Well, Folks, I’d like to write a little about the newspaper industry in today’s market. Just like other businesses in the free market, we all have to be flexible and adjust to the market in ways that help increase our product for the masses, for our readers and advertisers. However, some newspapers have been hit in different ways.
For example, The Billings Outpost, a free publication, went out of business about five or six years ago. The local tidbits of Billings stopped publishing their newspaper this last January 2022. The Billings Gazette announced they were selling their building some months ago as the building is way too big for their needs in today’s market.
This last week, the Billings Times changed their newspaper format as they are not being printed on newsprint anymore. The size of that publication has even decreased.
The following is what was printed in their first magazine style spread.
“Dear Readers, as you can see, the Billings Times has been revamped. Several months ago, we were hit with a 28% price increase by our printer. We have found it impossible to absorb this increase without raising subscription and advertising rates. We are now working with a different printing company and have reformatted the newspaper. The Times is no longer printed on newsprint and is somewhat smaller. This will enable us to keep rates the same. The paper looks a bit different but the content will be unchanged.”
The newspaper industry is not any different than other businesses and markets. Every business has to adjust as they go and be better all the time or they will fold, and eventually die out.
One thing I feel that our industry has not done a good job in is gaining the trust with our readers with the information we put out to the masses. Hopefully, our newspaper is doing a better job in that and reporting instead of telling you (readers) what we want you to hear but the hard news, not fake news.
Fortunately, we have been blessed with great advertisers, readers, subscribers, whether it be those advertising for events in the area or need to advertise their event, meetings or stuff in our newspaper, and for that we thank you all.
In addition, we have a lot of legal advertisers that use our publication for their legal needs which also includes the City of Billings (since 2017) and Yellowstone County (since 2019) as the Yellowstone County News is their official publication of record for all legal advertising. In fact, we had seven pages of legal notices in our newspaper just last week, and I foresee it hitting about eight or possibly nine pages in the near future; we’re starting to gear up for our peak time of year.
For those legal advertisers, law firms, advertisers and anyone else, all I can ask is that you give us a chance to earn your business. We hope to be able to provide a service and produce a product that you are proud of and want to recommend. If not, then we would not be able to stay with the changing market. In fact, our newspaper, the Yellowstone County News has become the #1 statewide advertiser again for the 6th year in a row (that’s out of 63 participating newspapers statewide).
We hope to continue that tradition of being a success for our readers, advertisers, and subscribers but know that if we don’t, then the market will succumb to another casualty as it has with the Billings Outpost, Tidbits of Billings, Billings Times and others.
In the meantime, we’re working hard to be your trusted source of weekly news with local views.
Until then, see you in the paper.
JDM
