From: Nick Arnett
On Behalf Of Ronn Blankenship
>
> [snip]
>
> > (1) I'm assuming that you meant to say ". there is only ONE
> > daily newspaper."
>
> Of course.
> >
> > If so,
> >
> > (2) The truth of your statement must depend on what you define as "U.S.
> > cities of any size."
>
> It's easy to point out exceptions, but the fact is, more than 80 percent of
> daily newspapers in the United States are monopolies. The number of dailies
> has been shrinking rapidly for decades, with the number of owners shrinking
> even more rapidly as chains take over -- the monopoly owners often have
> multiple monopolies!
>
> > Chicago is, what?, the third-largest city in the US, and its two papers,
> > the Trib and the Sun-Times, are both well-known.
>
> Chicago is a very unusual exception. I didn't say that every U.S. city has
> a newspaper monopoly. It's nearly all.
>
> > I'm not sure precisely where Denver ranks in size, but it has the _Denver
> > Post_ and the _Rocky Mountain News_.
>
> Which have a JOA that combines their advertising into one, monopoly entity.
>
------------
I hate to be a stick in the mud about this, I mostly belive what you are saying, don't
agree ;-), but where does your 80% figure come from and how does it relate to city
size? I checked this site:
http://www.newspaperlinks.com/newspaperlist.cfm
and was surprised to find out LA has only one daily ( I don't think The Hollywood
Reporter is a real paper) but is that balanced by the fact that NY has four? Or does
your source count that as one city with one newspaper and one city with more than one
newspaper? Because we can go down the list:
NY: 4
LA: 1
Chi: 2
Houston: 1 (I was around when the one paper died, it was better)
Philly: 1
Phoenix: 1
San Diego: 2
Dallas: 1
San Antonio: 1
Detroit: 2
San Jose: 2 (One may be culture specific)
Indianapolis: 1
San Francisco: 2
Columbus: 1
Austin: 1
Baltimore: 2
Memphis: 2
Milwaukee: 1
Boston: 2
Wash DC: 2
That's 10 out of 20, not quite matching your 80%. (The next ten make it 13 - 30)
I'm sure that the farther you go the more one newspaper towns you will find, but that
is just consumer reality, not the free market system failing. It shows the free market
is working, I would think.
How many snowmobile dealers does Miami have?
In fact locally there are two small cities, each has two papers, while the state
capital Harrisburg has one paper (and absolutly no web site. We'll it does now, just
checked, but it's not their own web-site.)
Kevin Tarr
Trump high, lead low
