06/02/09 Sign Of The Times: The Incredibly Small And Shrinking Greenwich Time

The Headlines:

LESS NEWS MORE MONEY: The Money Losing Greenwich Time Has Never Been Venerable - But Now, More Than Ever, It's Vulnerable.

In An Effort To Wring Out More Savings From The Cash Strapped Greenwich Time Hearst Newspapers Has Been Shrinking The Number Of Pages In Each Issue Of The Newspaper

The Quotes:

"The Greenwich Time has always been a mediocre newspaper, but now a days it's a much smaller mediocre newspaper. Three years ago the Greenwich Time was at least a third larger.", says a Town Hall Insider.

"The Greenwich Time is so thin every morning I have to walk down the street to see where the wind blew it today", complains a single family homeowner in Greenwich.

The Story:

Cutting back news pages is the newest method of cutting costs at the cash strapped Greenwich Time which struggling to stay a float amid a local advertising slump.

A message seeking comment about the size reduction at the Greenwich Time was not returned by post time. However, Greenwich Time / Stamford Advocate employees tell Greenwich Roundup that Hearst Newspaper managers call the page reductions a "design change" that helps the company save money.

Employees were told that the Greenwich Time and the Stamford Advocate had not been seriously redesigned in over a decade and the current downsizing would be the "perfect opportunity to reinvent the look and feel" of the newspapers.

Also insiders Greenwich Time staffers are saying the paper has over the years started publishing fewer features and supplements.

However, Hearst newspaper managers have told employees that future cutbacks will be "a shave and not a hatchet job." The few remaining Greenwich Time employees have left little doubt that they are not happy with news pages being cut back.

One Greenwich Time staffer said,"It is something I would rather have not seen."

But the staffer also conceded that Hearst Newspapers has to find lots of ways to find money and stop the bleeding at the Greenwich Time.

Others say over the years the Greenwich Time has seen it's advertising shrink 40 %. Everyone in town is aware of the low ad and classified count at the newspaper.

Meanwhile, the newspaper recently boosted it's price 50 % to seventy five cents from fifty cents a daily copy. Some say there may soon be a Sunday price increase too.

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