St. John’s Evening Telegram ~ Current

Saturday’s Evening Telegram announced the long overdue demise of their Sunday broadsheet.

This death was wrapped in the positive spin that Transcontinental  were enlarging Saturday’s and Monday’s offerings.  It is only the Saturday Telegram that is pulling in the money and the other editions are simply a financial drain. A drain that is awkward for the owners to escape and maintain even a semblance of journalistic credibility.

With the Independent’s demise the road is clear for the Tely to cut their losses by decreasing their editions and (in time) increasing their ad rates. The latter is necessary as ads and readership are declining in lock step with most of the North American paid circulation papers. Classified ads decreased 17% last year.

The segment of the newspaper business that continues to grow are the papers that have adapted the web model of – free. Handing out their papers and paying the cost with advertising.

That is the business model that Current has been using for ten years and that is finally coming into its own in St. John’s.

Shortly Current will be announcing that it will be going weekly as of October 3rd. Current will also be changing its distribution day to every Friday.

Current will continue to concentrate on arts and entertainment but will expand into politics, social commentary and film reviews from Brian Callahan, Noreen Golfman and Tim Conway, all ex of The Independent.

Current hopes to continue to build its readership while working with its supporters to deliver effect promotion for their businesses. The print medium can be very effective in communicating to the elite of marketplace. This is especially true when ones advertisements are not swamped by other ads or buried in regurgitated pap. Rather when it jumps off the page sandwiched  between provocative and interesting content.