[NEohioPAL]Chuck Yarborough, editor of Friday Mag. / PD responds ...

[FSternfeld at aol.com]

--part1_50.1de5f1cc.2c166090_boundary
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII"
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit

 

--part1_50.1de5f1cc.2c166090_boundary
Content-Type: message/rfc822
Content-Disposition: inline

Return-Path: <CYARBORO at plaind.com>
Received: from  rly-xj05.mx.aol.com (rly-xj05.mail.aol.com [172.20.116.42]) by air-xj02.mail.aol.com (v94.29) with ESMTP id MAILINXJ21-21a93ee4fb0d12f; Mon, 09 Jun 2003 17:24:29 -0400
Received: from  mail2.plaind.com (mail2.plaind.com [208.147.42.12]) by rly-xj05.mx.aol.com (v94.27) with ESMTP id MAILRELAYINXJ59-5273ee4fadc9; Mon, 09 Jun 2003 17:23:40 -0400
Received: from gwia.plaind.com (unverified) by mail2.plaind.com
 (Content Technologies SMTPRS 4.2.10) with SMTP id <T62ba0338f1c0a8ca0c108 at mail2.plaind.com> for <FSternfeld at aol.com>;
 Mon, 9 Jun 2003 17:26:08 -0400
Received: from DOWNTOWN_DOMAIN-Message_Server by gwia.plaind.com
	with Novell_GroupWise; Mon, 09 Jun 2003 17:23:21 -0400
Message-Id: <see4c289.067 at gwia.plaind.com>
X-Mailer: Novell GroupWise 5.5.5
Date: Mon, 09 Jun 2003 17:22:54 -0400
From: "CHUCK YARBOROUGH" <CYARBORO at plaind.com>
To: <FSternfeld at aol.com>
Subject: Re: [NEohioPAL]the final word about PD audition notices - how
	to make yourself heard...
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable
Content-Disposition: inline

Mr. Sternfeld:

Mark Rapp passed your note along to me as I am editor of Friday! Magazine, a=
nd have been for 10 years. I understand the upset local theater people are f=
eeling, but please understand that the move was not made without some seriou=
s discussion.=20

Frankly, it was an ecnomic decision. We simply didn't have the advertising b=
ase to support the largesse of publishing everything in Friday! Magazine. I=20=
would love to have been able to keep that listing ... and the others that we=
re culled because of these very difficult economic times ... but the reality=
 is that this is a business. Newspapers are a for-profit endeavor. As an Edi=
torial person, I really don't care about making money, but as an employee of=
 The Plain Dealer - and a guy with a mortgage and a car note -  I understand=
 that we need to make money.

Now as regards to whether the notices were moved to Sunday to boost sales, I=
 would say that's not true at all. Sunday is already the peak circulation da=
y for The Plain Dealer, beating out Friday, which is No. 2. The reality is t=
hat I know how important those listings are, and we struggled - mightily, al=
though from the timbre of some of the notes I've read, few believe it - to e=
nsure that they found a home. That's why we elected to put them in Sunday Ar=
ts. In these trying economic times, it's one of the few places where we can=20=
almost always count on having room to publish the notices. Further, as one o=
f your own subscribers pointed out, with an increased circulation, even MORE=
 people see the notices, which can't be anything but good for local theater.

I realize that my words are unlikely to change any minds, but I would point=20=
out  we are continuing to publish the listing, just not on the day you were=20=
used to seeing them. However, we've lost space in virtually all of our listi=
ngs. But we knew we couldn't simply omit the audition notices. Now you might=
 say six or seven inches of type won't make that much of a difference, but b=
elieve me, it does. The bag only holds 10 pounds, if you get my drift, and y=
ou can't overfill it. Even with those losses, we publish more listings than=20=
any other newspaper of our size in the country.

Having said all that, I will also tell you that if the ecnomic situation cha=
nges, we'll definitely do what we can to put humpty dumpty back together aga=
in. Right now, I don't see that on the horizon, but there's always hope.

sincerely;
chuck yarborough
Friday! Magazine editor
216-999-4534


--part1_50.1de5f1cc.2c166090_boundary--