Posted on 03/19/2013 7:35:15 AM PDT by raccoonradio
...So what happened? Some of it is pretty obvious. About a dozen years ago the Phoenix switched from paid to free distribution, which might have made sense at the time but which proved disastrous given the advertising collapse that was to come.
Craigslist, of course, had a devastating effect on a paper that depended on pages and pages of classified ads -- college students looking for roommates, bands looking for musicians and, yes, people from all walks of life looking for sex. National advertising from cigarette companies and record labels dried up.
But beyond those factors, the community that sustained the Phoenix has passed from the scene. At one time the Boston area was awash in concert venues, record stores, guitar emporiums, independent book stores, head shops -- the kinds of businesses that reached their customers by advertising in alternative weeklies. Now they are almost entirely gone. There was very little to offset the costs of producing a free magazine and a free website. It's no wonder that Mindich personally had to subsidize the Phoenix to the tune of $30,000 a week, according to a report in Boston magazine...
With the Internet taking away the Phoenix's classified-ad revenue and with the passing of its traditional base of display advertising, Mindich really had no choice other than to try something completely different.
It failed, but it was a noble failure. Sadly, some 50 people are losing their jobs.
(Excerpt) Read more at pbs.org ...
>>people from all walks of life looking for sex
The Boston Penis.
>>converting the Phoenix into a glossy magazine in the hopes of attracting high-end advertisers that had traditionally disdained the scruffy newspaper.
That tricky deal of appealing to both Yuppies and Occupiers. The Phoenix posted a vid on YouTube of occupiers next to the Fox 25 Boston studios: "This is what democracy looks like!," they chanted. Well, this is what bankruptcy looks like, folks.
Thanks Barack!
Last year they sold their radio station WFNX to Clear Channel for $14.5 million. (It's now a dance station, Evolution 101.7). The schadenfruede came from the fact that the eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeevil corporation Clear Channel (aka Cheap Channel, but many of their stations do quite well running cons. talk including Rush) was the buyer. So much for "Occupy" radio!
Local media needs to reinvent itself. In my wife’s hometown a local entrepreneur created a web based “newspaper” that had not only local print stories, but short video clips of the local high school games, a video weather cast and even some short local interest interviews. Sadly local advertisers were skeptical and didn’t want to commit to ads and selling subscriptions to the site didn’t work either. However, I thought the concept was fantastic and maybe just a little too far ahead of the time.
These days papers in big cities (Boston Herald) and medium sized (Lynn Item, etc.) are doing video reports on their sites—indeed like what you said. The Phoenix was a weekly arts/entertainment/sex ads paper. Last night at midnight an online version of their former WFNX radio ceased to be. (They do still publish in Portland ME and Prov RI, newsprint, kinda thin, with some local advertisers). The Boston paper though was deep in red ink.
I think the thing that croaked the Phoenix is the same thing that’s killing the Post Office, the internet. It’s life more convenient, but less intimate, less personal.
I think the thing that croaked the Phoenix is the same thing that’s killing the Post Office, the internet. It’s life more convenient, but less intimate, less personal.
The Boston Phoenix is disgusting. I will be glad to see it go.
Right (and I do work for post office—these days packages our biggest business). Still I like the idea of going to a restaurant and reading my print copy of the Herald. Or on my break at work, or at home etc. Yes it’s a bit outdated from the fresh news you can get online...with a smart phone etc you can get stuff but not the same as a full newspaper.
I used to love to bring a copy of the Herald waiting at the Dentist’s office or on a lazy off day breakfast at Bickford’s, and do the cryptoquote without writing implements. (I never quite mastered crossword puzzles without writing, but I could get about halfway through.) There is something warm and comfortable about paper that computers cannot match.
Apparently, it is better to be RED and DEAD!
Or the late edition of the Wretched American for the train ride home from night classes at NU. Just the right size.
Bullstalin.
The Boston Phoenix was free on college campuses at least going back to 1985. Only visitors who didn't know better would actually pay for a copy of the alternative weekly hippie-sex-rag back then. It was free in BIG stacks at record stores, in college student union buildings and elsewhere.
60+ colleges in the vicinity.
Village Voice publications are currently experiencing scandal from investigations into human trafficking and minor solicitation in regards to their escort ads.
These publications thrive on their sex ads.
The Phoenix was “cool” in the Sixties, but has been an anachronism ever since.
Its very comprehensive and thorough entertainment section has, for a looooong time, been the only reason to pick up the rag - assuming you could stand the snotty and Leftist movie reviews.
Meanwhile, most of those “hippies” who read it after dropping acid and dropping out of society, dropped back in and became business people who now read The Wall Street Journal.
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