Groundhog Day Revelation: 12 Weeks of 'Sun'
In today's New York Post, media reporter Keith "Scoopy" Kelly plays catchup on the Suns-for-everyone story and confirms that we're not all just imagingind things. Scoopy writes:
The paper has embarked on an aggressive policy to ramp up its free distribution in what it calls the elite neighborhoods of the city — but many of those copies are apparently unwanted and unread.
The move comes as the paper has abandoned its original strategy of developing a paid-subscriber base, with losses running at a $25 million-a-year clip and circulation stalled at around 45,000 copies when it took a voluntary suspension from the Audit Bureau of Circulations. That is usually a sign of serious questions being raised....
While it will still offer some the chance to pay for the five-day-a-week paper on newsstands, the paper has embarked on a policy to distribute 105,000 copies a day — the overwhelming majority of which are free.
That fits with what we're hearing, which is that circ is currently down to about 35,000 and this plan is designed to double it. In this current marketing effort, from what we gather, some 60,000 free copies are going out each day to so-called "upper-income" ZIP codes around the city, and that it's explicitly supposed to be inserted into the Times. It seems that folks are getting "complimentary" 12-week subscriptions (as explained in the flyer pictured above; click on it to enlarge), and then, we're told, a whole new group of unsuspecting New Yorkers will be lucky enough to find the Sun on their doorsteps.
After the jump, a new spate of sightings.
I've also been stuck with The Sun on my doorstep out in Park Slope. I called them to make it stop — it was classified as a 'complimentary subscription' that would have ended 3/31.
I live in Bergen County and have recently been geting the Sun every morning. Ironically, it comes in a blue NY Times delivery bag!
It also has started showing up mysteriously in my lobby in Riverdale, addressed to four neighbors who get NYDN delivered. They also just leave it there. They are all neighbors with identifiably Jewish surnames, wouldn't you know?
There's been a Sun outside the door of every apt in my building on 82nd and 2nd everyday for the past three weeks. How do you make it go away?
They're hitting Windsor Terrace, Brooklyn, too ... stacks of them pile up and nobody takes them ...
Nice to see you are on the case. Totally unrelated to your reporting, my mom, who doesn t even know Gawker exists and lives on the West Village/Meatpacking District border, thanks to rent control, wrote me today:
Sorry to beleaguer you with these tidbits but they are so outrageous — the NY Sun has been giving us a free sub, hoping we'll then pay out, but it's a vile rag. In their Jan 30 editorial about H. Clinton they refer to the Swift boat vet who pulled Kerry from the waters of the Mekong and continues to support him. Today's issue had a small correction: Kerry is reported to have pulled the Veteran from the Mekong and not the reverse. Can that mistake have been honest? I can hardly believe it.
