The Indianapolis Star announced Sunday that it is rolling out a new “business model” for the future that sounds very similar to one that the Kansas City Star will very likely roll out to subscribers later this year.
Both newspapers will increase their rates, but it is difficult to determine how much the increase will be at this time.
In order to cut costs the Indy Star also announced it was going to sell its venerable 104-year-old Penn building. The KC Star recently announced another round of furloughs for its employees this year.
The Star’s parent McClatchy Company recently announced (7/27) that it intends to roll out a metered payment plan in the third quarter in five of its markets. In the fourth quarter the remaining 25 newspapers will follow suit.
According to McClatchy, the company intends to offer readers a “combined print and digital subscription package that will include access to Web, certain mobile and replica editions for a small increase to print home delivery rates.”
I guess McClatchy thinks the print subscribers it has left are so hardcore, they’ll continue to subscribe at the higher prices. I suspect we’ll continue to see deep discounts to the standard subscription rates in order to keep subscribers from bailing.
As for the Internet only subscriptions, with the content the KC Star pumps out, good luck getting even 1000 subscribers.
Why pay for something that I can get on Twitter, facebook, or anything else for free. I guess I will have to figure out another place to get my “DWI checkpoint” news somewhere else. I realize they are dying and need to find another revenue stream, but there are just way too many other options to go to.
I just hope and pray things don’t get so bad at McClatchy that The Star is forced to sell “the castle,” forcing the core of what’s left of our beleaguered broadsheet battalion to set up shop in the “Glass House” where the pressmen now labor in full view of the public. To be sure, William Rockhill Nelson never envisioned such a day when he departed this earthly plane nearly 100 years ago.
I’m not opposed to paying something. The Star does some good in-depth pieces sometimes, though I don’t think they do a good enough job holding our officials and representatives accountable. Their coverage of the Joplin tornado was excellent—much better than the Joplin Globe’s own coverage, for example. I look at the Star online every day, but I don’t click on many stories. But I wouldn’t pay $12 per month for online only access, so I hope they go a different way than in Indiana. I’d be willing to pay more like $30 per year for online only access to the Star.
NO ONE SELLING ‘CASTLE’
Just letting Rick know that no one is selling the “The Castle”, which btw, is the very first time I’ve ever heard anyone refer to the Star’s main building with that moniker.
There’s a whole clueless class of people in this town that think that the Press Pavilion is The Star and think that it’s just chock full of offices and meeting rooms.
It’s not.
Just so you know…
Whatever offices there are in the Press Pavilion building have occupants. The majority of space in that building is taken up by machinery, all 2 square blocks of it.
It’s not a half-empty building just waiting for everyone down the street to move in to.
As for the main building…
It’s pretty full too, except the old pressroom. It’s been cleaned out and now sits empty, waiting for the day the Star figures out what the hell they want to do with it. It’s a big area with 2 story headroom that takes up most of the basement and sub-basement. It also stinks with almost 100 years of ink, chemicals and ink waste permeating it.
In fact, the whole main building has a funk to it. And it’s old. And it smells.
While the elevators in the main building only show 5 floors, 3 up 2 down, there’s actually 7 separate floors in the main building and it has room to make more offices.
To recap…
There are no writers, reporters, photogs, columnists or editorial board members working in that green building. They are in the main building. One suit works in the green building, the VP of Production. The rest are in the main building.
Why is this so hard to understand?
‘The KC Star’… is that still around??