Those who have been in this business of newspapers for any length of time remember the days when midsize daily newspapers printed several editions a day. Often afternoon papers – for a long time the dominant breed over morning dailies – printed early editions for newsrack sales, several home delivery editions and a final (sometimes called a red star for the red stars in the upper right hand corner) that was for street and rack sales, because it included the final stock prices (the markets closed about 3 p.m. Eastern time then).
These various editions followed the basic tenets of good newspaper design – except usually for the first and final street sales editions that featured larger headlines and often slightly sensational lead stories (the easier to extract your two bits even though you knew a home-delivery edition awaited you at your residence).
The early editions of these papers were often called “bulldogs” because they doggedly fought for readership. The term bulldog probably dates back to the 1890s and the days of so-called yellow journalism (you have no idea how sensational these papers really were), when editors took pride in the number of papers they sold on the street. Young boys hawked them on every corner.
But many large daily newspapers in metropolitan areas have brought back the idea of the bulldog edition by offering on Saturdays a hybrid of Sunday newspaper inserts, coupons and advertisements along
with a section that offers a Saturday sports section and a four-page wrap that summarizes some of the big stories of the week and previews what is coming up during the next week for readers.
The Tribune stepped up with the big boys last week, putting out its first Saturday bulldog edition that offered buyers more than $225 in coupons for $1.50.
Sales of the new edition met expectations, according to Brent Low, president and CEO of the Newspaper Agency Corp. – the company that sells the ads, prints and distributes the two papers that own it, The Tribune and The Deseret Morning News.
“We knew that other dailies in larger metro areas were doing these Saturday packages with the Sunday advertising inserts, so we knew there was a market for it,” he said. “The first weekend did not go as smoothly as we had hoped, but we did have sellouts in some areas and we sold just under 2,500 copies. We expect to sell more this weekend and subsequent weekends.”
Low expected that some subscribers to The Salt Lake Tribune E-edition might want to buy the Saturday package to get the Sunday ads, and he said people who read The Tribune online at www.sltrib.com might also be interested in buying the bulldog package.
“We knew there were some people who wanted to get their ads on Saturday so they could plan their shopping for later in the week. And, we thought, in this culture there might be some people who did not want to buy a paper on Sunday, but would love to have the Sunday ads on Saturday,” Low said.
Newspaper editors still care about street sales for their product. But they also care about convenience and offering enough products to meet the needs of all those hungry for the news.
“This is another way to serve our readers,” said Tribune Editor Nancy Conway. “Over the past two years, The Tribune has launched five new products. Close-up covers neighborhood news in eight different Salt Lake County and Davis County communities; Fronteras aims at our Latino communities; In Utah This Week is an entertainment tab; the E-edition is a digital edition that is an exact duplicate of the printed Tribune. Now we have the bulldog.
“We know our readers get news in a variety of ways,” Conway said. “Another product we are continuously developing is our online publication, sltrib.com. It is becoming the local source for breaking news and the most comprehensive local news source of record for anyone interested in Utah news.”
The Tribune’s new Sunday Preview edition – aimed at readers who want store coupons, classifieds and other Sunday advertisements a day early as well as The Tribune’s Travel, Living and Opinion sections, the weekly television booklet and Sunday comics – is available beginning after noon on Saturdays at select Albertsons, Harmons, Stan’s, Wal-Mart, Maverik and 7-Eleven outlets in Salt Lake, Davis, Utah, Summit and Wasatch counties. (Not all of the stores in these chains will have the edition.)
