Ask and you shall receive…
Inquiring comments section minds want to know:
“Quick question and asking for an opinion…I take a subscription to the Star and have for 19 years. Perhaps for different reasons than you think. I take it to work and after done reading (granted it does not take long) it gets shuffled around to other co workers who also read it. As a former small town newspaper writer the hard copy is in my blood.
“That said how long till: (A) one or two days of printing are cut and we have a 5 day a week paper (B) the KC Star goes completely online and stops printing the paper copy.
“I know it will come, but some seem to think 5-10 years out at a minimum…I am not to sure…thoughts?”
Tough one, Dee…
At this point the Kansas City Star has pared things close enough to the bone that it’s fast approaching the point where axing staffers may have to give way to cutting physical overhead…one of the largest being its print edition.
Easier said than done….
Brisbane
Judging from the Star’s flagging circulation there aren’t enough oldsters around to sustain printing a physical daily newspaper, but that’s still where most of the profits are found.
Nearly 10 years back, former Star editor and publisher Art Brisbane mused about dialing the print back to a thrice weekly tabloid of maybe 10,000 copies with a full circulation version of the then mighty cash cow Sunday Star.
The flip side of that equation: online subscription revenue 10 years later is still chump change.
Ditto for online advertising.
So pretty much all the Star can do at this point is hang on for dear life, make as many bodies walk the plank as needed, and pray that somehow, somewhere, someone will come up with a brainstorm that will allow them to continue to exist.
It won’t be easy…that’s the bad news.
The good news is they’ll likely never sink to the ridiculously embarrassing levels the Pitch has.
Speaking of which, even one-man-band Tony’s KC is churning out more copy than the once proud Pitch.
So here’s the deal, I wouldn’t hold my breath on 5 to 10 more years of driveway delivered news. That seems a stretch.
Look for an ongoing “trail of tears” layoffs strategy to keep the wolf away from the door until somebody new maybe steps in and decides to try and run it as a business, instead of clinging to the dated strategies of yesteryear.
But hey, somebody halfway legit has to try and get real local news out there. Kansas City can’t sustain an intellectual, informed lifestyle based on mindless blogging alone.
Thanks for responding to my question Hearne…The more I look at the Star the more you can see it is just not a relevant media model for the long term. The reason we initially took the Star was to read local news, local sports, local opinion – I will say the Star has abandoned high school and local college sports. KU, K-State, MU get decent coverage. No so for local athletics.
I do enjoy the letters to the editor as well but remember when the regional inserts based on geographical location (Northland Edition insert for example) arrived with things that were relevant to the local aspect I was seeking (sports, news, school information). It is long gone as well as the physical location in the strip mall that serviced these.
For fun I tracked where I got my local opinions and news the past few weeks, in no particular order:
(1) Reddit Kansas City – Paris of the Plains
(2) Tonys KC
(3) KC Confidential
(4) StJosephPost
I have access to the Star online but usually only follow an email link to check out a story that interest me.
Media matters to me so I will keep my subscription – but I feel the end game coming is an email from the Star saying “We are going online to better serve you!” Which upon further reading will indicate the Star is all online but my subscription rate will not drop…
Yes Dee, the days of intensive local high school sports and community news have gone the way of the dodo bird..
Those regional inserts were former Star publisher Robert Woodworth’s claim to fame.
Quite profitable, once upon a time…prolly just costly now.
Be sure and get your subscription taken off the recurring credit card plan and around $125 for the full year of print
The K C Star is agitprop.
“Letters to the Editor”, which in Starspeak is: Printing liberal’s letters so other liberals can chime in, or SOMETIMES printing conservative’s letters, and only allow comments by liberals. My IP address has been banned from comments. They say no, but all of my FB comments are only visible by me.
Not surprising, Twas…
Did you read Dwight Sutherland’s piece?
They tried opening the comments wide at first to be trendy, but started cutting them back in no time because they couldn’t stand the heat.