $2 on Thanksgiving, and even more so in Dallas where newspapers were peaking at $3.
Some may have felt that newspapers were being over zealous in their efforts to make extra money on their advertising, especially on Thanksgiving, but over charging for advertising is more than likely not the answer to the recent downfall of the newspaper industry.
(Photo Credit: farm3.static.flickr.com)
2 comments:
I don't like this move by the papers. They're just trying to latch on to the shopping craze. The papers are getting more advertising money for that day anyway, why not try to sell more papers at the standard price?
I wonder how many people aren't buying the paper that day because its $3? If people are only buying a certain paper for the ads, that paper has even bigger problems than they realized. They should be promoting and working on their content, not the ads.
I don't think it is fair for the newspapers to charge more for the prints when right now they are having a hard enough time selling them as well as finding people who want to advertise in them. I think it will be interesting to see if the increase in sales increased or declined with the up charge.
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