"Dear Central Tampa readers:
In our Feb. 28 meeting, we promised you an update by the end of this week on the possibility of resurrecting the Central Tampa section of your newspaper.
We took to heart your suggestions, and we’ve been working in recent days on a plan to bring it back. We now have a target date of April 6 for the Central Tampa section’s return.
As we discussed, the section will share some content with the South Tampa section, but the Central Tampa section will be customized to emphasize the news that’s important to your neighborhoods. We’re working out logistical details, but we feel confident we can meet the target date. In the meantime, we will continue covering your neighborhoods both in the South Tampa section and in the full-run sections of the Tribune.
Thank you for your loyalty and patience. "
So lets see what happens.
**Added Note (I am however going to switch over to the Times)
Also, one of my neighbors told me that as she was driving around Sunday, it looked to her that everyone had gotten a Sunday edition of the Tribune, even those not subscribed to the paper. I would guess it is an attempt to get mroe readers by giving those non-subscribers a "Taste of the Tribune".
While we are on the subject on the Sunday newspaper, this is a good time to bring up a question that has been on my mind for a while. As I drive arond the city on a Sunday, I see people standing in the medians at intersections hawking the Tribune. On occasion I have also seen the Times hawked.
How does someone mkae a living doing that? Are they on a salary by the newspapers or a commission basis? How can the paper make any money? How many papers can one person sell?
Lets say they get a $.25 cut of each $1.00 paper. To make $25 dollars they would have to sell 100 papers that morning. Given that I have seen up to 4 people at one intersection, that would mean a sale of 400 papers.
If that person were working a 8 hour shift, that works out to be abut 12 papers an hour, one every 5 minutes. 24 an hour if they were working a 4 hour shift or 1 paper every 2.5 minutes.
8 hours worth of work for 25 dollars?
If they get a larger cut, how does the paper make any money? If this just a loss leader to bring in more readers/subscribers?
What happens if the Trib people and Times people both try to hawk at the same intersections? Fisticuffs? Or is there a gentleperson agreement?
What is it like to stand at an intersection selling papers? What stories do they have to tell? What trials and tribulations do they encounter? One day I was at the old Eckerds at MKL and Nebraska when this woman comes up in a Trib shirt and starts to berate this homeless looking person who was holding a t-shirt. Apparently he stole her personal t-shirt she had sitting by her stack extra papers. He mumbled some excuse about just finding it but gave the shirt back.
Another salvo in the newspaper wars?
Those people are hired through subcontractors most likely being paid minimum wage to hawk papers. It is a loss leader to pump up the circulation.
ReplyDeleteTribune and Times people don't care if they are working at the same intersection most of the time because they don't actually work for the paper that they are selling. In most cases they cross sell. They may sell one paper one weekend and the other the next depending on availability. I wondered the same thing, so I had the opportunity to ask last week. They sometimes have their personal opinions about which paper is better, but most of the time don't care.
We subscribe to the Times and have no intention of changing, alhough I appreciate the steps the Trib is taking. I originally lived in Pinellas and have always felt that the St. Pete Times was a superior paper as far as writing and overall coverage of news. It is, admittedly, the far more liberal of the two.
ReplyDeleteThey get $.50 for each paper, half of what it sells for.
ReplyDeleteThe ones they don't sell they return and don't have to pay for.
At 5:30 a.m they pull into the parking lot of the parts store w/a u-haul with about 2000 of them and sell most of them.
The ppl doing the selling are probably clearing about $100 to $150 for that days work, while the guy that brings them there is probably the contractor for the trib. He gets the truck and probably pays others about $100 to collate the papers back at the distribution place.
The ones most upset by them are the ones that do the boxes in the area and the stores that make a good piece of change off of sales of the Sunday paper
Also in case you don't know.
ReplyDeleteThe newspapers make their money from the advertising in them. The money YOU pay for the paper is just to cover distribution costs. And no, they aren't losing anything more than the cost of making any unsold papers. Why are they doing it there? Probably for the same reason the Nation of Islam sells their paper there. It's a good intersection w/long waits for the light and a median.
Not because of your whining and bitching at them. Besides, can you think of anyone that would do anything for 8 hours for $ 25 ? If so you‘re leading a very sheltered life.