Jump to content
Cornwall Football Forum

SUNDAY INDEPENDENT TO COST £2 FROM NEXT WEEK


Recommended Posts

It seems the Sunday Independent is increasing its cost from £1.50 to £2 next week. A whopping 33% increase. The price rise was hidden away on page 28. It says it is going to have a 144 page edition starting this week – an unbeatable package of information and entertainment. Really. Yes they have increased coverage of other sports and are to be applauded for it.

I bought it this week to see if they had changed their reporting of local football. Sadly not. An example:

 

HELLENIC League 8 Divisions - ONE match report – nothing from Premier Division

WESSEX League 2 Divisions - 3 small reports

GLOUCESTER COUNTY League - Full review

WILTSHIRE Senior League - Full review

SOMERSET County League - 4 Divisions Plenty of scores NO scorers

BATH & DISTRICT League - Plenty of reports NO scorers

BRISTOL SUBURBAN League - plenty of matches few reports and even less scorers

DORSET League - plenty of matches few scorers

DEVON League - need I say more

DEVON & EXETER League - Same as above

NORTH DEVON League - not a single goal scorer

St PIRAN League - Incomplete in fact embarrassing

CORNWALL COMBINATION League - Best not to comment

EAST CORNWALL League – need I say more

DUCHY League – tried their best but very incomplete

TRELAWNY League – more incomplete rubbish

 

This papers lifeblood was built on local sport especially football. Offering someone a tenner to do a complete review is insulting. So what do we get. A saving of about £500 or in sales soon to be £2 of 250 papers. So how do they recoup that as well as paying out for HUGE great stories that readers lose track of after a few paragraphs. You got it, put the price up. Could this be the end of the paper that we all grew up with and loved under John Collins and Kevin Marriott. It was great when the paper was saved but unfortunately papers have to be sold to survive. Gone are the days when we regularly bought the paper just to read about our local club or see our names in print. Nope it is the delusional reasoning that seems to think that people will read ream upon ream of absolute tosh. Do people not realise that in today's world our attention span is much lower, we have the internet, twitter and facebook to deal with as well. But no, these people know best.

 

Look at the mess they have made of women's football. Could they not use bullet marks to separate different stories. It was the same when I wrote it, but no a simple bullet mark would have sufficed. It is the same in the men's game. Does anyone want to read through line after line to get to what they want to read about, their club, their name. It seems that County football in the women's game doesn't count any more because it is not being reported on. So nothing to read about in the Cornwall, Devon, Dorset, Somerset, Gloucestershire and Wiltshire leagues. I asked the paper to have a separate page for Bristol City as they are the regions sole professional female club. Nah, seems like lack of interest. How on earth do you attract readers.

 

It is a shame but to increase the cost of the paper to people who don't see their club or names mentioned is nonsensical. They have a full set of results in the result section so why repeat the scores in a nonsensical round up. I used to put the scorers in for virtually every women's game. But no, they can't even be bothered to do that.

 

Any newspaper boss will tell you that sales are down and people have to work harder to attract new readers. The Indy is the only regional paper that reports on matches the day after. It isn't rocket science to try and attract readers. But no we have to plough through page after page of absolute drivel. Wake up Indy or it will all be gone.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
×
×
  • Create New...