It occured to me recently – but doesn’t seem to have dawned on the major newspapers as yet – that if NZ post do as they say they are considering doing and drop postal deliveries to three days a week, this will massively impact on newspapers. Why buy a newspaper subscription to have the paper delivered 6 days a week when half of that time news in the paper will be stale because you’ll receive the papers for yesterday and today together? You’ll have already heard yesterday’s news on the radio, seen it several times on TV, and yet you’ll be paying for it too. If this happens it’s likely that the only news in which you will be at all interested and won’t have seen is that which is limited to your immediate area. Major papers may have revert to the old format of genuinely local newspapers because that will be what people will pay for. If postal deliveries are dropped to three days a week, I for one will probably be cancelling my annual newspaper subscription – and how many other people will also cancel for similar reasons? If I was a major newspaper. I’d be hastily putting my back into convincing NZ Post not to do any such thing.
