Editor’s Note
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Archive for February 12th, 2009

Coming Sunday: No TV book and other things

Add comment February 12th, 2009

                You already know this Sunday is our first Sunday for the TV Book “opt-in.” About 20 percent of our subscribers opted in; that’s less than we expected, and I think it signals we are making a decent decision among bad choices: It reduces expenses a lot and saves a forest or two of newsprint.

                 There are other changes coming Sunday. While they are unlikely to be anywhere near as controversial as the TV Book changes, it’s important you know about them.

                 On Sunday we begin publishing as a six-section Sunday newspaper. This means:

                                * We have combined the two Sunday classified sections into a single section. “Your Home Source” will be on the cover and “Hot Jobs” will be inside.

                                * We are replacing the standalone Opinions section with editorial and oped (opposite editorial) pages inside the A-section. These are currently the second and third pages of the standalone section.

                                * All other sections are the same, and we hope to see additional and more consistent news space in the Local&State section

                                * We have added a Sunday television grid to the Life&Sytle section.

   There are several reasons we are doing this:

                               * A six-section paper reduces newsprint expenses significantly

                                * A six-section paper allows us to book newshole where it is most needed: in the sections that drive local content

                                * A six-section paper responds to the fact that advertising lineage is down and we don’t need as many pages as we used to need to handle it.

                We have used this six-section booking many, many times over the years, either because we didn’t have a standalone Sunday Opinions section or because advertising page count was down. It may not be familiar to folks who only know us as we have been since the new press in May 2006, but this booking has been common.

                 No one likes making decisions like these, but I think we did OK on this one because it protects our local news, information and advertising content and does the least harm to our staff, readers and advertisers.

                My personal and professional thanks to the team that worked on the new booking for Sunday, with a special nod to Sharon Hendrickson, Adam McHugh, Chris Soprych, Wally Haas and Jennie Pollock for cutting through a mountain of difficulties and creating a strong Sunday newspaper for our readers.