Joining a growing list of newspapers that have forsaken the idea that the Sunday Comics Section is a circulation builder, the Danville, Kentucky Advocate Messenger will soon drop the Sunday section.
Beginning Aug. 20, The Advocate-Messenger will change print publication days to Tuesday through Saturday, no longer producing a printed edition on Mondays.
The move to a five-day-a-week printed publication will help our community’s top media organization align resources with its core mission: informing readers and guiding customers to its advertisers.
Additional changes include eliminating the publication of television listings and no longer printing color comics in the weekend edition. The newspaper plans to add a variety of editorial content in coming weeks to offset these changes, including expanded Opinion commentary and local voices… (emphasis added)
Echo Media reports The Advocate-Messenger having a circulation of under 5,000.
“This was a very difficult decision because we know some readers look to our TV listings for this information and enjoy the weekend comics section. However, we have continued to see that the majority of people access their programming guides through their television service provider or the internet and the comics simply aren’t the primary reason people read the Advocate,” Caldwell said (emphasis added).
The same bugaboo others have given is told here:
…rapid increases in newsprint costs, driven by recent and substantial tariffs, have caused a nearly 30-percent increase in materials costs, with no clear end in rising newsprint prices in sight.
Updating the earlier Robesonian story (linked above), The Associated Press has picked up that item.
What I found most amazing about the AP article is:
The Robesonian in Lumberton announced it’s dropping an eight-page color comics section from Sunday editions.
A small town paper with eight pages of Sunday comics?
I thought all papers, but high circulation broadsheets and tabloids, were down to a measly four pages.
I note that the highest-circulation of Sunday-comics-having broadsheets, the L.A. Times, only has four pages.