Not sure what to say about the Bulletin's layoffs.
I mean, I'd rather not see it happen. I like having a local newspaper. I don't think anything I see online could substitute for it.
I suppose I could point out that they overexpanded during the Bend boom, but so did just about everyone else.
So I see it as strictly unfortunate.
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Linda is back to writing, and she has taken my dislike of Jack Welch to another level. She uses pictures of real people as background for her characters, and she's decided that Jack Welch's degenerate face fits that of one of her major villains. Heh.
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So there was an article about how, even though the Old Mill is losing three retailers, they are going to make up for it by having temporary holiday stores.
Thing is, I would've thought nothing of the three retailers leaving -- except the article seems like sort of a "Don't look here, we're really doing good" kind of article.
Plus, installing temporary stores sort of admits they don't have anyone prospective for those spaces.
Like I said, I probably wouldn't have thought anything of it, if they hadn't made a big deal out of it themselves.
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Holding to my -- "No Politics" pledge.
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H.Bruce came in to pick up my manuscript, and I met his wife and they seemed a fit and relaxed and nice couple. I like seeing that.
She has finally retired, apparently, so they are going to be making their long wished for escape from Bend, which is too bad.
Maybe they'll find they miss the town and come back.
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Amazon admits that the Kindle is a "loss-leader" for them.
Willy Nilly, they really want to take over the world.
But the thing about never making money at the expense of taking over the world. If anything happens -- new technology, new competitor, anything -- they may have taken over the world to no purpose.
That last hand in a poker game -- no matter how much you've won throughout the game -- can take all your winnings.
Just saying.
They are assuming they'll stay on top.
Tell that to Microsoft and General Motors.
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About Me
- Duncan McGeary
- I'm Duncan McGeary, owner and/or operator for the last 39 years of Pegasus Books in Downtown Bend, Oregon. These days I'm writing books as well as selling them. I'm the comic book guy. But even more so, I'm a book book guy. Books of all kinds. Big books and little books, children's and adult, fiction and non-fiction, hardback and paperback and trade paperback and graphic novels. Books with more words than pictures and books with more pictures than words. They are all part of the book world to me, and I love being surrounded by them every day.
9 comments:
Where is the article about the Old Mill temporary shops? I own a retail shop in Sisters and wanted to have a temporary store down there over the holidays. I was told there was nothing available.
Check KTVZ.
"New Look for Old Mill."
"they seemed a fit and relaxed and nice couple."
Thanks, Dunc. But we're not a fit couple. She's fit; I'm not.
The Bullshittin is bucking a lot of seriously negative trends including declining newspaper readership all over the world and the worst recession since the 1930s. Frankly I'm surprised they're holding on at all as a daily. Wouldn't surprise me to see them go to three-issues-a-week publication like the New Orleans Times Picayune.
"Maybe they'll find they miss the town and come back."
Just barely possible. We'll see.
I'm increasingly interested in the idea of having our permanent residence in the Southwest and renting a place in Bend during the summer (maybe August and September, Bend's two best weather months) to escape the heat and do some fishing.
Some inside background on the Bulletin:
They've been bleeding staff levels for several years now. I'd say before this round of layoffs they were already down about 25% of their peak number of employees. They've also had some across the board wage cuts and furlough days in the mix as well for several years.
They completed their BK11 process satisfactorily over the summer and things were starting to look a little better. But recently the big banks pulled nearly all the legal notices from the paper and are publishing them in their own "publication" that gets limited distribution.
Apparently this is tied up in the courts at the moment, but in the meantime they lost a couple hundred grand a month in revenue pretty much overnight. So, they jacked the subscription rates 50%, are going to be cutting the page count down significantly, and now are doing broader layoffs to dig out of the hole.
They are going to be swimming upstream for quite a while though because I can't see folks being too willing to spend more for less product on their subscriptions. And if their circulation numbers really start dropping (they've held remarkably steady through the recession), then they won't be able to command the ad rates they have been.
Classic death spiral scenario....
"so they are going to be making their long wished for escape from Bend"
HBM always reminds me of a sign I saw years ago .......
"everyone brightens the day ..... some when they come in the morning .... some when they leave in the afternoon"
B_D
http://www.opb.org/news/article/western-communications-cutting-10-percent-of-staff/
This OPB article does a better job of explaining what happened to the foreclosure notices.
In March a new law or rule was put into effect that made the non-judicial foreclosure route more expensive than going directly to court.
I won't be sad to see The Bulletin go. I won't be jumping up and down with glee, but I don't think The Bulletin adds much value nowadays and it hasn't for a while.
It thinks it is the "newspaper of record" for Bend and the area and takes itself too seriously. Plus I didn't like their land deal with the City.
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