Saturday, May 5, 2007

No news is...no news?

As involved members of our community, we look to most of the local news outlets for events we might have missed, as well as in-depth coverage of the major goings-on in the area. So after joining the ranks of local residents who no longer seem to receive delivery of the twice-weekly local paper (and from talking to people in the community, we hardly seem to be alone), we started looking online for their content, oftentimes only to find that the website isn't updated until hours or days after the print newspaper is delivered to the select few.

But anyway, we heard this morning from one of the chosen who did receive the paper that there were all of about 3 pages of local news content today, sandwiched in between plenty of ads.

Is there that little local news happening in Osceola County? We think not, but maybe we're wrong.

Are local newspapers viable anymore? If your business model is advertising-based, and yet readers aren't being exposed to the ads (either because the content doesn't get delivered to the reader, or there is so little content as to have little value to the reader), how long do your advertising revenues hold up?

We are waiting for the other shoe to drop... what happens to local coverage from the Orlando Sentinel after their newsroom realignment next month?

Where do you get your local news?

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

so true so true. as a local busines owner who uses the local free paper to advertise I can tell you its effectiveness is in decline greatly. I am from a small N.C. town of about 5,000 people and yet it prints a paper 2 times a week with about 40 pages of info on the area. They charge a whopping $30.00 to subscribe. When I mention this to the paper staff they just laugh.