The Monitor’s print edition, as you can see, is still with us. It will stay put for a while.
In a Dec. 27 editorial, I wrote that changes would be coming to The Monitor this year. The economics and logistics of producing a weekly print publication have become challenging, and I plan to move away from print and to digital, focusing on our e-mailed PDF edition and our website, boulder-monitor.com.
But not just yet. For those who took our one-week publishing break earlier this month as a sign that your newspaper had disappeared, you can breathe easy. Apologies for the confusion.
Honestly, we have many, many questions to work through before we settle on a digital future. We need to figure out pricing for new products; gauge the effect on advertising; and estimate likely revenues and expenses. There are staffing and operational challenges associated with reducing our printing frequency.
Most of all, we have to better understand what will best serve our community. We’ve had multiple advisory group meetings and individual conversations already that have guided our early planning. But we want more input. From you.
In The Monitor’s Jan. 31 issue, you’ll find an envelope containing our annual subscriber survey. (E-edition and online subscribers will receive that survey by e-mail.) Please open it! The survey will ask, as it always does, about your satisfaction with and trust in our coverage; what you like and dislike; and what we could do better. That intelligence is important to us.
This year, though, the survey also will include questions related to the coming strategic changes. How likely, or not, are you to switch to an online subscription? What are the factors that could make that difficult? How much might you pay?
Your responses will help inform what comes next. Rest assured, those strategic decisions will take months from now to sort out. And whatever happens, we’ll give you plenty of notice; it’s important that we continue to be transparent as we work through this challenge.
As always, many thanks for your support of community news.
