I’ve heard that Fairfax in NSW will publish a ‘bumper edition’ Sydney Morning Herald on Friday January 26 and to be on sale for the entire Australia Day long weekend for the usual Saturday price of $2.20. I would have thought that in the current newspaper market – challenged at best and decaying at worst – Fairfax would do everything possible to not upset customers. Their customers will be upset by yet another lazy Bumper Edition. Newsagents will bear the brunt of customer anger. Talk to any newsagent and they will tell you of the frustration expressed across the counter and on the phone explaining the pricing and the convoluted rules associated with the Bumper Editions this past Christmas. Bumper Editions are not good customer service.
Everywhere you turn there are reports of sales declines being experienced by newspapers. Newspapers themselves are regularly running naval gazing pieces about their own future. Publishers like Fairfax have invested hundreds of millions of dollars in online businesses which are speeding the decline. It is odd to me therefore that Fairfax would ‘play’ with their customers in this way. If they want to delay the decline they would publish each day of the Australia Day weekend. But then, maybe the financial return is better if they run a Bumper Edition and that’s more important than what the customers want.
Memo to Fairfax: You might want to let the computer companies know about your Bumper Edition plans so that they can provide advice in advance to their newsagent clients and thereby save the hundreds of phone calls which would be made otherwise.
I agree, I don’t see the point of making a bumper Australia Day issue of the SMH, and I’m a regular reader. Why don’t they just do what they’ve done recently during the holiday period and release a cut down edition of the regular Herald. Leave the other bits and pieces out for the next day.
I thought a “Bumper” edition was an expanded variety – the Xmas and New Year editions of The Age were more Bummer than Bumper with no Good Weekend and smaller sections – The Age then had the cheek to charge the regular Saturday price
A little off the original topic. Mark you talk of the decline in newspaper sales. Have any studies been done on the decline and the reasons for it?
I have no doubt that the online business of news has a great deal to do with it. But what other factors drive the fall.
Is it a drop in demand for news? Are younger generations not filling the void as they grow older? Are they less likely to be readers of the news than their parents and grandparents?
The celebrity news market has grown at an unprecedented rate. It has infiltrated every corner of the media. Television current affais programs now resemble a digital version of the Womans Weekly and radio has as many endorsments as Dolly. Has this sway led people away from newspapers where ‘celebrity news’ is less prominent? Should the newspapers become even more ‘celebrity focused’?
What are the newspapers point of difference? What does the market want from them and what can the newspapers viably offer?
So many questions. But is there a solution?