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Advantage to go all digital in 2024 By Nick Darr Big Z Media “Change is risky, but staying the same is even riskier.” That’s a quote from Carey Nieuwhof that hit home as we announce a significant change to the future of Big Z Media and this publication. This will be the last physically printed and mailed edition of the AdVantage newspaper. It’s a decision we’ve made after much thought, analysis, and debate. For the record, this isn’t the end of AdVantage. We will continue to provide much of the content that we have produced since 1986, only the delivery method is changing. We’re going all digital in 2024 and not only will we not reduce staff, we plan on adding new team members. You’ll still be able to find great local news and sports stories, local columnists, information about local businesses, and much more at advantagenews.com.
physical publication to over 50,000 households has always been an inefficient way to distribute content, but in the last 5-10 years it’s become even more inefficient for two major reasons: The size of the audience consuming information via a physical print publication has been, is, and will continue to decline in the coming years. Combine that with the unfortunate reality
of continual increases in printing and postage costs and the print and mail distribution model graduates from inefficient to inviable.
We understand that this will be an unpopular decision for many of you, our loyal readers, but we hope that the increase in content we’ll now be able to provide will far outweigh the benefit of being able to read the physical version of the paper. On the plus side, the content you love will now be available daily instead of just once per month.
This is not a decision based on financial hardship, but one based on a vision of the future that we feel provides the best way to serve our audience and our advertisers. As mentioned, we’ll continue to provide the great content we always have online at advantagnews. com, on the radio on 1570 AM, 107.1 FM, on our music station, My Mix 94.3 FM and on our AdVantage News social media pages.
Why are we doing this? Printing and mailing a
We’ll also be announcing several new initiatives
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in the months to follow that will greatly serve our audience and the area’s small business community. Our small businesses are the key to the success of any community growth initiatives that may be proposed and executed in the coming years, and finding the best way to connect our audience with those businesses is our company’s primary mission.
When Big Z Media purchased AdVantage in April of 2021, it was important to us that we honor and continue the great work of previous owners: Sharon McRoy and Jim Seibold, Jayne and John Simmons, and Sharon’s son, Eric McRoy. They created an incredibly important resource for our community, and we believe the decision to move to a 100% digital model allows us to continue their great work for decades to come. Thank you for being a loyal reader of AdVantage. We hope you’ll continue to enjoy what we produce for you on a daily basis, just in a different way. 3