To Our Readers
BY and large, the new Star-Bulletin that we launched back on March 15 under David Black's ownership has been extremely well-received by readers. Coming soon:
More news and more
sections, tooThat's been very gratifying to us, but it wasn't entirely unexpected. Every readership study we've seen over the last two decades made it crystal clear that Hawaii readers wanted more news of all types in their paper.
So, we've been giving them more. The new Star-Bulletin has more local news, more local business news, more features, sports, entertainment, letters to the editor and commentary. The comics are bigger and easier to read.
Our national and international news reports are expanded and we're running more pictures, too -- both color and black-and-white.
We've also enlarged the Saturday paper and added weekly pages about neighborhoods, our military, religion and schools.
What we didn't immediately expand were the numbers of sections and advertisements. Newspapers rely on ad revenue, so our new sales force -- now integrated with that of sister newspaper, MidWeek -- is working hard to build up our advertising base.
We're happy, for example, to have The Daiei join us in this week's Sunday Star-Bulletin.
Many readers have told us that they miss one advertisement or another, but many more say they want more sections.
One day recently, the Star-Bulletin had 44 pages in two sections. Our competition had 44 pages, too, but in seven sections. Although we had more pages of news than they did on that day, readers said they saw less, since we didn't have separate sections for sports, business and features.
We've also had to combine sections on Sunday, creating some strange bedfellows, such as the Travel and Insight sections.
To print four broadsheet sections at once we need to add some press equipment called upper formers. After a search for existing units came up dry, we've ordered a set of formers custom manufactured for our press.
The good news is that the new equipment is on its way. By July, we expect to return to a four-section daily paper and on Sundays there'll be sections galore -- no more mixed plates.
Eh, you done with the comics?
John Flanagan is editor and publisher of the Star-Bulletin.
To reach him call 529-4748, fax to 529-4750, send
e-mail to publisher@starbulletin.com or write to
500 Ala Moana Blvd., Suite 7-500, Honolulu, Hawaii 96813.