National Post dumps home delivery in two more provinces
The National Post, which cut out home delivery in the Atlantic provinces a year ago, has now dropped home delivery in Manitoba and Saskatchewan. In its place, they are offering a reduced price on receiving a digital edition of the paper. So, while this doesn't mean the paper is not "national" in its coverage, it certainly means so in availability.
"We were losing money distributing the paper for home delivery," David Asper told CBC News on Thursday morning. "At the same time, our readers have been telling us — and we can see it in the numbers in the online usage of the product — that they're using the online version. The growth of the online world suggests to us that's where this industry is headed," he said. "I think we've done quite a remarkable job in converting the paper to a digital edition and I think it … continues to offer our readers a full product, just by way of a different medium."Ironically, Asper is based in Winnipeg.
posted by D. B. Scott at
4:26 pm
6 Comments:
"At the same time, our readers have been telling us — and we can see it in the numbers in the online usage of the product — that they're using the online version. The growth of the online world suggests to us that's where this industry is headed"
--Ha, that's funny. I read the Post online because it's free. I won't pay for any Canwest publication until Canwest changes its outrageous freelance contracts. A lot of publications don't realize that writers are the biggest readers out there. If they showed us some respect, we'd likely subscribe or at least purchase copies at the newsstand.
Writers are entitled to work for Canwest or not. Sign the contract or not. Don't like the terms...don't work for them. To read the paper online, however, while not supporting their treatment of their contributors is hypocritical.
Maybe the company would take increases to freelance rates more seriously if people actually paid for their product instead of protesting based on some half-assed moral position.
A boycott doesn't work if you're still consuming the product. You can't boycott KFC poultry and still eat the store's coleslaw.
Well, actually, I can do what I want. I subscribe to a whole bunch of magazines because I like them and and they treat writers well. I'd go broke if I purchased every pub out there hoping they'd increase their rates for writers.
Besides, it's not the Canwest rates that bug me as much as it is the "in perpetuity, throughout the universe" clause. I'm just responding to their business plan. They happen to think that writing that appears on websites is not worth paying for. If they don't value their product, why should I?
Excuse me, but how are writers the biggest readers? Sure, we read, but our numbers don't exactly approach anything like critical mass.
Sorry, was that biggest group of readers or whiners?
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