The Kitsap Peninsula Business Journal, a monthly newspaper in Washington state, will move from a free distribution business model to paid subscribers and paid distribution racks this year, writes editor Lary Coppola.
The paper is making other changes as well. Coppola writes, “Our Monday email news updates have been well received and its list of subscribers is continually growing. We will be expanding that to Monday, Wednesday and Friday, and it will eventually become a daily email update.”
He adds, “We are now in the process of retooling our Web site for added functionality. We have already added a comments section at the bottom of each online story, and more changes are on the way, including video of stories and events. We are now able to post breaking news as it happens and update stories as situations change.
“While we have always had banner ads on the site, the sheer number of online readers, combined with strong demand from many of our print advertisers for an online component, has mandated significantly more online advertising be made available. We understand moving to paid subscriptions will reduce the number of printed copies, so to equalize the difference, we will also offer print advertisers standardized-size online ads.”
Read more here.