Exactly

An excerpt from Bronstein at Large:

I get two newspapers delivered at home: The [San Francisco] Chronicle and the New York Times. The Times hits the step somewhere between 4 and 5 a.m. The Chronicle gets there before 6. Both papers are in existential trouble despite good work and 300 years of accumulated history between them.

So even in the face of the threats to our survival, there are still at least two different people and two entirely different delivery systems in place to get two newspapers to the same address in the same couple of hours. Really? In what rational world does that make sense? Why is that a good idea for businesses on the brink?

I’ve had the same thought when The New York Times and The Albuquerque Journal were delivered on my street at different times by different people. Why?

But, on the other hand, the banks f***ed up, the automakers f***ed up, Mervyn’s and Circuit City and Bennigan’s aren’t around anymore. Why should we think that newspapers are run by intelligent people? Why should they be different?

6 thoughts on “Exactly”

  1. Re: Intelligent people running businesses

    One of the things that amazes me, as I get older and more experienced in business, is that any business ever succeeds. A long time ago, Martin Mull described Hollywood as “high school with money,” and I’ve found that to be true of every business I’ve ever had contact with.

    People, in general, are petty and confused, and business is no better. One of the lessons we need to take away from all of this is that there needs to be a limit on how big businesses are allowed to grow. No one should be “too big to fail.”

    The other lesson is that Congress should set up a commission to study the permeation of conventional wisdom. When any belief becomes accepted by more than 80% of the public, whatever that belief is should be legislated against. If someone had stepped in a few years ago and legislated against the assumption that housing prices always go up, we wouldn’t be in this fix. We’d be in another fix, I’m certain, but it wouldn’t be this bad.

  2. I guess I don’t see the point; just because the delivered items are both newspapers doesn’t make it business stupid that they’re delivered by 2 different people. What about newspaper and milk delivery. Is the dairy business stupid for not combining delivery to include the newspaper?

    And the comment is egocentric. Of the 2 delivery systems, suppose there’s only 1% duplication of delivery addresses (likely only just Bronstein). Does that 1% make the 2 newspaper businesses stupid for ignoring it? Obviously not since the “cost” of addressing the 1% likely swamps any savings.

  3. Well Carl, I will rest my case on the fact that we are discussing an industry — newspapers — that relied on 12-year-olds to deliver its product for a century.

  4. The carriers for the newspaper that I work at deliver at least three different newspapers. And I’m not quite sure but I do believe that they also deliver the New York Times and USA Today on their routes.

    We had five people laid off on Friday.

    Yes, tough times ahead for everyone.

    Well, except for the funeral homes. It seems that there have been lots of obituaries in the past couple of weeks.

  5. “Da Newspaper Boy” delivers 350 Albuquerque Journals and 25 Wall Street Journals every morning at 5am. It has been a good second job that has helped fund college costs for my kids at Stanford, University of Chicago, Cornell, University of Michigan and NYU. The Albuquerque Publishing Company negotiated the delivery of the WSJ after the Tribune stopped publishing. Some of the other carriers also deliver the NY Times and USA Today but do not deliver them at the same time as they have a different distribution system to get the product to the carrier. They are different corporations with similar products who compete for the same customer. The WSJ with its focus on the markets and a much smaller customer base doesn’t compete with the Albuquerque Journal.

    PS: Don’t forget to tip your carrier. He/She is a independent contractor who absorbs the delivery and supply costs as well as paying the publishing company for the paper. The carrier provides this service 365 days a year regardless of the weather.

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