Detroit Newspapers' Traffic, Sales Up Since Home Delivery Reduction

DETROIT — Executives with Detroit's daily newspapers say they have kept more readers and subscribers than they expected, more than a month after reducing home delivery and increasing electronic offerings.

Officials with The Detroit News, Detroit Free Press and the partnership that handles their business operations didn't offer specifics on overall readership and subscriptions.

But they say Web traffic and single-copy sales have increased since March 30 _ the day they launched the plan to deal with declining circulation and changing readership tastes.

Home delivery now is limited to Thursday, Friday and Sunday.

Free Press Editor and Publisher Paul Anger said at a panel discussion Thursday the economy has hurt revenue.

Comments

[Startreklivz]

06:23 PM on 05/22/2009

my parents live in the Detroit Metro area and have read the Freep and the Snews every day since my earliest memories some 50 years ago. They report that even the days when they get a print version, it's smaller and "there's less and less in it worth reading." Which is both sad and dangerous; it was the Washington Post that revealed Nixon's crimes, and the Freep which exposed Kwame Kilpatrick's and the ongoing City Council and School Board woes. Who will keep track of politicians when the papers are gone?

[matt832]

02:49 AM on 05/22/2009

I too am in the Detroit area, Flushing west of Flint to be exact. I got a call from my carrier offering daily delivery of the Free Press again. She was told she couldn't do this then there was a reversal. So I will be paying more but I will still have a daily paper delivered. My other Local paper, The Flint Journal, is going to 3 days also as of June 1, however they will not have an online version, just their crappy Mlive web stuff they are running now.

As to the content of the freep, I'd have to say that is a big problem. I don't use the online viewer, I download the PDF version and I watch the file sizes. They are getting smaller and smaller. Other than a huge sports section, everything else is reduced to a page or two. The editorial section Wed. as 1/2 a page! I'm giving it a bit more time, and I will contact the publisher with my views and concerns. I firmly believe there needs to be MUCH more content - other than sports.

[wforvendetta]

02:41 AM on 05/22/2009

Newspapers have always had to post ridiculously large, double-digit prorfit margins. If they don't, the top brass starts cutting jobs and news hole.

[reasonshouldrule]

11:21 PM on 05/21/2009

I live in the Detroit area, and I think the jury is still out on the newspapers' changes. I read almost all my news on the Internet anyway, so the move to the electronic version of the Free Press wasn't difficult. But the e-version isn't all that reader-friendly. I'm reading it, though, because I want to give it a good try. The main problem, in my view, is that it seems as though there is less content than before. Sometimes it takes no more than 5 minutes to get through the paper on the e-version.

[Srkdqltr]

11:20 PM on 05/21/2009

This is all good??? They are laying people off because the add revenue is down? Whats up with that?

[BPearTree]

09:15 PM on 05/21/2009

Greed and mendacity! (to quote T. Williams) It all started with the JOA. The bean counters prevailed, just like they did with the Big Three. No vision, no foresight--only the immediate bottom line...

[larry278]

07:40 PM on 05/21/2009

Your mom may not be able to use a computer. Have you thought of making hard copies of the on-line issues of Detroit papers for her? You can learn how to make the print larger for her. She might like to see her favorite paper in larger print.
If you don't have access to a computer & can't learn to use a computer, you are really out of luck if you don't have family or very good friends to make you copies of your local blute. Maybe there is a solution to that situation & problem. I don't know of any solution.
The changes in the news business are rough on older people. Sympathy sans solutions is a lose-lose situation for everybody. I now feel like a dime waiting for change.

[Kasandra]

08:47 PM on 05/21/2009

Kindle. Make the font bigger, paper subs delivered while you sleep.

[larry278]

11:05 AM on 05/22/2009

What if mom doesn't have the money to pay Amazon for kindle? You also have to learn to use kindle. Who is going to teach mom how to use kindle? What if mom can't learn to use kindle? Welcome to the land of non-solutions, kasandra.

[urnumbersix]

07:14 PM on 05/21/2009

My Mom lives in Detroit. Not the suburbs, Detroit.

She'll be 79 in December. She doesn't use The Internets. She reads the newspapers every day - as she has for all of her life.

Physical newspapers have a function. Personally - i "sold out" and dumped all my subscriptions to everything. If it's not online - I don't read it. Am I part of the problem or part of the solution?

But really -- we must morn the passing of a media that has served the Western world since the Gutenberg press!

[larry278]

10:47 PM on 05/22/2009

Why mourn? Web sites have replaced print on paper, traditional, newspapers. The news is delivered in a different way; that's it.