ABSTRACT
The ‘strategic and innovative’ changes announced by the publishers of Detroit’s main daily newspapers, including the Free Press, were: dropping three days a week of home deliveries, downsizing the print edition on those days and hoping that advertisers would either move to the other three days or advertise online. In 2007 the picture was far from crystal clear for Edmonds: ‘[O]ne could hypothesize a future in which the daily print paper has died but the Sunday paper with its robust revenue stream and popular packet of inserts continues as a viable business.’ The financial problem—while it exercised minds in boardrooms and newsrooms—was actually social and cultural. More working mothers, more distractions keeping youth away from newspapers and television news, a more mobile working population and shifting ethnic demographics are just some of the non-economic factors. As the profitability of radio declines, strategic mergers between existing operators—to consolidate investment in expensive equipment—are being suggested as one solution to rising costs.
