Eagle going to 3 times a week

11,576 Views | 108 Replies | Last: 9 mo ago by Love Gun
Rasslin Cheesehead
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AG
In todays Eagle, they announced that they are going to Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday print editions. Delivered through the mail. The rest of the time will be digital.
Sad this is happening. Beginning of the end.
Belton Ag
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AG
I wonder how they're going to handle the other newspapers they've been delivering for a few years. My dad gets the WSJ daily he's going to call them tomorrow to figure out how they handle that.
GSS
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They might as well rename it "The Texas Tribune, B-CS edition".
threecatcorner
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Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday seems kinda random.

Is the Sunday paper not still the major one for the week?
AG81
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AG
My first job at age 9 was delivering the Eagle 7 days a week, afternoon on weekdays, mornings on the weekends. Learned a ton of life lessons at an early age, wouldn't think of letting my kids do it.
bobinator
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AG
Between the game day inserts and the HS sports coverage I'm sure the Saturday edition probably has the most advertising.
maroon barchetta
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bobinator said:

Between the game day inserts and the HS sports coverage I'm sure the Saturday edition probably has the most advertising.


^
^
^
This guy would know.
AG1996
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May be the end for my golden retriever. The highlight of his 14 year old day is getting the paper. Oh well.
George Costanza
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As much as we can complain about the liberal slant of the Eagle, the death of local media is something to be concerned about.
PS3D
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I live in the Austin area, and get a free newsletter monthly called Community Impact. It often gives information on what bonds and candidates are up for election, and the openings/closings of recent businesses. The Eagle doesn't even do that (more comprehensive than with this board has, and nothing off topic).

Who even owns The Eagle now? Maybe they can sell it and bring it back to its former glory.
EBrazosAg
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Berkshire Hathaway owns it unless they made a sale I missed. Warren Buffet has said his newspaper purchase was one of his most ill timed investments.
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Stupe
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S
George Costanza said:

As much as we can complain about the liberal slant of the Eagle, the death of local media is something to be concerned about.
I would agree if the Eagle was still true local media. They started going away from local several years ago and started running wire stories more often.

I had an Eagle subscription for decades and it hurt to cancel it. I got called after not renewing because they thought it was accidental. Telling them it wasn't an accident and that I was done with my subscription put a pit in my stomach.
I politely told them why and the girl handling subscription sighed when I asked her if that was happening a lot. I wasn't alone and when you lose loyal customers, they don't come back.

It's concerning and sad. They forgot their audience and did it to themselves.
woodiewood1
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Fighting for survival. I would have gone Tuesday, Sat, Sunday. They are going to lose about 50% of their subscribers within 30 days. Go to one larger weekly and have some original feature articles covering the area and Texas.

Of course with our postal delivery, subscribers will get the paper Friday, Monday, and Wednesday of the following week. My benefit is that I will get my neighbors paper three or four times a month!


rlb28
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AG
Our hometown paper went to 5 days a week and it's trash. You don't know about Tuesday's HS sports until Thursday and late Friday games don't get in Saturday most of the time.

Looks like Aggie sports on Saturday will be an afterthought. Football??

You'll feel like you live in a small West Texas town with a weekly paper.
Belton Ag
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What I don't get is that if you do receive a paper, on Saturday during the fall you're likely getting your paper in the mailbox long after kickoff unless it's a night game. In my neighborhood the mail doesn't come until around 5pm every day. Add in all the Amazon crap they deliver and now the paper it'll probably be later.
DR. WONG
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The paper is owned by Lee Enterprises. They bought BH Media more than three years ago. BH still holds the debt ($400+ million for all the papers on the portfolio). They've been systematically dismantling it ever since. Almost no senior management was on site. The editor was let go about a year ago and the publisher was let go in January and there are only a couple of advertising folks now. There used to be nearly a dozen. The advertising manager was laid off a few weeks ago. Any value now seems to be in the real estate they own. Lee is a lousy company with a poor track record.
trouble
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I really miss Community Impact
Tyrannosaurus Ross
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I noticed a few months ago, maybe even 4-5 months, they stopped flying the flags out front of the building along Briarcrest.
BCSWguru
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didnt they just expand their building a few years ago?
RyanFromTexas
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Three days per week is so weird. What would be a more natural cadence is going from every day to once a week.

The website is 24/7 and then they print once per week for the record, seems more orderly and predictable.

I'm not in the newspaper business, but maybe this is a bridge to once a week or maybe they want to still qualify as a "daily" instead of a "weekly" for certain agency business or some kind of accreditation.

With three days per week you are going to have to keep track of what day has what sections.

The way they are spinning this four day reduction and ending of direct distribution by using the USPS is hilarious "Your expanded Eagle is coming soon" is the way the headline is written. The expansion being a supposedly bigger paper on the three days that have not been killed.

Also, if you look at the Waco Tribune-Herald's site (which is co-owned and printed at the Bryan press and trucked to Waco), they are also going to three days per week and the spin "article" announcing is nearly identical.
Tailgate88
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Belton Ag said:

What I don't get is that if you do receive a paper, on Saturday during the fall your likely getting your paper in the mailbox long after kickoff unless it's a night game. In my neighborhood the mail doesn't come until around 5pm every day. Add in all the Amazon crap they deliver and now the paper it'll probably be later.
This. Saturday morning would always read the game preview, Sunday always read the news stories, and Cease's "Grade the Aggies".

The writing's on the wall.
bobinator
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AG
I think if someone had the money and energy to get it going there's money to be made in a local news subscription model that's digital only and hyperlocal, especially in a town this size.

I'd kill off basically everything that is covered well by other people (like A&M football) and focus big time on high school sports, local events, local news, etc.

I've said this before but the problem with places like The Eagle is over the last decade or more they aren't given the resources or training or anything to truly pivot to being a digital-first outlet, and at most of them, the Eagle included, the print edition still makes money, so a lot of the business decisions are made to keep the subscribers they do have instead of truly being able to move towards a model that might get new ones.

So slowly, over time, as you're losing subscribers, you're trying to make the same product with fewer and fewer people to help build it, so the product gets worse, which then loses you even more subscribers, and then you have fewer people, etc. etc.
PS3D
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bobinator said:

I think if someone had the money and energy to get it going there's money to be made in a local news subscription model that's digital only and hyperlocal, especially in a town this size.

I'd kill off basically everything that is covered well by other people (like A&M football) and focus big time on high school sports, local events, local news, etc.


So basically a better-written TexAgs but you pay out the nose for it.
bobinator
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AG
Why would you have to pay out the nose for it? It's not like this thing would have a newsroom of 20 people.
Hornbeck
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So, when they send it USPS, will it go to Houston to be sorted before coming back to Bryan to eventually make its way to South CS?
trouble
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Hornbeck said:

So, when they send it USPS, will it go to Houston to be sorted before coming back to Bryan to eventually make its was to South CS?


I'm not sure if it's all switched yet but part of the change with the local post offices was bringing local sorting back to the Bryan PO
75AG
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AG
I have been taking the Eagle and the Houston Chronicle, both digitally, for about 5 years. (a physical Chronicle is delivered each Sunday with all the inserts. I throw it in the recycling bin) I enjoy reading on my ipad as both give you an option of seeing it like a real printed paper. Don't know why all papers don't do this.
PS3D
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bobinator said:

Why would you have to pay out the nose for it? It's not like this thing would have a newsroom of 20 people.
Content worth paying for is just that...content worth paying for.

In general, the way people have made money on Patreon (or other Internet ventures) is building up an audience with free stuff, then creating a pay tier for extra content, and in some cases it's people throwing down a few bucks for content they enjoyed then getting something new.

As it stands, there's very few local-focused websites as-is that aren't directly connected to the city or The Eagle. I mean, I could name at least one...but then again, I run that one, so it doesn't count.
bobinator
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Still not sure why that means it would have to be expensive. And you'd definitely have some free stuff and some not free stuff. It's not exactly a novel concept, I just think it could work for a city like B/CS where you've got two city governments, the county government, several local high schools, etc.
halibut sinclair
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75AG said:

I have been taking the Eagle and the Houston Chronicle, both digitally, for about 5 years. (a physical Chronicle is delivered each Sunday with all the inserts. I throw it in the recycling bin) I enjoy reading on my ipad as both give you an option of seeing it like a real printed paper. Don't know why all papers don't do this.
Same here - don't know about what you pay, but in our case the Eagle charges over twice as much per month as the Chronicle. Seriously considering dumping the Eagle.
75AG
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I dropped the Eagle last year and got numerous calls offering $1 a week. So that's what I'm currently paying. If it goes up, I'll drop them again.
91_Aggie
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Isn't it a pamphlet at this point?
PS3D
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bobinator said:

Still not sure why that means it would have to be expensive. And you'd definitely have some free stuff and some not free stuff. It's not exactly a novel concept, I just think it could work for a city like B/CS where you've got two city governments, the county government, several local high schools, etc.
Expensive is relative.
Love Gun
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The Buzzard used to have solid writers that were well-known in the community and read by many. When they made this decision not to go digital, those writers saw the writing on the wall. When they started regurgitating left wing crap from the AP on the regular, and steered away from newsprint originality, the customers left in droves. Raising the prices on their current customers and bothering their former subscribers didn't help them either.

Now, their only "known" (ahem) "writer" there is Cessna, who is WAY past retirement, and his lackey, Travis Brown, who couldn't find a better job as a sportswriter, for obvious reasons.
**** Joe Biden
AggiePhil
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trouble said:

Hornbeck said:

So, when they send it USPS, will it go to Houston to be sorted before coming back to Bryan to eventually make its was to South CS?


I'm not sure if it's all switched yet but part of the change with the local post offices was bringing local sorting back to the Bryan PO

Happened a few months ago.
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