US: the perils of cutting stock tables
After erasing most of its stock listings from the printed edition, RMN received about 200 complaints from readers, most of which were older and not familiar with digital news. Rob Reuteman, business editor of the daily, said, "I was talking with ninety-year old guys who've been subscribing for 44 years. And they're not getting on the Internet."
But Westword points out that the paper also received 15 email complaints, suggesting "that computer-literate people weren't nearly as cheesed off as were older members of the Rocky's demographic pool."
Steve Outing at Poynter thinks that cutting stock listings with the possibility of alienating older readers is a necessary evil of today's newspaper industry:
"So, what's a newspaper to do? I think that the Rocky and other newspapers are making the right decision. It's not a wise economic choice to continue to devote several pages of newsprint to stock tables that are relied on only by a small slice of the paper's readership. As more and more people use the Web for up-to-date stock quotes (instead of printed ones that are half a day or more old), printed stock tables just don't make sense."
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I can go along with this, I think: If you've been reading your stock listings in the paper for years, it's a shame to lose that habit. But more importantly, new media gurus like to tell us that news is all about community these days, and these non-web readers are as much an important part of the community than the youngsters who read the online edition.
At least the stock readers pay for their content ;-)
Oh and TV listings are also thought to be for the chop - that risks alienating the slippers-and-cup-of-tea community who like to check the evening's telly from my sofa, not from my Mac. I suppose with the explosion of tv channels, it will become very difficult for newspaper listings to cover everything, but there will still be an audience for TV highlights aimed at the newspapers typical readership. Guardian readers might be interested in History Channel documentaries about African famine, Sun readers might want to know about nude wrestling on Men'n'Motors.
I can see the case for dropping stock pages and TV listings, but come on, these are soft targets. It's hardly radical. Let's hear something a little more daring from the new media evangelists!