I rarely read the paper in great detail, except perhaps on Saturdays when I have the time. I value the content, and I value the fact that my subscription money is helping support a competing newspaper to the top-selling Herald Sun, but I probably get more value by reading The Age’s web site than the paper edition.
So is it worthwhile having a subscription? I did look at the various prices for different days, but assuming I wanted a paper copy at least on Thursday (for the Green Guide), Friday (for the EG) and Saturday, there’s no easy option that would cost much less than the $6.25 per week I currently pay. I can always ring up their automated hotline and suspend delivery if I don’t want it on a particular day, so if I had the energy I could do that every week to avoid getting copies from Sunday to Wednesday.
Perhaps, as the electronic delivery medium becomes better/more portable, and the cost of distributing it approaches zero, they’ll offer good quality electronic subscriptions that pay for the content, rather than the delivery of masses of paper onto my driveway every morning, most of it destined to be recycled without being read.
8 replies on “Newspaper dead tree edition”
Yes, we get the local paper daily here, the Ottawa Citizen, and it’s darn hard to make sure you get it read. :( Rather a waste when it gets recycled without cracking the silly thing open, isn’t it?
Maybe if The Age was serious about preserving resources and reducing energy waste, it would offer an alternative Saturday edition free of the several kilograms of classified ads. All of those ads are available on the web site at no charge to the reader. All of those ads are also paid for by the exorbitant prices charged to advertise in that section.
Unless the classifieds are subsidising the cost of the rest of the paper, it would not hurt to make them an optional extra. So instead of buying the whole Saturday edition for $2 or whatever it costs, there could be a $1.10 option that gives people what they want, and another 80c to have the heap of classifieds.
Classified ads are the “river of gold” for newspapers. The transfer of classified ads online is one of the major financial difficulties facing them
Funny – This am, we were discussing having our subscription sltered to just weekend papers when Tony goes back to work. There really isn’t any time left in the workday to sit and read the paper, and we both get freebies while at work, so why have it at home too? And yup, like you, too many times it just goes straight in the recycle bin. There’s no wonder our yellow lidded bin is chockers in that second week!
I think the most use you can get out of subscribing is to read it while eating breaky and on the train in the morning. Apparently The Age published some instructions on reading a broadsheet paper on public transport though, are they online anywhere?
For me, I’m subscribed to the tertiary offer which is good value to get the Saturday paper delivered alone, though can’t get the weekday papers from my local newsagency nor even RMIT Brunswick, though if I battle the Melbourne Central maze I could always pick one up from RMIT, City campus in the morning then walk all the way back to Elizabeth St (rather than exit through the only part of Melbourne Central that wasn’t messed up and jump straight onto a tram).
Though once it gets past midday the news online is more up-to-date. Only thing is, you get nicer maps and diagrams in the print edition.
I have a full dead tree subscription to The Age and read it every day on the bus trip to work. The first section gets read on the morning trip and the rest gets read on the way home.
We are at an interesting point with newspapers. I check four papers daily online and buy two of the Age a week. While I like the quick skimming of online papers for something that may interest me, nothing beats carrying the newspaper with you and reading it as you wish, and I cannot see how any form of technology that can replace that. I don’t mind flicking through the MX, but never set our to get one. Hard to imagine putting a newspaper in the recycling without at least flicking through. I just cannot do that.
I own a small weekly newspaper and we offer full electronic subscripions which are fairly popular.
I just cant believe you can get a weeks subs for under $7. Where I am from they don’t offer it so it costs me $14 a week to purchase the west australian….plus we don’t have a recycle bin!