Comments on: More on the paperless Globe

By: Karl

Karl — Sat, 03 Oct 2009 15:33:46 +0000

Mea maxima culpa.

In my 9/24 message I was looking for something explicit stating that 7 day a week Globe Reader was available to Sunday only subscribers. All I could find were references about GR being available “to subscribers.” I thought the Sunday-only loophole was an oversight in a product that is still identified as “Preview.”

Well, in sifting through the GR FAQ’s trying to figure out why I can’t get today’s edition, I came across this statement: “Home Delivery subscribers to The Boston Globe (i.e. 7-day, weekend, Sunday only, weekday only) are eligible to receive the GlobeReader as part of their newspaper subscription.”

I suppose that meets my definition of explicit.

By: Dan Kennedy

Dan Kennedy — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 10:13:18 +0000

Amused: Mrs. Media Nation was a staff photographer at the Beverly Times at the time of the sale. There was some union-busting going on, for sure. But the decision to take the Salem News name was a no-brainer from a business point of view, and had nothing to do with the union. Haven’t read the lawsuit you linked to, but if that’s what the union said, they were wrong. Whatever anti-union activities management engaged in could have just as easily been indulged if the Beverly Times name had been chosen instead.

By: amused

amused — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 08:13:08 +0000

No doubt the Salem Evening News was the stronger brand.

But the creation of the new company and merger of the Salem property into a new Massachusetts holding company for the existing Ottaway properties was clearly a union bust. Legal, but union-busting.

http://library.law.emory.edu/1circuit/apr96/95-1878.01a.html

By: LFNeilson

LFNeilson — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 16:07:21 +0000

45 years ago, the Sunday Globe was available in a bulldog edition on Sat. evening. I used to sell it at Rockingham Park. Of course, at the track, the Sunday Advertiser outsold the Globe 3 to 1, since it carried “the numbers”. But every time I went to the track, I made money.

By: Dan Kennedy

Dan Kennedy — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 14:59:54 +0000

Karl: By the way, the New York Times charges $14.95 a month for Times Reader, but makes it freely available to all subscribers, including Sundays-only subscribers. And it's not in beta. Also, after I first wrote in June that the strategy behind GlobeReader seemed to be aimed at preserving the Sunday print edition, a source on the corporate side told me I had described the strategy accurately. So I think I understand the Times Co.'s goal with GlobeReader pretty well. Maybe the next owner will disagre.

By: Dan Kennedy

Dan Kennedy — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 13:45:35 +0000

Amused: Nice to know that there’s at least one other person who understands the Salem News is really the Beverly Times. There were some union problems, to be sure, but the real impetus was that after Ottaway (which owned the Beverly Times) acquired the Salem News, they realized the News was the stronger brand.

By: amused

amused — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 13:38:19 +0000

The Globe did try an all-weekend edition about ten years ago, the Bulldog or something like that. Until the late 60s or so, the Evening Globe published a 10-page Saturday P.M. An all-weekend edition means either distributing editions with deadlines 24 hours apart getting the Sunday out early and leaving news out — but there’s a lot of politics that breaks Saturday so that it gets talked about on the Sunday shows and thus becomes a Monday hedline. There’s also the issue of sports news

Meanwhile Alabama teachers’ unions and other ‘Bama public retirees just breathed a sigh of relief knowing that it has saved one subscription to the Beverly Times (d/b/a since 1995 as the Salem News in order to bust the Guild.)

By: Dan Kennedy

Dan Kennedy — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 12:49:23 +0000

Bob: What is not explicit about the Globe’s pricing policies? By the way, read my post today for more on why this makes sense for the Globe — not just for the Kennedys.

By: Karl

Karl — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 11:55:45 +0000

Dan, if the Globe does indeed state explicitly somewhere that Globe Reader is available to Sunday only subscribers, I’ll agree with you.

Otherwise, you’re just playing with a pricing policy in a beta program that has yet to be fully sussed out. Again, this is little different than accessing Globe Reader while you are on vacation hold.

By: Dan Kennedy

Dan Kennedy — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 11:45:55 +0000

Retreating to a position that Globe executives presumably know what they are doing is pretty lame.

I hope you realize what a remarkable statement that is, Karl.

I hardly think signing up for an option that the Globe offers quite explicitly is the same as messing around with the vacation policy.

And I worked through my guilt before switching to Sundays-only.