The media conglomerate's corporate Web site is advertising jobs for "soon-to-be launched weekly" newspapers in Indianapolis, where its INtake is set to appear on Dec. 11; Cincinnati; Louisville, Ky.; and Palm Springs, Calif., according to E&P's Lucia Moses. Cincinnati CityBeat Editor and Co- Publisher John Fox tells E&P that he's not overly concerned with the new competition. "We've been around for nine years," he said. "We have numbers, we have relationships. I think we're going to be fine."
Seeking to "hook young people on the newspaper habit, with the hope that they might eventually graduate to more substantive, established fare," the Tribune Company's amNew York debuted in Manhattan on Friday. Free dailies like amNew York face a number of daunting challenges, says Jacques Steinberg, like distribution issues, lack of profitability and cannibalization of existing dailies in the same market. "But perhaps the biggest uncertainty surrounding such publications is how much attention busy young people will pay to newspapers whose short articles ... are in many instances supplied by news agencies like The Associated Press," notes Steinberg.
In a message originally sent to an AAN listserv, Cincinnati CityBeat Editor and Co-Publisher John Fox tells AAN News that a kickoff party for the Cincinnati Enquirer's "faux alt weekly" was held last week. The new paper, which hits the streets Oct. 29, has been christened Cin. Fox speculates about the meaning of "Cin" and says a 64-page, four-color prototype, "Looks a lot like Thrive in Boise, where the Enquirer's new publisher came from -- similar layout and flow, with 10 pages of daily classifieds in the back. Not a single story jumps."
"Commuter papers have been shown to be read by huge numbers of professionals and attract lucrative advertising, while paid dailies face limited growth prospects and have all but lost the ability to charge a premium for home delivery," says a new report from the International Newspaper Marketing Association, according to Editor & Publisher (paraphrasing from the report). E&P also talks to a consultant who says he's "been told of (free commuter dailies) being planned in three cities."
So says Chicago Reader Publisher and COO Jane Levine (pictured), who admits that Tribune Publishing's new youth-oriented daily tabloid has made it more difficult to reach Tribune clients who don't advertise in the Reader. "It's just easier for them and way cheaper" to add RedEye to their Tribune media spend, Levine tells Media Daily News. "These papers are going after, and I don't think very successfully, an age," Levine says. "They want 18 to 34, period, young for young's sake. What the reader of our paper is and always has been is more of psychographic and a lifestyle."
The new tabloid, amNewYork, will target young urban commuters and will be launched early in the fourth quarter, according to Newsday. Distribution will begin in Manhattan and then spread to the other boroughs, with papers given away at subway stations and bus stops as well as health clubs, bars, restaurants and bookstores. Tribune Publishing, which owns the youth-oriented daily Red Eye in Chicago, will partner in New York with newspaper executive Russel Pergament, who developed the original idea for amNewYork.
Steve May, who sold the Times of Acadiana to Thomson in 1996, tells Gambit Weekly it was subsequent acquirer Gannett that brought him out of retirement. May says he started his new paper, The Independent, because Gannett is "on the verge of owning Louisiana. They are two markets away from total ownership concentration." Ted Power, who serves as publisher of both the Times of Acadiana and Gannett's local daily, The Advertiser, admits the weekly has declined in quality since Gannett's acquisition. "The Times has been neglected," he says, promising to revamp the paper, moving it further away from its alternative-weekly roots
In a desperate bid to attract young readers "who have been deserting daily newspapers in droves and driving news executives to distraction," mainstream media companies "are churning out ... easy-to- read publications that are light on serious journalism, heavy on the partying scene, and, for the most part, free," reports Mark Jurkowitz. "I think it's a silly strategy because it's all about what they're putting out in daily papers that's driving [young] readers away,'' Nashville Scene's Albie Del Favero tells Jurkowitz. ''Daily newspapers in general write in a style that is not at all appealing to young readers.''
When the free weekday tabloid Express debuted Monday morning, the City Paper and its band of merry pranksters were prepared, hawking 10,000 copies of its own Expresso at subway stops across the nation's capital. The City Paper parodists, led by Webmeister Dave Nuttycombe, "anticipated the journalistic emptiness of Express," according to Slate's Jack Shafer, who says the Post's new lite version "ladles the news out with an eyedropper into tiny text boxes and then flattens it with a steamroller." Also revealed: The editor of Express is none other than Dan Caccavaro, former editor of AAN-member Valley Advocate.
The Courier-Journal’s new tabloid will target 25- to 34-year-olds and will focus on lifestyle and entertainment news, according to an internal memo intercepted by LEO's Tom Peterson. The as-yet-unnamed paper will launch as early as November with shared C-J personnel but ultimately will have its own staff, according to the memo. Boise Weekly Publisher Bingo Barnes tells Peterson that the free weekly published by Gannett's Idaho Statesmen doesn't compete fairly: “They’ve given some advertisers free ads for a year. And we’ve lost some ads as a result. Their goal is total market dominance."
