Saying that, I found out that my mom was paying $75 every 5 weeks to get the local to her newspaper delivered to the front desk of her independent living place, twice a week.
I called, said it was too expensive, the best they could do on the phone was 34.99 every 5 weeks. Still too expensive
Looked on line, 20.99 a month. I subscribe
Later I hear my mil say that she gets her local to her newspaper, $50 a month for just the Sunday paper.
I am shocked!
If you get a print edition of your local newspaper delivered, what are you paying?
I loved the paper and wanted to support it but the bigger issue was the inconsistent delivery. They’d deliver when I put in a vacation hold and not deliver when we were home. Got so ridiculous managers were involved and kept giving me credits and extending my subscription, by finally enough was enough, especially when the price went up to over $350/yr (IIRC) for 7 days a week. So we dropped it. Do still miss it occasionally but it hasn’t been a big deal. We could get the digital but we don’t.
Our local paper only offers delivery for Wednesday and Sunday, which is $36/month. Digital subs are quite a bit more and the paper is mostly wire service stuff, not local news. They sold their building, even! The staff work as stringers, nobody has a permanent position which I find sad but it’s rough out there in journalism.
Ours fired us years ago…electronic only. I think staffing and overall printing costs have gone up too high - and many now even share the same news reporting networks for cost reductions. It’s likely a tough business today with the internet.
I think that’s the media’s hope - that you experience your news online. I still get magazines but they push the online versions too.
Last year I gifted Dad home delivery for NYT every Sat/Sun. Twas combo birthday / father’s day deal. (I had given him a ipad and online subscription in past, but that did not work out.). The deal was $5 per week first year. He and his wife LOVE it. They stretch the various section across the week, often with the addition of a store bought Tues/Science NYT. This year it went to $10/week - not cheap, but he happily does the puzzles and reads MANY articles … last week he called me to ask where Oman is located. He’s 98, and I am glad he is so eager for new learning.
I was a faithful subscriber for over 20 years, until their customer service ticked me off. You couldn’t get through to a live body, but I was able to finally find voicemails and emails and I sent messages saying I wanted someone to call me back, otherwise they’d lose me as a customer. Nobody called. I quit.
Few years later, I felt bad, because I do want to support the local paper. Did the digital online service. But they was no way to see what the prices would increase to. No way to cancel online. You could only add things. Called and spent forever in automated teller hell. By the time I got someone I was so irritated, I cancelled again. But, I still had access for about 6 months.
Repeat a few years later. Same deal. I quit again well over a year ago. This time I still have access through Facebook on my phone.
But for years, ours was super expensive. It was daily, but mostly ads and it cost more than the Washington Post my parents subscribed to! It hasn’t gotten any cheaper, and the paper has dwindled. For a few years they only have 1 reporter. You get maybe 2 local articles a day. And recently they cut back to 3 days a week.
Looking online it says it cost $35 every 4 weeks for these 3 days of delivery - for a paper you can read in 15 minutes.
My wife liked getting the paper 3 times a week. She loved the food! Recipe sections but of course can get it online and has discovered other online avenues for that. I listen to the local news more and haven’t read a paper in a long time. She used to give it to me but by the time I got it, it was already old news
We also moved to digital. The cost was getting to be outrageously expensive and they were too unreliable when we tried to hold service for vacations and such.
We we loyal print subscribers to our local paper since the 80’s. (By “local”, I mean the only paper in my state’s capitol region🙄). We finally gave up on home delivery a few years back for a couple of reasons…
delivery was inconsistent…sometimes late, sometimes not at all
Discovered that vacation stops didn’t extend our subscription dates at all…and we travel to our second home a lot
Also discovered that there is a charge for the “special sections” that we don’t even want. You know the ones…”NFL preview”, “Holiday shopping guide”, that sort of thing.
It was incredibly expensive! And the print edition was starting to be so small, we joked it was like a pamphlet.
Anyhow, now we have digital access only, and pretty much all we look at is the “Digital e-edition” which is just an online copy of the print paper.
I’m embarrassed to report that our 7-day-a-week New York Times delivery is over $1500 a year. DH insists on getting the newspaper in print. Sometimes when he calls out some news item to me, I realize I saw it online in their digital edition two days earlier. If it were up to me, I’d probably only get the Sunday edition in print. Or maybe none at all.
This question makes me think…who is doing the delivery of these papers to your doorstep? It’s been awhile since we have had a paper delivered to the home - are there still people out there making a little extra cash with a paper route? How about the more notable paper and delivery - like NYT or WSJ - who brings them to your home?
Part of my reason for saying this is not only have print production and waning subscriptions caused price increases but also all the logistics of getting that paper to your door.
in our area, they use a subcontractor to do the deliveries. If they cannot locate a subcontractor to do the job in certain areas they no longer offer delivery. In my area, I think they still have the delivery, but it was so unreliable it was frustrating as I mentioned above. And as someone else mentioned, they used to offer an extension on the subscription For vacation holds, but they stopped doing that because they claimed you could read the paper online so they did not offer the extension. They only offered me extensions because of the severe problems We had been having for years and years delivery and vacation hold.
Thank goodness our state paper switched to 100% digital, MIL insisted on getting it. Turns out she only needed it for the tv guide section. She is now a tv guide subscriber (she’s turning 96).
Daily delivery of the local paper is $8 a week, which is a bargain compared to Sunday only for $3. Not a great product by any means but it’s a nice morning ritual.
The NY Times costs more, but we decided that getting the print version is an indulgence we’re choosing for now. We also use various digital news services.
Our delivery and vacation holds used to be spotty but have improved dramatically in the last few years, either because of a consistent new carrier or because I’ve upped my tipping game.
I tried cancelling my digital subscription to the Washington Post after disagreeing with one of their policy decisions but my ethical compass was overridden by their generous discount offer. Probably will cancel when this term ends though.
We used to have a delivery subscription to our local paper, which was really important to us, but even with a reduced Wed.-Sun. subscription, it grew astronomically expensive – a huge jump in price from when we started subscribing (this is one of the many papers across the country that has been taken over by hedge funds, so the quality of journalism has declined while the price has gone up). So now we have a digital subscription, which is much cheaper. And we probably read more of it, too, because we can link to articles here and there throughout the day rather than sitting down and flipping through the whole paper – who has time to do that?
I’m always amazed - I stay at hotels - maybe 3-5% - still get USA Today - I’m not sure how.
I think the world has changed in this regard - where print is very very little - and costs of fuel, labor - has made it an undesirable profession, etc. - hence the online delivery.
We still have people driving around delivering the newspaper. I see them as I run around neighborhoods in the early morning. Edit - it’s just regular people in personal vehicles. They spook me when I’m running driving slow/stopping until I learn who they are/remember the vehicle
I was a print subscriber when I lived in the DC area (1984-2022) and continue a digital subscription after I moved. That ended last fall when I unsubscribed after 40 years. (along with 10% of their other subscribers).
After 40 years , I never received any discount offers, but I would not have accepted even if they offered it to me free of charge.
Probably will cancel when this term ends though.