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Detroit to cut home delivery; embrace digital distribution
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The Detroit Media Partnership today said that it will cut home delivery of the Detroit Free Press and Detroit News beginning in March.
DMP Chief Executive Officer Dave Hunke said DMP will restrict delivery of the Free Press Thursdays, Fridays and Sundays. The News, which doesn't have a Sunday edition, will be delivered Thursdays and Fridays.
But both papers will continue to be printed, albeit in an abbreviated form, the other days of the week.
"We are here today because we are fighting for our survival," Hunke said at a press conference outlining the new strategy.
Hunke said many of the specifics supporting the initiative have yet to be hammered out, but beginning this spring, current subscribers will receive e-mailed, digital editions of the papers, for $12 a month. Printed editions, probably spanning about 32 pages but in the papers' existing broadsheet format, would also be distributed to about 18,000 retail outlets and news racks, Hunke said.
DMP executives are still evaluating how many copies will be printed on the days the papers aren't delivered. Currently, the Free Press has a circulation of just over 298,000 while the News distributes 188,000 copies. The Sunday Free Press has a circulation of 605,000 copies.
DMP's $177 million production plant in suburban Detroit, which opened three years ago and is anchored by six manroland Geoman presses, will remain in full operation, said a DMP manager who declined to be identified because he wasn't authorized to speak to the media.
In addition to the Free Press and News, the plant produces USA Today and a number of other publications.
DMP is owned by Gannett Co. Inc. and MediaNews Group, but Gannett has controlling interest.
Both publishers are under increasing financial pressure as the newspaper industry continues to lose advertising and circulation revenues. Gannett recently laid off more than 2,000 workers while MediaNews has seen its debt rankings plunge further into junk status.
Newspapers & Technology will have additional information about DMP's plans in the January 2009 edition.
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