The Blog

MM, Any idea how much money a newspaper has to spend to recover a subscriber who canceled due to this money saving outsourcing? Penny-wise, etc. -- SCAM

I'm benefiting from the "new alliance." As one who subscribes to both papers (and the NY Times), I finally get the Sun-Times delivered to my apartment door. As the only subscriber to that paper in a 195-unit building, which would not provide a building key to the devlivery person, I no longer have to ride the elevator and search the sidewalk for the paper.

I had that problem on 10/2; didn't receive my sun-times and i called and after a while i couldn't just let it go. it was the most frustrating automated/menu nightmare i've ever experienced. Finally i ended up with a woman--I have no idea where she was but she sounded like she was here--who told me she handles commplaints for 10 newspapers; i gave up and read the paper on line, realizing once again i don't really need the paper newspaper. Don't they realize how counter productive such poor service is?

Brilliant business plan by Tribune Co. Take millions of dollars from Sun-Times News Group while at the same time destorying their business with poor customer service!

Closer to YOUR home: ever since YOUR new format/ownership change/driver problems, I've been noticing the Reader in the "honor" (for lack of a better word) boxes and, methinks, YOU FOLKS also have a serious issues. why? 1. they're just thrown in the boxes unbundled and with the vinyl wrap! 2. they don't take one out and put it on the "face plate/window" for people to see they're in there (and the latest issue). sabotage? laziness? Whatever: it's not helping you guys! PS if i DO come across this situation, i snap the vinyl AND take one out and put in the display window. you're welcome (but, hey, i can't go to all the boxes!)

Same thing is going on with the STNG newspapers. I didn't get my Beacon-News for the first six days when they made the switch. Yesterday, I got a Sun-Times and USA Today. Unfortunately, I subscribe to the Beacon and the Sun-Times.

I merely suspected, until now, that the alleged managements of the two papers would botch this. Manila? See the joke below. Some difficulty is inevitable in things like this; your piece seems to say it is even worse than that. Here in south Evanston, it's actually been better: The Sun-Times is right on the doorstep, not out in the parkway, bushes, or gutter anymore. I waited a couple of weeks to call and say give the carrier a pat on the back; no luck, nothing but busy signals and circuits-busy signals. --Joke (I hope it's not prophesy): When corporate buy-ups of stadium naming rights move into international buyouts of pro sports by foreign office supply businesses, we'll see the Cardinals become the Calcutta Computers, the Sox become the Singapore Satellites, the Rockies the Darjeeling Desks, the Pirates the Berlin Paperweights -- and the Cubs will become the Manila Folders.

Several of the Sun-Times News Group's daily papers in smaller towns have been delivered by the Tribune in the past month according to this same deal. Or I should say, not delivered. At one paper I heard of, the publisher and some of the Sun-Times News Group upper management were actually overtime pay (which they almost never do for work-related overtime) if staff would come in during the first weekend or so of this delivery switch so they could answer phone calls from irate customers. They've gotten thousands of calls from subscribers seriously frustrated because their subscriptions to these smaller daily papers were interrupted by the shoddy delivery system now in place. So what happens? The corporate big wigs promote the Sun-Times News Group guy who came up with the idea. Amazing. Subscriptions have been canceled, and these papers are going to take an economic hit during a period that newspapers can ill afford one.

Being a now unemployed Distributor for the Sun-Times, you would think I had a lot to say, YOU GET WHAT YOU PAY FOR, When these idea's first came out of the trib doing times delivery, guess who was the last to know? ME, the perfect solution to a already intacked delivery scheme, would have been to employee the distributors already in place, and had the know how of what was going on. My office phone is still ringing, STOP calling me. I don't work there any more. Tom

OH just one more thing, if anyone has a job for a unemployed newspaperboy, drop me a line, @ www.publshrs.com Thanks Tom

I believe a major contributing factor to the problems the newspaper industry is facing today can be linked to the elimination of youth carriers. Circulation numbers have taken a huge hit as customer service continues to spiral.Most customers miss the interaction with it's neighborhood carrier and personal business relationship that used to be. The incresed ad revenue that this move was inteded to generate never happened, in fact the oposite has occured as newspapers across the country continue to report losses. Newspaper execs. have no idea what an impact little Johnny had on their industry.