Saturday 29 January 2011

Examiner woes

Retail outlets out Cobourg-Port Hope way have been told the Peterborough Examiner will no longer be distributed to outlets in their area beginning Monday.

That is sure to tick off Peterborough advertisers who have drawn a lot of business from Cobourg and Port Hope over the decades. 

It's just another dagger in the once proud Examiner, a newspaper that has been published since 1847 but has been sliding since Osprey Media was purchased by Quebecor in 2007.

A TSF tipster writes:

"Five drivers in rural areas have lost their runs as the Examiner has decided to mail papers to subscribers in rural areas. How would you like your daily paper two days late? Not going to be good for subscriber numbers."

7 comments:

  1. Expect to see similar distribution shrinkages in other markets. It's no wonder the public is angry at us. The suits keep telling readers that local matters (every time we read this we cringe in our newsroom because we're out there in the streets and we know the public isn't buying this message) and then distribution is cut from 'local' areas we supposedly serve. Brilliant!

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  2. Sun Media has invested in the Examiner with computers, video-cameras and hiring. The problems at the paper are local, not from Sun and everyone in town knows it which is why the numbers are so down.

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  3. Uh yeah, having lived in Cobourg-Port Hope for 12 years, nobody there reads the Examiner, except maybe at the library. I don't think I picked it up once in all the time I was working there, and I'm in the business. Plus it's a crap-awful paper with layout straight outta the 'throw it at the dummy and see where it sticks" school of pagination.

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  4. Five drivers in rural areas have lost their runs as the Examiner has decided to mail papers to subscribers in rural areas. How would you like your daily paper two days late? Not going to be good for subscriber numbers.

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  5. An advertising sales rep left the Lindsay Post ( also managed by the Examiner publisher ) when her clients found out the Post had quietly reduced distribution substantially but wouldn't release numbers. Cuts are everywhere.

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  6. This is what Sun Media wants: Force the reader to go online. It's a formula doomed to fail but no one cares as long as money is saved and jobs are cut. Screw the reader.

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  7. Re: Sun Media has invested in the Examiner with computers, video-cameras and hiring.


    OK, sure they upgraded the computers and video cameras but please enlighten me where the hell they have hired? The last cuts came in the fall when they dumped a reporter and editor position. No new positions have been advertised.

    Let's also throw in the entire printing crew gone with printing moved to Islington, an advertising department slashed. And now drivers hours/routes being cut.

    And I'm not including the cuts from Black Tuesday that every paper endured.

    And a publisher quitting and a new one hired doesn't count in the "hiring" process.

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