Detroit's big gamble

So can you make a business out of selling newspapers if you reduce home delivery to 2-3 days per week? The Detroit Free Press and Detroit News are going to find out. In March the Free Press will start delivering only on Thursdays, Fridays, and Sundays. The News will deliver on Thursdays and Fridays. On all days, however, a smaller one-section paper will be available on newsstands, and a digital edition will be offered free to subscribers.

I'm sure there are number-crunchers at these two papers who think this will save money. It will allow a 9% reduction in staff; all of the cuts, it's implied, will be from the production side. This is good news for the newsroom... for now.

In the longer-term, however, is it a good idea to cut back on distribution of the product that accounts for ~90% of your revenue (circulation and advertising)? Is it a good idea to essentially punish your loyal subscriber base. At least one well-informed blogger thinks not.

As big of a change as this is, it's really just a half-assed attempt to move towards an online-only model. The problem is, you still have an enormously expensive printing operation, and the web site isn't making enough money to pay for much of anything.

There's some emphasis on the digital facsimiles of the daily paper that will be distributed on days when home delivery is not available. Unfortunately, this will not catch on with consumers... not now, not ever. We already have an online distribution model that consumers like: newspaper web sites. So, the answer to this puzzle remains: figure out how to make money on the web.

We need bold action to save newspapers, but this isn't it.