People have been talking about saving local news for more than 20 years. And the economics just don't work for the most part--whether in most cities or in smaller towns.
I live in about a 7,000 person town. Let's say half the people would pay $20/year for a local paper--which we had at one point. That's wildly optimistic I know. Throw in some advertising. But I'm guessing you're still something under $100K/year. So you end up with just Facebook and NextDoor and no one actually doing reporting as such.
Exactly. I'll longbets anyone that downvoted me that we're going to see incredible consolidation and atrophy in the next ten years. It can't be stopped, and artificial means of preserving it won't work either as it no longer makes sense in the Internet age.
"Since 2004, hundreds of local newspapers have closed up shop. The author of a report on this trend said areas without a local paper suffer in a variety of ways."
But the local papers have always had ads in them to supplement revenue, so I imagine you could still reach $100K or more. In a lot of small towns that’s still enough to cover an editor-in-chief and an additional reporter.
I'm just throwing out numbers. It wouldn't shock me if they'd actually have under 1,000 subscribers given that you'll have, at most, 1 subscription per household. And to sell ads, you probably need an ad salesperson now. The economics are just really tough--as demonstrated by the fact that most small towns don't have papers.
True in many places, but the papers in the 10- and 20-thousand person towns my relatives live in have a strong classifieds section because they’re too small to be on Craigslist.
I live in about a 7,000 person town. Let's say half the people would pay $20/year for a local paper--which we had at one point. That's wildly optimistic I know. Throw in some advertising. But I'm guessing you're still something under $100K/year. So you end up with just Facebook and NextDoor and no one actually doing reporting as such.