The Albany Times Union informed its subscribers on Sunday that as of Feb. 28 they will have to pay extra if they want to keep getting the free TV insert. Well it's allegedly a new and improved TV insert with a glossy cover, and other newspapers like The Saratogian have gone the same route. The reasoning appears to be that subscribers value the insert, so will pay more to keep getting conveniently packaged information about what's on television. Trouble is, they also could stop subscribing, contributing to the TU's plummeting circulation.
In other New York newspaper news, Newsday is now behind an Internet firewall that only 35 subscribers have paid up to get around. The real reason for the synergy strategy seems to be to enable Cablevision (Newsday's owner) to better compete with satellite television.
All this does not fill me with confidence about the economic savvy of newspaper management, especially since the first sample glossy cover of the TU insert, with a busty picture of Eva Longoria, is an unsuccessful pin-up (no link available) that somehow falls flat in the sultriness department.
Hilarious. The TV schedules, including cable, are online. Who needs the other crap? Next they'll be asking subscribers to pay extra for the advertising inserts.
Posted by: Johannah Turner | February 01, 2010 at 11:45 PM
Johannah, THEY ALREADY DO!
Where I live, you can't buy the regular Saturday TU without all the inserts, features and crap they shove into the Sunday paper as well. So if you buy both Saturday and Sunday, you get the same crap twice. As a result, the Saturday paper costs $1.50 instead of the $1 they charge on weekdays.
Posted by: Brian | February 02, 2010 at 08:42 AM
I thought the TU's new TV section was no improvement over the previous version. In fact, I think's it's less informative. Why anyone would pay extra for this is beyond me.
Posted by: Ben Linus | February 02, 2010 at 03:34 PM