Your Thanet newspaper that stopped being
printed on paper and became just an e-edition about a year ago has now gone altogether.
I had a bizarre and edifying time phoning
up the company that ran this local, I spoke to the news desk and they didn’t know
if their paper existed, so I spoke to advertising and they didn’t know either
and had to phone me back to tell me it had gone.
I did write a post when the paper edition
expired, here it is http://thanetonline.blogspot.co.uk/2011/01/read-all-about-it-your-thanet-gone-as.html
The picture is of a Ramsgate bookshop and newsagent
that closed in 1978, so sort of related.
Well I suppose these things sort of equal
out, although on local paper has totally gone Cllr David Green has started a
new blog, see http://ramsgate1.blogspot.co.uk/
A great problem that the internet leaves us
with is how anyone gets paid for producing any sort of media, most particularly
the written word with a fairly limited interest like local news.
Frankly if you have and internet connection
there is so much in the way of free media, written, spoken, film, music, that you
could never even skim the tip of the iceberg.
The free local papers used to be funded by
advertising, with me the main advertising would be old cars and motorbikes, now
I just look ebay.
I will ramble on here if I get time.
I used to get cigarettes for my father from this shop in the 1950's. Apart from the shop front gas lamps, it had not greatly changed from the photograph.
ReplyDeleteI think that even the street lamp was still there, but with a different glass diffuser.
Comics were displayed on a table to the right of the shop, newspapers on a counter to the left.
Makes you wonder how long the Isle of Thanet Gazette will hold out. Certainly, under Rebecca Smith, advertising has taken priority over content. Who wants to buy a newspaper that`s mainly adverts? There was a time when the local papers dug around for stories and held councillors to account.
ReplyDelete10.41 I believe it is the adverts that fund the majority of the paper’s production costs.
DeletePeter I think this could have been because The Thanet Times was a free paper for the last few years, something that made its demand higher.
Peter a quick check of the circulation figures seems to be saying that at the end of its life as a paid for only paper sales were not good and during its life as a free paper which you could also buy only 19% of the copies printed were sold.
DeleteThere are lots of figures online but they are fairly difficult to make sense of, whether for instance unsold copies returned by newsagents are deducted is unclear.
Printed newspapers are kept alive by talented salesman selling advertising.
ReplyDeleteInvestigative journalism on the 0% salaries would be useful. And less printing verbatim Charles Buchanan's Manston flannel.
ReplyDeleteYou can do it yourself, just look at the TDC executives pay and pension payments in the statement of accounts for the last few years (online). You should be able to work out the basic pay from the pension contribution. Seems to be about 16%- nice little earner.
DeleteNot sure 6:32 - without the salary slips we wouldnl't know what the fake 0% payrise was. Or have you worked it out to 16% not 0%? The extra pay-off pension payments would also hide the real figure?
DeleteAudit Bureau of Circulation figures, which are virtually fiddle-proof, always showed the Gazette selling half-as-many-again as the Times when both were paid-fors.
ReplyDeleteGazette is an appalling waste of paper. I don't buy it any more because they just take press releases and print them. They never take the time or trouble to develop human interest stories and I have to assume that this is because they aren't interested in the people of Thanet. Letters page is just full of bile and drivel from Councillors and the content is hopelessly biased in favour of developments which are damaging Thanet, such as the airport.
ReplyDeleteAs I said, I don't buy it any more. I really don't know what point you are trying to make. I used to buy the paper and, when Mike Pearce was editing it, I found it to be a reasonable digest of what was happening in the area. Then, Rebecca took over and, in my opinion, it ceased to be a newspaper. I imagine you would have complained if I had said that I thought it was rubbish but had never read it. In the event, you took issue with the fact that I said I HAD read it and thought it was rubbish. It's difficult to see how I could have expressed an opinion without offending you. Presumably, you just don't like people expressing opinions which conflict with your own.
ReplyDeleteAnyone know if the wind farm operation was working over the christmas & new year period?
ReplyDelete