The media industry waits for Fairfax’s announcement that it’s going to stop printing its metro papers Monday to Friday. But is it already refusing to deliver them to subscribers? A Crikey tipster who has recently decided to get into the cutting-edge technology of newspaper delivery has yet to have the weekday paper successfully delivered. It’s not for lack of trying.
“I took out a 7-day digital and print subscription and the paper delivery began on Saturday, it continued Sunday but when I went to my driveway on Monday — nothing.
“I rang the subscriptions department, which sounded like it was in the Philippines and was told that it was a 7-day subscription and they would fix it.
“I was told the delivery would resume today. I raced to the driveway and there was no paper. I rang the newsagent and was told I’m only down for weekend delivery. He said he would fix it by ringing subscriptions. He rang me back to say the paper would resume tomorrow. Again, I have paid for today’s paper but cannot get it. That means I have to ring the call centre again to ensure I get two days credit.”
“I’m trying to save The Age, but they won’t let me!”
Their circulation dept seems to be what is sending the company broke, there are just no Age newspapers to be found to buy.
I have a digital subscription to The Age but also like reading the paper version – I read a greater spread of news and more carefully. However like Jane and ‘the reader’, I have been finding it more difficult to buy to a paper version. I used to be able to buy one at two places on my 10 minute walk to my suburban railway station and also at the station kiosk. Then suddenly several months ago, the distributor stopped delivering it and it became ‘unavailable’ to those three outlets. The Murdoch press is still delivered to the three outlets though. It struck me at the time that the powers-that-be at The Age were trying to reduce the number of paper copies sold so that they could justify stopping printing it during the week. I wrote to the CEO about it and how I like the paper copy but of course he was too grand to reply.