In all fairness, this was actually a bug that seems to have now been fixed. Still, sometimes you've got to wonder what's going on in the strategy meetings at some of these papers.
In response to the impending Zell purchase of Tribune, an editorial in the Baltimore Sun bemoans the issues that face papers today. A lot of it is stuff we've heard before. Charge for content. Deal directly with Aggegators. Disolve the AP. Make evergreen content like reviews more easily accessible... etc.
But there was one new point I had not heard before:
The federal "Do Not Call" registry, launched in 2003, was a great excuse for papers to stop recruiting subscribers. First they reduced hiring telemarketers, which saved money and helped hit quarterly profit targets. Then, of course, circulation fell, which saved even more on newsprint costs.But you can see where this ends up, and it's time for papers to again spend serious dough on promoting their off-line product, which still generates most profits. This may involve better ad campaigns, reducing subscription prices or massive door-to-door sales.
Simultaneously, newspapers must push hard for Congress to enact a "Do Not Call" exception for newspapers similar to the one in Canada.
Yeah. Because nothing is going to motivate me to subscribe to a newspaper more than a cold call in the middle of dinner.