I just renewed my subscription to Wired magazine. $12 for another year of the print edition, plus I get the tablet edition for free to read an enhanced edition on my iPad. What a deal!

Alas, I don’t want the print edition! I’d prefer to receive only the iPad edition and reduce my carbon footprint a bit by causing one less copy of the magazine to be printed, shipped around by trucks, and so on. Also, I prefer reading on my iPad over print magazines, the latter which tend to get lost in piles of paper and books around the house. But for the $12-a-year renewal offer, I have to get the print edition.

Sure, I could opt for paying for just the digital-tablet edition with no print delivery, but that would cost me $19.99 a year. (That also happens to be the price advertised for new subscribers on the Wired website for print edition and tablet subscription. The site doesn’t offer tablet-only for that price, as far as I can tell; you can pay $19.99 a year and avoid the print edition by purchasing a digital edition via the iPad app.)

If I was truly committed to avoiding the extra resources consumed and pollution created by taking the print edition, I could of course just pay the extra $8 a year. It’s not much, right? I considered that, but I’m on a meager university salary and my wife is a public-school teacher, and in this economy we’ve had to watch expenses and cut back on some things (bye-bye, exorbitant cable-TV bill!), so if I have a chance to save money, I do. (I’ll donate my printed Wired magazines to my wife’s school library.)

Besides, what logic is there to charge subscribers more for getting less (i.e., digital-only subscription), and charging more for subscribers who want to do the right thing environmentally? It’s stupid.

Well, it’s not stupid from the publisher’s standpoint, of course. Wired and its parent company want me and others to continue to take the print edition, whether we want it or not, because those colorful print ads that fill up the magazine bring in lots of money. It won’t do to encourage or support subscribers giving up print in favor of digital only, because the print ads would then bring in less money.

I get that. But it pisses me off that in this media transition that we find ourselves in, print publishers resort to discouraging the digital transition and encouraging subscribers to continue receiving a product that consumes physical resources (trees) and pollutes the environment (trucks and delivery).

It’s not just Wired. Making the cheapest option for newspaper and magazine subscriptions be print + digital is a current major trend in media business models.

In another few years, perhaps we’ll be past such stupidity (I mean in an environmental sense, not a business one). For now, all I or any magazine or newspaper subscriber who wants a publisher’s product and are caught in such a situation can do is gripe, or be altruistic and pay more.

No doubt you’ve heard the “big” news that the New York Times has added an advertising spot on the front page of its print edition. Shocking, eh? The New York Post in covering the news says in a graphic accompanying its story, “New York Times Publisher Arthur ‘Pinch’ Sulzberger is smashing the paper of record’s vaunted Chinese wall between news and advertising by peddling front-page space.”

Puleeze. First, kudos for NYT making a move that might bring in some badly needed serious money to its legacy business. Second, plenty of other papers do front page ads (including in the U.S., USA Today and the Wall Street Journal), though it’s more common outside the U.S. I don’t believe for a second that ads on the front page will have any effect on editorial content. The worst that can happen is some embarrassing juxtaposition of a page 1 ad for a company that’s covered on the front page for some wrongdoing. But I suspect the Times’ editorial and ad departments are both plenty smart enough to avoid that.

My point in writing this item is merely to remark on what a big deal some folks are making about this move. Unfortunately, this kind of move (“OMG! Ads on the front page!”) passes for radical innovation in much of the newspaper industry. Compared to innovation in the online and mobile communications worlds, this is just a tweak. Compared to the kind of bold innovation that newspaper companies will need to make to survive in 2009 and beyond, ads on the front page — even of the New York Times — is not even worth a raised eyebrow.

I sincerely hope we’ll see so much newspaper-industry innovation in 2009 that in year-end wrap-up stories, this will barely merit mention.

The speculation ended quickly enough. Detroit newspaper executives announced today their plan to (they hope) survive the industry crisis with two newspapers intact by implementing the following in spring 2009:

• Print the Detroit Free Press (Gannett-owned) on Thursdays, Fridays, and Sundays.
• Print the Detroit News (MediaNews Group-owned) on Thursdays and Fridays.
• Paid digital-replica subscription service on other days (part of home-delivery subscribers’ accounts).
• Paid thinner editions sold on newsstands on other days.
• Talk of “expanding digital information channels that provide news and information to a variety of audiences when, where and how they want it.”

Full details are available at Romenesko.

My critique:

• Paid editions on the non-home-delivery days is a mistake. Younger people will not, for the most part, pay for these on the newsstand. So this does nothing to address the problem of newspaper print editions’ aging demographic (average age, over 50). The Detroit papers have a chance at reaching younger people (who will not subscribe for home delivery) if they make scaled-back FREE editions available at newsstands, coffeeshops, malls, libraries, colleges and universities, etc. That can increase overall readership of the off-day print editions, and serve as a strong marketing vehicle to get more traffic to the papers’ various websites.
• I think Martin Langeveld is right in suggesting that instead of a Sunday edition, the Free Press have a “weekend” edition published and made available on Saturday.
• The Detroit newspapers press release made much of a strategy to improve its websites and go after more niche markets on the web. That’s fine, but I spotted one tiny mention of mobile services. To hit the younger audience, mobile must be a huge part of the digital strategy. Smartphones (a la the iPhone) are about to become ubiquitous.
• I’ve never been a fan of digital-replica editions. Giving that away to home-delivery subscribers is fine, but I think most folks will just read the web or mobile editions, which are designed for their respective formats, while digital-replica for a computer screen is an annoying user experience. I don’t expect to see much in the way of non-print subscribers paying for the digital-replica editions.
• This plan is designed to have no layoffs in newsroom staff (but cost cuts in other areas such as production and circulation). I very much doubt the publishers will stick to that. I predict free off-day editions will come as a later decision; those will be thinner; and less staff will be required.

Overall, I view the reduction in home-delivered print editions as a necessary step in the evolution of newspapers in metro markets. But reading through the press release from the Detroit publishers, I don’t feel optimistic. Expect to see the announced plan tweaked fairly quickly, and the no-layoff pledge be temporary. (I hope I’m wrong.)

I’m looking forward to Tuesday, when Detroit’s newspaper executives apparently will unveil a bold new plan to save themselves. As the Wall Street Journal reports, “the leading scenario set to be unveiled calls for the Free Press, the 20th largest U.S. newspaper by weekday circulation, and the News to end home delivery on all but the most lucrative days — Thursday, Friday and Sunday. On the other days, the company would sell single copies of abbreviated print editions at newsstands and direct readers to the papers’ expanded digital editions.”

This will be significant, if that’s close to being accurate, in moving daily newspapers toward an era where digital is at the center and print is but one of the spokes on the distribution wheel. Of course, the Christian Science Monitor has already announced that it will do this early next year, publishing a print edition only once per weekend and going digital the rest of the week. But the Monitor is a national/international paper; Detroit would be the first major metro market where this might take place.

Plenty of folks are speculating and analyzing the plan’s chances, but we don’t really know if the scenario above is what’s been decided. I hope not, because I doubt that plan will work. Newsosaurus Alan Mutter seems to agree.

I think the predicted scenario is close to what should happen, but with some major flaws that keep the Detroit papers driving toward oblivion. (With the auto industry’s troubles, the Detroit newspapers are probably in the most perilous position of any major metros in the U.S.)

Here’s my prescription for what should be announced on Tuesday. (Much of this reflects my latest Editor & Publisher Online column, “My ‘Crisis’ Advice to Newspaper Company CEOs: 11 Points to Ponder.”) Specific to the Detroit situation:

1. Go with Thursday, Friday, and Sunday normal print editions; stick with paid home delivery (at discounted rates, of course). These editions should be larger than has been typical, as they (it is hoped) absorb more print advertising that went into other days no longer serviced in print.
2. Promote the hell out of website and mobile services in those editions. Don’t treat the Thurs-Fri-Sun editions as standalone print products. Aggressively push paid print subscribers to your core web and mobile services — both for supplementary content (e.g., videos and databases to accompany printed stories) and to reinforce that the News and Free Press remain a DAILY habit but now you need to get on a computer or your phone on the other days.
3. For the other days, publish a slim FREE edition and don’t deliver it to home subscribers. Forgo the rack and newsstand sales revenue in exchange for wider readership. Perhaps you can parlay that into a better advertising vehicle than if you tried to sell copies of a thinned-down paper that many people wouldn’t think is worth the price.
4. The slimmed-down off-day print editions would need to have a modest amount of killer content, so people will want to pick it up. (Comics? Most popular columnists?) Another possibility for these off-day, thin editions is to make each a niche publication, with mondo calls for readers to go online or use their phones for the news. Mostly, these smaller editions should be about steering people to online and mobile services by the papers. If you feel that you need to publish these print editions at all, then their principal purpose should be as a table of contents to the (dominant) digital services that offer the news those days.
5. Adopt the big cultural change: Announce that the Free Press and News are now digitally driven metro news and information services, which just happen to also publish print editions for those who still want that. Market this as the local news source for the digital era.
6. With fewer journalistic resources than before, don’t try to make the remaining print editions everything for everybody. Focus on the hard-hitting journalism, the watchdog and investigative projects, enterprise reporting. Make decisions about leaving out stuff that caters to younger people who aren’t reading the print edition anyway. Focus on your core journalism.
7. Make the website for everyone. For the older crowd that you are now forcing online, have that hard-hitting journalism front and center. Develop new online and mobile services for niches, which can become new revenue streams; many of them will be designed to attract the younger crowd.
8. Get rid of print-heavy compensation schemes for sales people. With this new digital dominance, your sales reps need strong financial incentives to sell new digital products and not fall back on the old print stuff.

There’s much more to a digital-first strategy. (Hey, I’m always open to new consulting gigs. )

But let’s see what gets announced on Tuesday. It’ll either be another stake in the heart of Detroit’s newspapers; a visionary reinvention that stands a chance of altering the rest of the newspaper industry; or somewhere in between: a flawed plan that has some elements of successful strategy that will need to be tweaked.

This will be interesting. Here’s hoping that whatever Detroit newspaper executives have up their sleeves, it doesn’t involve more journalists being laid off. It’s difficult to feel much optimism, however. More on Tuesday.

Outside Magazine, January 2009 print edition. (Ah, yes, in the age of instant digital news, we still get our print magazines dated weeks in the future!) On page 25 is a nice photo and brief story about professional climber Katie Brown. (Katie was editor of my defunct company’s YourClimbing.com site that we published from 2006 to 2007.)

Lower right box on the page: “For more photos of Katie Brown, go to outsideonline.com/katiebrown”. But the link doesn’t work.

I know Katie has a blog (link above). But Outside’s page doesn’t note that either.

OK, go to Outside’s website and perhaps I’ll spot a link to the photos of Katie and catch up with her life. Nope, nothing. Even using the search box doesn’t turn up the alleged “more photos.” Sheesh.

I only have to turn back to page 22 to see how Outside remains clueless on the opportunity to link print and digital. There’s a cool photo, graphic and short story about a flying car with a paraglider wing and a propeller in back. But I can’t learn more (no URL for company’s website); there’s no URL to go view a video or animation of more photos of the prototype car.

Oh, I get it. Outside expects me to go to Google and get that. Parajet info here and here. Thanks, Google. Thanks for nothing, Outside.

Just as with newspapers, the future of magazines will depend on a strong and useful integration of print and digital. The printed magazine won’t be enough for tomorrow’s readers. If magazine publishers can’t even get the few website refers they publish in print right, I have my doubts that they’ll figure out how to serve, entertain, and attract the younger generation of digital natives.

Just more of the same from print publishers: blindness to the opportunities to establish relationships and conversations with their print readers via online and mobile innovations.

As an old-media guy myself (working for newspapers and magazines for the first decade and a half of my career before moving it online in 1994), I find this so discouraging. Aaargh!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

A reader of my latest Editor & Publisher Online column (about intelligently redesigning print editions to please older print loyalists and not go after younger people) asked:

“As newspaper companies redefine their strategies, will home delivery be a thing of the past? Will it be a premium service or only available through online downloads? Can newspapers make up ‘insert’ revenues without home delivery?”

Given enough time, I do think that home delivery of the printed daily newspaper will become more of a luxury item than it’s been historically, with a higher fee charged than for alternative digital forms of the newspaper (full digital replica editions for reading on a PC or other large-screen device, and appropriately formatted digital editions for smaller devices like Amazon’s Kindle).

That is, as the number of print subscribers to daily newspapers dwindles over the coming years, it will cost more per subscriber to cover delivery expenses. Such price increases will convince even more of remaining print subscribers to cancel and switch to paid digital versions, or simply stop paying and rely on free newspaper websites, e-mail delivery, RSS feeds, and/or mobile delivery. (The latter may be free, as is generally the case now, of perhaps in the future a charged service if combined with personalization features.)

For national papers, I expect to see more of them go the way of the Christian Science Monitor, which next year will cease its print edition except for a single weekend edition — becoming foremost a digital news publisher with a secondary and limited print product. Don’t expect to see USA Today disappear from airport newsstands or no longer appear outside your hotel room in the morning anytime soon, though.

As for ad inserts, that’s still a huge business for local newspapers which will be around for a while longer. (Though I do think that if you look out far enough, those advertisers will begin to shift more of their inserts money to digital.) So we’ll likely see publishers continue to distribute inserts to non-subscribers of the printed newspaper along with a teaser edition delivered to homes once a week.

Jay Small, writing on his Small Initiatives blog, comments on my latest Editor & Publisher Online column about how to smartly redesign print editions of newspapers.

One of the key points in my column is that newspapers need to provide MANY more refers and pointers to online and mobile content, in an effort to guide older print readers to a better future of reading print and consuming digital news content together.

Jay, who overall gave my advice a thumbs up, added a key tip that I overlooked:

“I would add one thing: If loyal print readers trend older, promote the online features older people would be most likely to use. E-mail, for example, remains in heavy use among older Internet populations. So rather than steering people to a Web site for breaking news updates, consider pushing them toward sign-ups for e-mail alerts.”

Absolutely. That’s smart.

Here’s my latest Editor & Publisher Online column, posted today: “Don’t Redesign the Print Edition to Ensure Failure.”

It’s an opinion piece about how the wave of print-edition redesigns by the newspaper industry is largely missing the boat.

Publishers need to focus on their core older audience when it comes to the print edition, and stop fruitlessly redesigning with the goal of attracting younger people to start reading the newspaper in paper form. And they must guide their older readers to digital offerings that supplement the thinning print product, rather than expecting them to continue to read print forever even as the quality of the product received continues going downhill.

Otherwise, look for printed newspapers to slide even faster than they have been.

The Boston Globe introduced a modest redesign of its print edition today. It’s nowhere near as dramatic as the recent redesigns by Tribune Co. papers, so the paper still looks like itself.

Kudos to whoever wrote the redesign FAQ. Sure, there’s the predictable “we’re improving the paper for YOU!” wording, but it’s also tempered with acknowledgments that, yes, some things are getting cut because we have to save money because, as you know, the newspaper industry is in real trouble. My impression reading Tribune Co. redesign announcements was that those admissions were mostly left out in favor of the “we’re putting new lipstick on the pig!” model of PR.

And here’s something smart that I noticed in the Globe’s FAQ:

“The font size for the entire paper was also increased slightly. We believe these changes will help improve the readability of the Globe.”

Very smart. Let’s acknowledge that readers who are sticking with print editions of newspapers are older. Increasing the font size to reflect that is a logical adjustment. (Of course, typography experts will say that it’s possible to monkey with font selection and x-heights to make body type more readable without actually increasing the font size.)

I’m a bigger fan of the Globe’s redesign than the flashier Tribune Co. ones, because the Globe appears to be going for improving quality and attractiveness that will keep its existing print readers around, while the Trib redesigns appear to be seeking to attract more younger readers to print (which I consider to be a fool’s errand).

Does anyone know about current trends in newspaper racks? I ask because on Monday I was hanging out with my daughter in the impressive and recently renovated Natick Collection (a.k.a., Natick Mall) near Boston. I wanted a copy of the Boston papers, but couldn’t spot any newspaper racks.

I asked the guy stationed at the impressive information booth in the middle of the mall, who informed me that there was no place to get a newspaper inside the mall other than a CVS drug store on the far end of the bottom floor that sold them.

Hmmm. Perhaps I just haven’t been paying attention to such things. But it struck me as surprising that newspaper racks have disappeared from some shopping malls.

Is this the situation at the mall near you?