Strike Three for Newspapers

Anthony Wayne    media     baseball, demise, golden retrievers, newspapers

Like most middle-aged guys, newspapers have been a big part of my life.

My first job was delivering newspapers.  I majored in journalism in college when print media still ruled.  My breakfast as a child and teen was not complete without checking out the box scores from the night before.

In fact, I recall my parents, in a moment of austerity, threatening to cancel the afternoon edition of the newspaper, and save $1.35 per week, in my then hometown of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.  I’d have none of it.  How else would I get the west coast scores that were too late to be included in the morning edition of The Patriot-News?

In 1900, there were 600 cities in the USA that had two daily newspapers.  Today, there are 6.  We’ve stopped counting the two-newspaper towns and are instead starting to count the no newspaper towns.

Times have certainly changed.  A teenage baseball fan gets his baseball information from SportsCenter.  That is, if his local cable or satellite company doesn’t also include MLB Network.  That is, if he hasn’t already been online to check out the baseball results or received information from his Facebook or Twitter account.  Or, watched the game on MLB At Bat app on his smartphone!

Do you think that the teenage baseball fan of today is willing to wait for the evening edition of the newspaper to get the west coast results?

I still get the newspaper, but every time I read it, I feel old-fashioned.  I get it for two reasons really.  I get it because I want to clip the high school softball results for my daughter’s scrapbook that I keep for her.  I also continue to get it for another unlikely reason: it is the highlight of my golden retriever’s day when he runs out in the morning to get the newspaper.  Ironically, the only one who can’t read in our family, my dog, would be the one most disappointed if we cancelled our subscription.

But, it’s not all timber for the newspaper industry.  According to comScore, 57% of the American online internet audience visited a newspaper web site in 2010.  More than 32 million visit the New York Times online newspaper alone in a month.  I don’t feel old-fashioned reading Philly.com today.

And, I don’t have to wait for the afternoon to get the Dodgers scores.

Bob Bentz is President of Advanced Telecom Services which provides MatchLink — an online dating solution to newspapers.  You can follow him on Twitter @BobBentz or you can just wait outside his home and leave a message for him when his golden retriever gets the newspaper each morning.

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