AJC (Atlanta Journal-Constitution) to trim distribution area (Dinosaur Media DeathWatch™)

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution plans to cut its distribution area from 74 to 49 counties, a move that will eliminate 62 jobs.

The cutback will pare circulation by about 2.2 percent daily and 1.9 percent Sunday, the company said Wednesday.

The change takes effect June 2 and marks the second time in a little over a year that the AJC has trimmed its print distribution area to cut costs. Counties affected in the latest round are mainly in the northwest corner of the state, along the South Carolina border and northeast of the Columbus area.

After the cuts, the AJC will be distributed in 46 Georgia counties and three in North Carolina.

Employees whose jobs are eliminated can apply for other open jobs at the AJC, and if not selected will be compensated under an involuntary separation program, the company said. No details were available.

The change won't affect the AJC's readership statistics because they are based on a core 28-county market, according to the announcement.

The AJC says its total audience of both print and online readers is expanding and recently reached 2.2 million as measured in a recent seven-day period. But print circulation has been in decline, and the latest distribution cut will take another bite.

In the most recent six-month measuring period ended March 31, circulation fell 8.5 percent daily, to 326,907; and 5.0 percent Sunday, to 497,149. The AJC attributed some of the declines to a previous round of distribution area cutbacks in 2007. Prior to that cut, the AJC's distribution area covered almost 200 counties in five states.

With the June distribution cuts, the AJC said circulation will drop to 320,200 daily and 487,700 Sunday.

Several big U.S. newspapers, facing declining revenue and print circulation, have also pared distribution areas to cut costs.

http://thefutureofnews.com/2008/04/30/the-internet-will-squeeze-inefficiencies-out-of-advertising-just-as-automation-did-in-manufacturing-and-it-in-business-processes/

The Internet will squeeze inefficiencies out of advertising. Just as automation did in manufacturing and IT in business processes. 4/30/08

Posted by Steve Boriss in AdAgencies.
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For about a century, one of the most inefficient functions in U.S. business has been advertising. Legendary department store founder John Wanamaker captured this frustration best in his famous remark “Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted; the trouble is I don’t know which half.” The primary beneficiaries of these inefficiencies have been ad agencies, many of whom (and let’s be honest) have earned a great deal of money for not much work and with even less accountability. With fees typically based on a percentage of ad spending rather than on actual business results, agencies have had the perverse incentive to encourage higher and higher programming production costs, and higher and higher ad rates to cover them. So, it is understandable that ad agencies have not been all that anxious to push their clients toward the Internet, which threatens to end these cozy deals.

But perhaps ad agencies are finally beginning to accept the inevitable, at least based upon what the NY Times witnessed at at a recent leadership conference of the American Association of Advertising Agencies. Attendees listened intently to the nation’s top agency executives, who berated the industry and urged them to “stop wallowing in self-pity and get on with the challenges ahead.” They even listened to Google CEO Eric Schmidt paint a rosy picture of underappreciated opportunities the new environment will create, something that will not ring true to the audience, but most certainly is. U.S. manufacturing has become more efficient by opening its doors to automation, and U.S. business practices did the same through IT. Advertising will now take its turn, and the U.S. economy will be the better for it.

I’m thinking the reason for this is that the cost of distribution (fuel, salaries) in the outlying counties is now greater than the revenue from advertising from those areas.

The decreased circulation will also result in lower revenues from the remaining advertisers, I suspect.

My brother-in-law and sister live in Deep East Texas. They used to get the Dallas MN and the Houston Comical delivered. Now the only paper they can get is the Beaumont Enterprise and they have to go to a rack to get it.

I’ve been telling them for a couple of years to get a computer and learn to use it, but so far they would rather whine and bellyache.

AJC, like all Cox Communications properties, speak with forked tongue. They love themselves so much, think everyone else MUST, and don’t realize that there might be a contradictory position. What elitist, left-wing, black-serving drivel. This town, and this paper like it, have become TOTALLY Afro-centric. Please don’t think it a good place to live anymore. Can’t wait for the official demise of this rag and Cynthia Tucker, it’s darling, with it.

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