By George Capsis
Oh, wow! The ad revenue is so bad at the Times that they are leasing eight floors of their nice new 2014 building!
Their excuse is that journalists are “less collaborative” these days, which I think tells us that the old picture of a wide-open room with desks packed cheek by jowl is over. Everybody else, like WestView contributors, are working on their Macs at home, in their pajamas. But, I will share a tear with the Times on the problem of getting ads.
I have a joke, which our staffers are sick of hearing: I demand that they get an ad or be run over by a speeding cab. The response: “How fast is the cab going?”
The most joyful call I get is somebody wanting to place an ad—I instantly glow and ask if they want full-page color.
Actually, we haven’t changed our ad prices in years. They are very, very low and you can insert your business for as little as $81 a month. These days, with beer at $9 a bottle, that’s lunch for two.
I mean, you’re in the paper for a whole month! And with the monthly calendar, our readers tend to keep the paper around to check the date of that free film showing.
What I most like about our very loyal advertisers like the White Horse Tavern, Sevilla, Garber Hardware, and McNulty’s Tea & Coffee is that they have advertised for years and years; when you open the paper it’s like looking at a familiar neighborhood (McNulty’s is just so nice that they gave me a free pound of Mocha Java for Christmas).
It is this neighborhood support that I find more rewarding than the ad dollars to pay the printer.
(In the 14 years that we have been advertising for an ad sales person, we have never found one. People seem to believe that selling ads is an unnatural act, and when asked, smile an offer of “I’m no good at selling.”)
I once advertised for an actor who would play the part of an ad salesman but got no takers.
If you have never advertised, we have our 3 and 1 Promotion, which nobody turns down…
Three ads at 10% off and one ad FREE. Call me, George, at (212) 924-5718.
