"The Boston Globe" Admits Defeat

The Globe | 9/19/04

[gumboyaya]

Looks like The Weekly Reader - reads like Pravda!

[Jeff Gordon]

Uses for free issues of The Globe:

- Line the bottom of a bird cage
- Cleaning windows
- Starting barbeque's
- Paper mache busts of Kerry for the rifle range
- Draining fried foods
- Mopping up grease
- Paper sailor hats for children's parties
- ?

[SamAdams76]

Couldn't help but notice the headline just above the fold.

"...swell GOP coffers."

Sounds like a good idea to me.

[SamAdams76]

The Herald hired Mike Barnicle just to "stick it" to the Globe. I don't even bother with his fluff. But I've got deeper concerns about the Herald. It's turned into more of a supermarket tabloid than a newspaper. The front page is increasingly given over to celebrity crap and the gossip columns continue to grow. Sometimes the paper looks more like it should be sitting next to the Star in the supermarket checkouts. The op-ed page, Howie Carr and the Sports section (especially Gerry Callahan) are still worth getting the paper for but the Herald has really gone downhill overall.

[Edit35]

Newspapers boost their circulation numbers by giving away thousands of issues.

The local paper here gives away two dozen newspapers to each and every school in this area, including elementary, middle, high school and private, in their effort not only to brainwash the kids, but to boost their circulation numbers.

Then they can claim to advertisers they have XX number of copies "sold" every day.

IN addition, newspapers at any one point in time give free papers to about 10 percent of their customers by "Free 9-week programs" and other ruse plans.

[martin_fierro]

Today's Sunday Globe arrived in its own trash bag, sort of "pre-garbage."

LOL -- that is thoughtful. < |:)~

[islander-11]

SamAdams76 wrote: "The front page is increasingly given over to celebrity crap and the gossip columns continue to grow. Sometimes the paper looks more like it should be sitting next to the Star in the supermarket checkouts. The op-ed page, Howie Carr and the Sports section (especially Gerry Callahan) are still worth getting the paper for but the Herald has really gone downhill overall."

Islander11 replies: Agreed. Given the choice, however... And I must say that the Globe has Jeff Jacoby, a top-notch member of the Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy (filed under Giving Due to Devil).

[DoctorMichael]

I grew up in Taxachusetts.

Down here in Charlottesville, VA (110 miles south of DC) the local paper and the WASHINGTON COMPOST try this same marketing ploy here too, from time to time.

Nonetheless, I can get a copy of the WASHINGTON TIMES nearly every morning.........I don't know what I'm going to do if I ever have to move from this area.

[octobersky]

LOL, funny stuff in this thread...

[sharktrager]

Lots of papers do this, and have for years. Heck, I delivered free papers when I was a kid over 20 years ago.

[Fatuncle]

Paper Sailor Hats for Children's parties?!?

(Staggering back, clutching my heart) Child abuse!

Seriously, it's an attempt to get a few new customers. (The technique is called sampling, by the way.) A week to look at a free sample and perhaps you might want to subscribe. And it works well about as well as most techniques, though the customers tend not to resubscribe after two to three billing cycles.

Newspapers derive their income from advertising, and the rate a paper can charge for advertising is determined by the number of customers. Gotta keep those numbers up!

[Fatuncle]

No. A subscriber is one who has an account, and has paid for it. Here in NC the newspapers are audited by the state, and you had better have a name and address for every customer you claim, because the rate you can charge for advertising is determined by the customer base.

Rack sales - sold out of a box - are also audited, yearly; we submit a form listing draw/sold/returns/not sold per route.

[Good.V.Evil]

I used to deliver the Globe when I was a kid 31 years ago!
Little did I know, I was a propagandist! At 10 years old!