For those in the biz in Tex-ass, they know it's not THAT Sam Houston, but the guy who is owner and publisher of the Hood County News (Granbury) and formerly of both The Springtown Epigraph and Azle News.
Formerly? Yes, per the TPA Messenger, which ran a full column of Sam's straight up, he's merging them into something called the Tri-County Reporter. Springtown is officially in both Parker and Wise counties, and Azle is officially in both Parker and Tarrant.
He's also cutting Granbury down to weekly while humble-bragging, or just bragging, that it will be as big as a typical StartleGram as a weekly. He already cut Gatesville to a weekly.
As for its brag to be "fastest growing paper in Texas"? I heard this from the horse's mouth, and pulled out old TPA directories.
A couple of years ago, Glen Rose, right down the street from him, had a 20 percent growth spurt. Kyle (Hays County Free Press) has had growth, before major loss. It's called "exurban population sprawl," Sam, as much as anything you personally may be doing right, or correcting what Jerry Tidwell was doing wrong or not at all. I have no doubt that your growth has probably plateaued.
Specifically, as I can't find a 2020 directory, we will have 2019, 2021, 2022 and 2023 numbers.
Glen Rose 740 949 941 937
Granbury 6,338 5,573 5,213* 5,580 * = year of Houston's takeover
Kyle 2,861 3,106 4,359 1,978** ** Cindy Slovak-Barton, long-time publisher, retired. The implosion is surely tied to this, but in exactly what ways, I'm not sure. I've done other googling and I'll just leave it there.
Anyway? Sam is only at where HCN was the year before he took over. Glen Rose has plateaued again, but had a 25 percent jump from 2019 to 2021. Kyle jumped 35 percent between 2021 and 2022 after a 10 percent jump between 2019 and 2021.
Sam? Flat from two years ago. Up 7 percent from last year, giving him the allowance of a full year of work.
Oh, and while we're here, Sam? Azle fell from 2,141 in 2022 to 1,932 in 2023. Springtown had a smaller decline. Gatesville, to give credit, has climbed from 2,351 to 2,769. That's a bit over 20 percent, and a puzzler as to why Sam isn't actually bragging on it. (It was at 2,640 in 2019.)
Anyway, there's the background. Should I remember, and should I be in a position where I can get it, I'll update this in 2024.
Otherwise, I'm trying to figure out if the TPA really believes all this, or as with all the paid press releases through the Texas Press Service, it's just being a pass-through.
As for him cutting HCN to weekly? Don't get it, especially if you're bragging over increases in print advertising as well as circ (which he has). You're throwing away one of two issues of print ad revenue. And, I suspect those subscribers will baulk if you keep subscription rates the same.
Yes, I know that Louis DeJoy's continued rate hikes are hitting we newspapers hard, even with NNA's continued, and so far futile protests to Congress. (Have you tried Amtrak Joe Biden more yet?) I don't think they're hitting THAT hard, and newsprint, while up, isn't up THAT much.
Were it I, I'd keep both issues, but trim 2-4 pages from each.
And, speaking of that, the "Hood County News expands" in the header isn't true unless the 32 pages Houston plans to run is more than the total of the two previous days. And, I insist you count both issues' classified pages and everything, precisely because you're now eliminating them 1x a week.
Next, is there really that much room for that much more business news? If you're trying to localize national and state economic trends, that's not a bad idea, but I do bits of that already, expanding the monthly sales tax report and other things.
And, beyond that? At least during the school year, if I removed 1x a week of both classified and biz card pages, Wise County and Bowie would still be pushing more than 32 pages a week most weeks. In other words, this is blather. (And, while Wise County may be bigger than Hood County, Montague County most certainly is not.)
Houston says nothing will change about subscriptions. What about single-copy pricing?Assuming you're currently a buck an issue, you charging $2 for the single one? Or if you're at $1.25, then $2.50? Really?
The rest of the column, to deliberately mash up metaphors? It looks like Houston has rediscovered sliced bread.
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