Jonathan McNiven
Well, Folks, as many of you have probably heard, the Billings Times announced last week that they have published their final edition of their newspaper. Yes, we signed an agreement early last week with the Billings Times and part of that agreement was that we would allow the Billings Times to notify and break the news to the masses and wait a week before we put anything in our newspaper about it.
For some, this does not seem significant to you as some might not even recognize the newspaper. For others, it’s significant in a number of ways. First, the Billings Times had been in circulation for 133 years serving the Billings and surrounding area with news and legal notices. Before the Yellowstone County News took over the legal advertising contract for the City of Billings in 2017, the contract resided with the Billings Times for almost 30 years. (You can read Ed Kimmeck’s story in this week’s paper about the Billings Times and the legacy Scott Turner, his family and others had.)
Second, part of our agreement is that YCN will provide a YCN subscription for the duration of their subscription they had with the Billings Times. I hope there are some that will want to subscribe to YCN once renewal time approaches.
Third, the Billings Times has announced in their final edition that they recommend using YCN for all legal advertising needs going forward. I hope our staff can provide as good a service as they had with the Billings Times, and we commit to carry that baton as best we can for legal advertisers going forward. Just send any legal notices to legals@yellowstonecountynews.com and we’ll take it from there. I hope we can earn your business as well.
Fourth, as some newspapers have been hit by the changing market, we, in the newspaper industry, have to be flexible as to how we operate and provide a service to the masses. For example, YCN has added a radio station (YCN Radio), and a Sports broadcast (YCN Sports) that follow the local teams in sports, school pages, honor pages, special sections in our paper like Dig It Days, along with the Best of Yellowstone County Awards and making our newspaper the best it can be so as to interact with our readers, listeners, and followers. We also are active on social media and also try to provide a little different coverage of our area in news, sports and local information. If we did not do this kind of stuff and be flexible to the market, we, too, would become a casualty in the changing times. I’m grateful for all the hard work our staff exerts in order to provide great content, insightful and journalistic stories and a different coverage of our area whether it be politics, news, local school content or just events. It’s a lot of work to be recognized as one of the best newspapers in our division as YCN was recognized with the best overall General Excellence Award winner three months ago at the Montana Newspaper Association’s Annual Convention, first time in our YCN newspaper history.
Lastly, as you saw the huge picture of the iceberg in my meanderings section last week, I tried to make it the biggest I’ve ever made it so that it could stick out. Even when I put the image of the iceberg as big as I can, can you see it now? If so, then imagine what you can’t see? We’re working hard to be the best we can.
Just imagine, what do you think our next idea will be? I’ll let you just imagine as we’re already working on our next big announcement for YCN.
In the meantime, see you in the paper, or listening to YCN Sports Radio or online at www.ycnsports.com
JDM
