11 replies to this topic

[Papaw]

If it weren't for having inside information I would have never known that the Fort Worth star Telegram had a 50% discount for anyone over the age of 65. They don't publicize this in their paper or on their website and play dumb when you ask about it, but it is their policy. If you are 65 or over, a years subscription is $105.00 instead of the normal rate of $198.00.
The way it has shrunk recently, I don't know if it's worth that or not.

[EwingFTW]

I'm wondering if this discount applies to just subscribers in retirement homes? I have a sister at Broadway Plaza and she told me about the 50% discount she receives.

Does anyone know for sure, before I give the S-T a call?

[Papaw]

I just paid for mine over the phone yesterday but have paid for my mother's and Aunt's for the past several years and none of us are in retirement homes. This is my first year to pay with the discount but their statements now even come with the $105.00 yearly amount on the statement.

[BillyG]

I just paid for mine over the phone yesterday but have paid for my mother's and Aunt's for the past several years and none of us are in retirement homes. This is my first year to pay with the discount but their statements now even come with the $105.00 yearly amount on the statement.

I just paid my dad's last week.. Sure wish I would have seen this earlier..thanks.

[UncaMikey]

I am not that old -- yet -- but we get the S-T for $105/yr, just by paying for the whole year in advance. Whether or not the paper is worth it, the press pass has a lot of nice benefits.

[Papaw]

UncaMikey - are sure that isn't for 6 months? I thought the senior citizen discount was the only 50% one offered.
Your right, the press pass can really add up in savings if you use it much at all, my problem is - after a few drinks and a good meal, I forget to use it even though that was the reason I chose to go to that particular place in the first place.

[UncaMikey]

UncaMikey - are sure that isn't for 6 months?

Absolutely positively sure -- maybe my wife is an exceptional telephone negotiator?

The press pass is good for FW Cats tickets!

[EwingFTW]

I just renewed two one-year subscriptions to the Star-Telegram. It seems the Senior Discount has been discontinued. I was told that if I would renew for a year and pay by credit card, they would offer me the $198.00 subscription for $140.00.

I believe S-T has moved Customer Service overseas. While making the second renewal yesterday I was told they would send a message and have someone call me to discuss the discount. Today, I received the call and I do believe it originated in Fort Worth.

[Papaw]

The Star Telegram is real flaky about this discount. It seems it depends on not only who you talk to but how "pushy" you get. I know for a fact that they were offering the 50% discount as recent as 4 months ago. The $140 is about what they will always sell it for if you ask for a discount or get it at the Stock Show or their little booths they set up at Sams and places like that - however, I haven't seen these type set ups for a number of months. It could be that they have eliminated it, as they must be hurting like all the other papers. It seems like the paper is shrinking daily and I still have to search for the crosswords on the weekend as they move them to a different section.
I can't believe they would have overseas representatives, but I'm really not surprised at anything anymore.
We will probably be getting all our news from the Internet or a Kindle pretty soon.

[Dismuke]

Perhaps they did away with the senior discount on grounds that, these days, most of the people who still subscribe to newspapers are seniors!

I say that as a wisecrack - but there's probably a lot of truth to it.

[Papaw]

I think there is a lot of truth to that and I feel it's unfortunate as a lot of the younger generation is disassociated and doesn't really keep up with what's going on in today's world. What makes it worse I think there is more happening now, world wide, than in most other eras of history.
I'm sure there a lot of people under retirement age that do try to keep up but do to the expense of the paper they use other means.

[Dismuke]

I feel it's unfortunate as a lot of the younger generation is disassociated and doesn't really keep up with what's going on in today's world. What makes it worse I think there is more happening now, world wide, than in most other eras of history.

I think that has always been the case to a certain degree ever since newspapers have had to compete with radio, television and other forms of entertainment for young peoples' time and attention. And today, there are PLENTY of ways for people to keep up with the world besides a newspaper.

I'm sure there a lot of people under retirement age that do try to keep up but do to the expense of the paper they use other means.

The problem for newspapers is that those who "use other means" are actually more up-to-date and better informed about what is going on in the nation and the world than those whose primary source of information is yesterday's wire service articles about whatever select handful of stories their local paper has the room to print.

The range of selection and depth that is available to us today in terms of news, analysis, information and commentary is breathtaking. I am old enough to remember a time when, if you wanted to know what was going on in a different city you had to go to the library or a top-notch bookstore a few days later to read the out-of-town newspapers. And if the city was too small for libraries and bookstores to carry it - well, you were out of luck. And in order to get serious daily coverage of international news, one had to find a place that sold the New York Times, which was much harder to find back then than it is today.

And the ability of the Internet to spread information continues to evolve. For example, tools such as YouTube and Twitter are increasingly being used to either break news or bring existing but obscure coverage to the attention of a wider audience - which sometimes is then picked up by blogs and even more mainstream media outlets. Such tools did not exist as recently as four years ago.

Personally, if offered a choice, I prefer reading a given article in print form than over a computer screen because that is what I grew up with. But that choice is simply not possible for the vast majority of information that is available today. Printing and distributing print articles is VERY expensive - and the very reason we even have so much information available today is because its flow has been freed up from the very significant barriers traditionally imposed by those costs. For that reason, newspapers, like all mass media, are basically targeted towards and leveled down to the widest common denominator in terms of what is covered, in what depth and at what reading level. For the longest time, mass media was all that everybody knew as it was the only way of disseminating information that was economically viable. But once one gets a taste of everything else that is out there that the mass media simply CANNOT afford to cover - well, there's no going back to the way things were and being satisfied. If it is a choice between preferred format verses a wider scope of information - well, I will chose content over format anytime.

I continued to keep my newspaper subscription current for several years after I started getting most of my news off the Internet. I did so mostly out of rote plus the fact that newspapers ARE still relevant when it comes to covering local news, though I tend not to follow local news as much as I do national and international. Plus, again, I do like the printed format. What did the newspaper in for me was simply the fact that the papers piled up not only unread but still in their plastic wrappers. Taking them out to the trash became a chore - and, of course, it was a total waste of money on my part. The reason they piled up unread really had nothing to do with a lack of quality on the part of the newspaper's product - this was before the impact of mass layoffs began gutting the product. They went unread simply because of a lack of time on my part to bother to open them. I only have so much time on a given day to spend keeping up with news - and since there is FAR more interesting and compelling content available these days than I could possibly keep up with, the competition for that finite amount of time is pretty intense.

All that being said, I do value the continued existence of the Star Telegram and Morning News because they DO provide local coverage that is much more difficult for the Internet to do on the smaller scale of a local market. And, as far as I am concerned, there really is no online substitute for the sort of print ads and circulars that one finds in a local newspaper. I say that as an occasional consumer of such advertising and I am definitely sure that is the case for the advertisers themselves. If the local newspapers collapsed, my guess is that local tv news organizations would beef up the local news coverage they provide on their station websites, at least until the television stations themselves become dinosaurs and start to go under, which many are predicting will happen a few years down the road. But advertisers who rely on print advertising will find themselves in a bit of a bind - and I am sure that they will find SOME sort of means to get their advertising into the hands of a large number of people. Newspapers have always been a great way to pool the cost of distributing such advertising. For that reason, I suspect that, so long as print advertising remains effective for local merchants, they will continue to exist for quite a while in at least SOME form - but it may be radically different than what we have known in terms of scope of content and publication frequency.

Like you said - more is happening worldwide now than in most eras of history. And newspapers are a great example of that. Indeed, the New York Times Co is even threatening to shutter the Boston Globe unless the unions give major concessions and agree to give up bizarre lifetime employment guarantees that a large number of Globe employees have. The Globe is the dominant newspaper in the region and competes with the much smaller tabloid Boston Herald which, itself, almost went under in the 1980s until Rupert Murdoch saved it at the very last minute from extinction. That the Herald might actually outlast the Globe is almost unthinkable - sort of like Haltom City becoming the dominant municipality in Tarrant County. But the Herald is now locally owned and has no debt - and years of being the "also ran" paper in the market have forced it to be disciplined and not enter into suicidal nonsense such as lifetime employment guarantees. Meanwhile, massive losses at the Globe are dragging down its parent company which is already struggling to service its massive debt and whose primary loyalty is its flagship New York Times. And did you know that the Times is actually the number three paper in New York in terms of metro circulation? It is the nation's largest paper only because of its national readership. But in its own market, the Daily News and the Post have larger circulation - or at least that was the case last time I checked. In the past, this has not been all that big of a deal for the Times because the more affluent demographic of its readership made it attractive to certain advertisers. But that demographic in New York is being hit very hard with the meltdown on Wall Street and threats of federally imposed salary caps and such. And, given that newspapers are totally obsolete in terms of covering national news, the national audience for its print product is also in eventual jeopardy. It is no longer in the realm of the unthinkable that the Post or Daily News might actually outlast the Times. It may end up coming down to which paper is able to provide the best local coverage and a balance sheet less burdened by increasingly difficult to service debt.