Tuesday, January 12, 2021

Gainesville Register goes semi-weekly, still makes CNHI and local mistakes

 I've written about the Register more than once. I've written about The New Republic writing about its parent, CNHI. Last summer, accepting the inevitable, the five-day daily converted to triweekly.

And, the start of this year, it went to semiweekly.

The CNHI mistakes continue.

The biggie is continuing to run a print TV guide section that eats of four pages of ads-free print. 

WHY?

It can NOT be comprehensive, given the plethora of cable channels. 

Plus, it doesn't include streaming from folks like Netflix.

It's simply stupid.

Also stupid and also presumably at CNHI orders?

Running two-three days of comics in a semiweekly's pages. (It includes not just comics, but the full normal syndication — advice column, crossword, etc. Three full pages of ad-free space.)

The ONLY reason that should be done is if either individual CNHI papers, downsized, or CNHI corporate, with a corporate package, is stuck in a daily comics syndication package it can't escape.

So, right there, the Tuesday, Jan. 12 paper has at least four if not six pages of ads-free print that is being wasted. Let's be UN-charitable, because this is CNHI, and assume six.

That's in a 14-page paper that has 1/2 page of display ROP ads, 3/4 page of classified and about a page of paid obits. With obits, that's an adhole of about 16 percent. NOT counting them, that's a 10 percent adhole in a 14-page paper, if that.

Slash that to eight pages, and counting obits, you're approaching 30 percent.

===

OK, on the Register side? I'm not counting running out-of-date weather news, but am going to mention something else.

They cut their width by another half inch or more, it seems, when they went semiweekly. But? It looks like they're still printing on the same web width. 

AND?

They're printing the PDFs' registration marks, and on all pages. I shit you not. If you can't get your printing press to adjust its web, why have you narrowed the pages?

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