Kentucky newspaper switches from afternoon delivery

Georgetown (Kentucky) News-Graphic President/Publisher Mike Scogin writes about the change away from an afternoon publication four times a week and having the newspaper delivered through the post office.

On July 1, the News-Graphic will become a morning publication. Currently, the News-Graphic publishes Sunday morning and Tuesday through Friday afternoon.

When we decided to become a daily newspaper and increase our publication cycle from three to five days, all options were examined. At the time, I made the choice to publish in the afternoon Tuesday through Friday, but leave Sunday a morning paper. The time has now arrived to make every edition a morning edition.

Traditionally, newspaper readers have grown accustomed to a morning paper. Even now, nearly two years after we launched the additional editions, there remains some confusion over when we publish: morning or afternoon. Recently, I have been asked by several readers to consider moving the paper to a morning publication cycle.

In the midst of all this, gas prices have been rising steadily. These rising gas prices have created some turnover within our circulation department, resulting in delivery issues in some areas. When you buy a subscription the price per paper is locked in for three, six or 12 months, so we have had little flexibility to adjust to the quickly rising cost of fuel. In the city, where we have lots of subscribers in a short mileage radius, this has not been the problem. It is in the outer parts of the county. In those areas, carriers sometimes travel several miles to deliver just a couple of newspapers.

Newspaper home delivery has always been a bit of an anomaly. Unlike many businesses that charge extra to bring a product to your home, newspapers have always charged less. With the rising cost of gas, to have someone bring the newspaper to your home is a better bargain than ever.

By moving to a morning publication cycle, we are returning to a cycle that newspaper readers are more accustomed to, and that has been requested by our readers. We will be providing the latest overnight news, events and scores, and it will be available in the morning.

As for home delivery, our carriers will not be battling traffic making their deliveries, and they won't need to run the air conditioner during the hot summer months. That should save fuel and time. Moving to a morning cycle will also give us a greater pool of potential carriers to draw from, as most carriers have a primary job.

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