The Cost Of Going To “Digital Only” Newspapers Is It Worth It?

Many people wonder and curse, “that damn newspaper is going digital only.” While we don’t like it either in most cases, we understand. Our cost of postage is not covering the cost of mailing, let alone the cost of production and making a living.

Our mailing costs for subscriptions vary in classifications of "in-county", "out of county" and "out of state,” each costing increasing, respectively. It’s getting to where newspaper collections in some of the aforementioned classifications are less than the subscription price.

Larger newspapers are buying smaller papers that fit in their group well. In these acquisitions the local papers, many are now seeing their press rooms closed and staff reduced in order to increase productivity and prevent duplication in the workforce when they can do things centrally.

There are now very few “newspaper” press rooms left in Montana and the places we have used to print our paper have become even more centralized in a disturbing trend. For example, the Leader after we decided printing our own newspaper was no longer viable, we printed at Great Falls at a printing division of the Great Falls Tribune, they closed their...