Comments on: Seattle papers see print growth – what does this mean?

By: What is a subscription? : Eat Sleep Publish

What is a subscription? : Eat Sleep Publish — Thu, 15 May 2008 20:17:55 +0000

[...] you won’t see reports announcing that subscribers have migrated to another paper, which happened just this year in [...]

By: Curt M.

Curt M. — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 05:41:12 +0000

The Seattle Times had an interesting story on this: The reason both papers were up was due to sales of the e-Edition (PDF format that reproduces each page of the paper as it appears in print). The story is here. The e-Edition subscriptions increased enough to push total sales up. Without the e-Edition, the Times says, both papers would have been down again.

By: Jason Preston

Jason Preston — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 05:23:52 +0000

Oh I do, too, but I think that those of us who would pay for the paper edition for that reason will dwindle to the point where it become economically unfeasible for papers to justify the cost of printing and distributing a paper version of their product.

I don’t think that the ultimate solution should be (hopefully won’t be) a purely online offering. I think we need something that displaces the costs of classical mass distribution without introducing the weird “mouse and keyboard” interface to the medium.

I think the Kindle and the iPhone are a lot closer to newspapers in 30 years than nytimes.com is.

So I guess my point is not that people don’t like the paper version, but that rising circulation numbers don’t prove that people do like the paper version.

By: Laurel

Laurel — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 05:18:40 +0000

Actually, I do enjoy reading an actual, physical, tangible newspaper. I even enjoy having to step outside in the morning to pick it up from the driveway. I like being able to see the whole page. I like being able to get out a pencil to give the puzzles a try. I like being able to tear out an article or photo to save. If I spill coffee or tea on it, it’s not a big deal. Call me old-fashioned…