Kathy and I had a financial meeting yesterday and during this fun exercise (I absolutely hate it, even more than she hates it) she informed me that we are spending $33 a week on newspaper delivery!
A week! At True West, we argue all the time about raising our magazine subscription rate ($29.95 a year) but when others are offering year long subs for $8 we have felt like we are on the high end and need to hang tough and stay put.
But, by comparison, The New York Times costs $20.75 a week. A week! That is almost $1,082 a year and with the Arizona Republic thrown in at $50 a month we are spending $1,716 a year on dead trees being delivered to our house every day. What does that look like? Like this:
Dead Tree Delivery
This is insane. It's outrageous, it's highway robbery, it's—sigh—a sign of the times. As print advertising disappears, newspapers and magazines are scrambling to pay for producing news and articles and printing it on dead trees. So far this year over 2,000 newspapers have closed or merged. My hometown newspaper, The Daily Kingman Miner, has cut back to three issues a week.
Everyone in my world wants to know: Have we hit bottom yet? Here is part of my blog post from 2005:
"In 1909, United States manufacturers produced 828,000 horse-drawn vehicles compared to fewer than 125,000 automobiles. By 1929. . .fewer than 4,000 horse-drawn vehicles were produced.”
This is a stunning turn of events, especially if you were heavily invested in the horse-drawn conveyance biz. Which leads me to this Email:
"I no longer subscribe to a newspaper—I used to receive three. Why should I when I can get all the same news online for free? Now, if magazine subscriptions start coming down, then I might start worrying!!"
—Bob Reece.
Is print media (ink on dead trees) headed for Boothill in a horse-drawn vehicle?
“A bird in the hand is dead.”
—Old Vaquero Saying
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