Bold Ray Stevens reference there, Newsdesigner.

"Don't look, Ethel!"

Is anyone aware of any broadsheet newspapers that have successfully launched a paid tabloid? I've seen a lot of newspapers go to a free tabloid targeting 18-34s but few paid. Red Eye lasted a few years as a paid tabloid targeting 18-34s but eventually had to go to free. The Philadelhpia Daily News is a paid tabloid offshoot of the Phila. Inquirer but this is the only one I know of.

I suspect PDN folks might bridle at being called an "offshoot" of the Inquirer, since the Daily News began publishing in 1925 and didn't share ownership with the Inky until the '50s. The staffs are still separate, I believe.

It seems odd to me that the Sun Times would pull the plug on their free publication just because the competition also went free. Are they just going to cede this audience to the other paper? That seems like a mistake in the long run.

Perhaps the Red Streak was getting its butt kicked because it had the wrong formula for connecting with people. Anyone?

Red Streak was never available in any boxes anywhere. The only people who read it were those dumb enough to not realize they weren't reading the Redeye. But look at all the articles that said that the Red Streak publishers only launched it to confused readers into not buying the Tribune publication. What kind of crap is that?

Om...competitive crap?

It's too bad that the Chicago Sun Times would drop Red Streak I for one has enjoyed both Red Eye and Red Streak.

It's too bad that the Chicago Sun Times would drop Red Streak I for one has enjoyed both Red Eye and Red Streak.

Tony, I beg to differ. Red Streak was available in the boxes when it first came out, and at least until last summer. Since I don't live in Chicago, I can't tell you when that stopped.

It never made any sense, though. Why should a paid tabloid (the Sun-Times) launch a paid tabloid off shoot? It seems like it would make more economic sense to try to make your main product more accessible to the audience your intending then to start another paper. I'm sure that the ad sales people found that Red Steak was pouching from display sales at the Sun-Times.

The business model is why the Tribune launched Red Eye as a paid edition. (they have reported anemic single-copy sales of the broadsheet w/in city limits)

Everythin old is new again - 13 years ago I was hired by the Tribsters to be the art director for new 12-page section for the paper - anyone remember KidNews?
They killed that section a couple years after I left.

The six words that started the war with the Sun-Times?
'An edition of the Chicago Tribune.'

Those six words running under the Red Eye flag were code for something more subversive than their benign presence may indicate.

Those words and the logo of the mainsheet are there for a very real reason. They allow a publisher to petition ABC to let them count Red Eye sales in their overall numbers.

Now in the last year and a half - The 'Eye's' owners don't ever discuss circulation in stories or sales materials. Much less paid circ. cus' there is no big number to tout.
The talking points are now 'distribution' and 'readership.' Where they basically tell you what the press run is.

That's what you do when they don't make your numbers. You change the definition of success.

Three years later there's no quarters, no subscriptions and no profit - The Streak can exit graccefully now happy to let the Eye have 100 percent of a low to no profit business. That's why 'mission accomplished' sounds bizarre, but entirely accurate.

I have heard that certain publishers over time have closed sections not because they don't make money - but because they don't make ENOUGH money.

There is no journalism answer to that kind of Scroogedom.

Maybe the Eye's paid circ biz model would have failed on its own - who knows? The Sun-Times sure couldn't afford to take the chance that only a few thousand peoplewould cough up a quarter for Red Eye. So they had to push back in classic Fleet street fashion with The Streak.

The tricky part for the Sun-Times is if you're going to give away a paper that may canibalize the single-copy sales of your own paper then you had better do it in a way that reminds readers that there is still a Tabloid in Chicago worth paying for - a Pulitzer-Prize winning tabloid with the world's number one film critic no less.

robb:

you. don't. work there. any. more.

Or was it...when you're about to get hit by a train, make sure you look like you're leading it?

;)

This makes a word of game

nice blog keep up the good work

I can't speak for all neighborhoods but it seems to me that in my own neighborhood (Lincoln Square) Red Streak had poor distribution. I can pick up a copy of the Red Eye every other major corner. Red Streak wasn't the same. I would look at their distribution strategy.

- Jason

Great site! Nice work! Thanks!