Check out the Feb. 3 article from WoodTV in Grand Rapids Michigan in the US:
Less newspaper home delivery begins
GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. (WOOD) – For the first time since about anybody can remember, many West Michigan residents will not have a newspaper on their doorsteps or boxes Friday.
It’s all part of some big changes for the Grand Rapids Press, Kalamazoo Gazette and Muskegon Chronicle.
To generations the news experience includes the smell of the ink and the feel of the paper.
But for another generation, it’s all about the digital delivery — mobile phones, laptops and tablets — which has brought us to today.
The three newspapers will now do home delivery just three days a week — Sunday, Tuesday and Thursday.
The papers are shifting their focus to the Internet.
You can still get the paper versions seven days a week but you have to find a place that sells it or at a box.
The announcement came in November 2011.
The change also brought job cuts to those papers — 223 employees lost employment — from officer managers and clerks, to press operators and technicians, to sales people and editors.
The Grand Rapids Press is moving out of its building on Michigan Street to new offices near Monroe Avenue and Pearl Street.
Be sure to click on the announcement link for details including subscription pricing. This story has already played out in other US cities. Indeed, some capital city newspapers have shut their print editions altogether and on the back of healthy sales.
The factors feeding decisions reflected in this report are factoring into the consideration of News Limited and Fairfax and their future plans for print editions in Australia. But this is not new. We have known about the pressures and factors for years and have discussed it here many times. This will come. All that is in dispute is timing.