In a bold move, this newspaper has implemented substantial changes to its advertising policies and practices. This redesign of ad policy utilizes savings from recently decreased printing costs and co-opts additional funds from the operating budget of the paper to revamp and rationalize rates. This will provide a new and sustainable advertising baseline – with no rate increase to any advertiser. The primary results are: no fee for color, no change in standard and tier advertising rates, no change to the non-profit rate, extension of non-profit rates to fund-raising events and a reduction in the cost of inserts.
It’s not often that there’s an opportunity for everybody to win. But a chance came up for this newspaper recently and it will benefit readers, advertisers and the paper itself. With a more economical rate for printing the paper, there came the opportunity to re-examine advertising rate structure and policy. An advertising committee of Diane Oberg, Sylvia Lewis and JoEllen Sarff, ably assisted by the paper’s accountant, Mary Halford, was charged with using this leeway where it would do the most good for the entire News Review community – readers, advertisers and the paper itself. Unlike a commercial newspaper, which would have gleefully pocketed the increased profits, the News Review resolved to share these savings (and more).
The committee’s charter was to a) make it so nobody paid more for the ad they get now, b) create a rate structure that was objective and easy to apply consistently and c) accomplish this in a sustainable and fiscally responsible manner. This tall order involved extensive analysis of costs, projections of income and no small measure of angst.
Read the story in the May 4 News Review