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Citing the affordability and flexibility of delivering information online, four newspapers owned by Aim Media Indiana LLC plan to reduce the number of print editions published each week.
The Republic in Columbus, Daily Reporter in Greenfield and The Tribune in Seymour will publish print editions only on Wednesdays and Saturdays instead of five to seven editions per week. Franklin’s Daily Journal is discontinuing its Monday print edition from a Monday-through-Saturday roster.
Richard Clark, group publisher and vice president of Aim Media Indiana, said the new printing schedule that begins Sept. 2 is overdue.
“This is not an easy shift, but we really should have done something like this 10 or 15 years ago,” Clark told the IBJ. “We are such traditionalists in the newspaper business that we hung on and we hung on until we reached a tipping point where having a paper seven days a week wasn’t putting money in the bank. It was taking money out of the bank.”
Clark announced the change in published letters to readers.
“More and more of our loyal subscribers and new readers are getting their news through one or more of our online delivery methods,” Clark wrote. “The world has pivoted to digital delivery of information. We have to pivot with it. It is the news itself that is important, and digital delivery provides us with the speed and cost efficiencies that we need in order to continue to report on local issues.”
The Aim Media publications plan to update news daily on their respective websites.
Aim Media Indiana employs about 75 people in the newspaper operations in Columbus, Franklin, Greenfield and Seymour. Clark said he doesn’t foresee staff reductions to accompany the decrease in printed editions.
The company’s printing press in Greenfield will remain active thanks to for-hire jobs unrelated to the newspapers, Clark said.
A “frequently asked questions” report published at therepublic.com indicated that the newspaper’s advertisers prefer specific print days that coincide with the Wednesday and Saturday schedule.
Clark said Franklin’s Daily Journal is going to a five-day print plan rather than a two-day approach because the newspaper is in better financial shape than the others.
One factor in the Daily Journal’s success is that it serves Greenwood as part of its coverage area.
“Greenwood has about as much population in one town (65,000, according to 2022 U.S. Census estimates) as we have in all of Bartholomew County (83,500 residents),” Clark said. “That’s part of the reason Franklin is doing so well.”
McAllen, Texas-based Aim Media purchased the Columbus, Franklin, Greenfield and Seymour newspapers as well as other community publications from Columbus-based Home News Enterprises LLC in 2015.
Aim Media Midwest LLC, which Clark described as a sister company to Aim Media Indiana, cut print publication days for most of its newspapers in Ohio earlier this year.
In 2022, Gannett, the largest newspaper chain in the United States, cut one day of print publication per week at nearly 200 newspapers.
A Gannett executive told The Washington Post that significant print costs, inflation and a shortage of drivers contributed to the decision to reduce print editions.
More than half of the total estimated circulation of U.S. daily newspapers eroded from 2000 through 2020, according to a 2021 Pew Research Center report, sliding from 55.7 million in 2000 to 24.3 million in 2020.
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As the ‘phone book’ has become a non essential due to up to date contact information electronically, yes, the ‘daily paper’ has alternative ways to be informed. However, while phone books are stagnant….daily activities in communities are not…nor the desire to peruse current events. In the case of ‘newspapers’ like all media, the centralized acquisition has also done irreparable damage by watering down content and downsizing information per issue. It isn’t just social trends that hurts the circulation, although that’s a big part of it,….CONTENT or the lack of it to save money has played a big part. Look at any newspaper in any town, big or small, from the 40’s thru the 70’s. They were much bigger and everything was included. A much better product.
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The issue is there is too much competition for the advertising dollar. Newspapers are not the only game in (small) towns anymore. Subscriptions never paid the cost of running the paper…maybe the cost of newsprint. Cost of the news operation was always covered by the advertising, and as that declined, so did the resources to research and edit stories.