Mail Tribune says readers do not use "inertia and habit of mind" to renew their subscriptions.
Good: do as they suggest. Shop them. Get yourself a deal.
Are you paying three times as much as your neighbor? If you are a "loyal subscriber," you may be paying way more. Check your price: $440/year. $370/year. $218/year. $119/year.
I pointed out this problem to the Mail Tribune and my readers. The Mail Tribune had a strong editorial today denouncing me. They sound angry. They say people should be offended by me and this blog. I just revealed the truth.
The gist of their editorial is that, sure, they offer subscription discounts, but that their subscription pricing is fair and reasonable. Click Here. They really let me have it!
The editorial concluded with the comment that readers were not victims of anybody's erratic or indefensible pricing policy. Instead they were victims of my offensive suggestion that they were not vigilant and smart shoppers. OK. I accept the premise of the editor. Tribune subscribers are smart and should be smart shoppers. So be one. Shop them.
The prices people pay for renewing their subscription varies all over the map. I show you below recent invoices. The editorial argues a point that is simply untrue and inaccurate, something I presume was an accident by the writer. She argues that discounting of new or returning lapsed subscribers is common practice, which is true. She then says that they make introductory prices for "13 or 26 weeks." Not accurate. They offer one year subscriptions and subscription renewals still at very low rates, and people with a low base rate keep that advantage awhile.
That is what causes the problem. Hugely unequal subscription prices.
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| $440 per year. "Thank you for being a loyal subscriber." |
Don't believe me. Don't believe her. Believe your own eyes.
Here, below are actual Tribune invoices sent me by readers. These are renewals of long term subscriptions and they are renewal prices for one full year. The highest price subscription renewal I received was for $442. The subscriber loyally paid it. He is a fellow member of my Rotary Club.
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| $218/year renewal |
Another member of my Rotary Club felt happy because he was only paying $244. (He learned I pay $374.) He did not know that another Rotary Club member pays only $218.
Neighbors pay very different rates for the same thing. One Ashland friend told me he had just renewed at $432 for the year. His neighbor sent me her renewal notice for one year: $136.88, shown below.
The editorial said something accurate and it explains their policy. The goal of the Tribune seems to be to get people started at some rate, and then slowly bring them up gradually toward some notion of the "correct price." Here is the subscription history from yet another Rotarian friend.
September 2013-- $221
September 2014-- $243
August 2015-- $243
August 2016-- $270
May 2017-- $374
The result, which the Tribune doesn't contest, is that the longer a person is a loyal subscriber the higher their subscription price can be. It appears to be factored off base rates whenever a person subscribes, and at what rate, then increases.
This is true, but it is not a truth the Tribune is comfortable with. Nor are many readers.
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| Renewing subscription: $136 |
My original blog post, and this one, are sent as warnings to the Mail Tribune that their persisting pattern of grossly uneven prices for subscribers is a public relations nightmare for them, and it should be fixed. Quickly. The reality of their subscription policy demolishes any idea of a "fair price." This isn't something this blog did to them. This is something they are doing to themselves.
People who pay vastly more than a neighbor feel like saps.
Their response has been disappointing. Bob Hunter--another member of my Rotary Club--said he thought I must have a "vendetta" against the Tribune. Cathy Noah, the editor who wrote the editorial and who accidentally mis-stated their subscription discount policy as being only short term and temporary when in fact it lasts for years, said she was "offended" by my "crusade." In her editorial she attributes to me the attitude that my fellow subscribers were dimwitted. Not true. I think re-subscribers are loyal, and in hindsight, they should have been suspicious.
Loyal re-subscribers of the Tribune trusted and assumed there was some general equity and reasonableness in pricing. But there is no equity. There is no "fair and reasonable moderate price" that nearly everyone pays. What we have, instead, is vastly different pricing depending on when people last complained or let their subscription lapse, or started up.
The effect is that marginal subscribers are rewarded. Loyal ones pay more. That is the reality the Tribune this blog revealed.
I wish their editorial had said they were establishing some new, fair, reasonable published price and doing it soon. It didn't. It said readers should shop them. I hate bargaining over prices. It forces subscribers to be in a wrestling match with the Tribune over what to pay. It makes the Tribune an opponent, not a trusted institution. That hurts the Tribune. I have been trying to tell them that, but they are resisting me. Wrestling with them seems to be what is necessary if a subscriber wants to pay less. The editor said as much and said I was "offensive" for suggesting people were trusting. Readers may hate negotiating, whether it be with car dealers or newspaper subscription desks, but apparently that is what the Tribune says is the price for getting the good deal.
Their phone number is 541-776-4455. The editor says subscribers are sharp and wiley shoppers. It is a shame they force this on you, but good luck, and happy negotiating.
12 comments:
I saw Ms. Noahs editorial this morning, in my copy of the paper for which I have been paying in the neighborhood of $11 a month for about three years. I have to admit I was a bit surprised at the vitriol leveled at you by the editor of the paper, a bit unseemly, IMHO. If they start raising their rates to those you've written about, I will be an ex subscriber, overnite, and continue to get more current news from my digital subscriptions to WaPo, NYT, Atlantic, LA Times, and the New Yorker, which combined don't come to what some folks are paying for the Tribune. I'm also a little more than unhappy with their non coverage of Greg Walden, except to put the occasional puff piece in about him. They totally failed to cover his payment of $7,000 in Taxpayer Funds to a Disabled Veteran his staff apparently discriminated against.
Keep up the good
Thanks, Ed. The editor wrote and said they were turning this over to their lawyers. OK. I have been doing my best in my blog, then followup emails, to tell them this was a early head's up. I really want the Tribune to succeed, even when they write a nasty editorial. We need the Tribune.
If the Tribune people don't realize that having neighbors talk to each other about pricing runs the risk of hurt feelings, then it was about time someone told them. Ed, you are paying $132 a year. I am paying almost 3 times that. On public radio I urge people to give to support journalism, so I am very OK with keeping the Trib alive and well. But a subscription policy that allows neighbors to compare notes is a giant risk. A short term deal is one thing, but renewals at vastly different prices can make people feel that the Tribune is not being fully transparent and equitable.
I don't welcome a lawsuit but if they want to create a lot of publicity over discrepancies in subscription prices, that is their decision. I would prefer them to have a nice article writing about how they saw a problem in equity and here is their new, completely defensible policy. That would be better for the Trib. I feel I am doing a public service, although my wife warns me not to be, or sound, self-righteous.
Reporting from Ashland, I was clued into this by a friend, who negotiated a lower subscription rate. Peter's analysis fits nicely with what my friend described.
What I don't understand is mistreating loyal long-term subscribers, and rewarding new subscribers. Seems like nurturing your loyal base (like 45 does with his 29% loyal base of followers) would be the better course.
I am about to become what is known in modern parlance as a "cord-cutter" because of the high cost and intransigence towards flexibility of traditional cable TV or in my case satellite TV. A "skinny bundle" in an ala-carte world is still a bundle.
"Legacy media" as print, broadcast, and cable (the term by which traditional media is now known) seem to be stumbling obliviously towards their demise. I will miss the comics and crossword. They don't seem to have crossed the bridge very well to become a part of the media's digital replacements.
Lawyers? Suing for telling the truth?
Sometimes, the truth hurts.
This happens with newspapers, magazines,cable, internet, cellphone service, memberships, etc.
Unbelievable response to your blog post.
Never thought much about this, Peter, until I read the blog and editorial. So I asked some of my new neighbors in a retirement community, who I see get their subscriptions delivered every day like I do, and I am shocked at the discrepancies in our bills! I am a loyal subscriber for 20+ years. I am paying the highest yearly fee. Something's not right here.
Maybe the Tribune at some point will come up with a pricing policy they can manage and publish with pride. Perhaps a regular moderate price subscription somewhere in the midpoint of the current plan, say $300 a year. Then they might have a brief introductory rate, for an amount of time that the editorial said they used, i.e. 3 or 6 months. Then they might have a realistic low income option, managed with enough rigor that people don't totally game the system.
I suspect that would look pretty good and fair to people.
What looks less fair are four people at a Rotary table each with vastly different prices. I just got a new one: a Rotarian friend was offered a one year renewal at $115--even lower than the introductory rate. The Tribune is angry with me for telling them that this seems just weird.
Not sure what to say other than this type of behavior isn't that un-common.
If you have cell service and have never called your carrier, you're over-paying.
If you have Charter/Spectrum and have never questioned the bill, you're over-paying.
If you have just about any monthly service and you haven't questioned it, you're over paying.
If you're a new customer, you almost always pay the lowest/best rate -- that's how most companies are.
If you're a long term customer, you know -- loyal -- you almost always pay the most exorbitant rates because these companies, I presume, know you're likely to keep paying. Maybe you use auto pay and haven't noticed? Maybe you love them that much? So why reduce their revenue stream by lowing your bill automatically?
Pay for a newspaper? Who does that?
It sounds like you expected honest capitalism- an oxymoron.
I like paying for newspapers. I want the Tribune's policies to result in outcomes that are not so absurd they need to be kept secret. The Tribune is unhappy with me. I revealed the huge disparity and noted that loyalty was not rewarded. I said aloud in this blog what hundreds of people whispered. I thought they ought to know the PR score, and I thought readers ought to know the subscription score.
I think people ought to pay a fair, defensible price based on a formula, and with results, the Tribune is happy to make public. That is an unpopular thing to say.
I'm curious if the traffic on your blog will increase with the free press.
Excellent report, Peter. Thank you for looking into this matter.
I think $300 per year for the Mail Tribune would be too much for many subscribers to pay. Most people who are still reading print are probably older and on a fixed income. The paper would probably lose many readers as a result. $200 seems like an acceptable price.
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