Newspaper logic: same day delivery should cost nine cents?
When I saw the headline, “USPS uses child’s ploy to ask for more and more”, I naturally assumed it was another Sam Ryan hatchet job. But I was mistaken- the editorial in the Marshfield, MO Mail was actually written by the publisher, Dave Berry. (You can tell he’s the publisher, and not the editor, by his style: “But nothing can make me like anything about the USPS asking for a 30 percent rate increase while counting on me to feel as if I’ve won if they eventually get half or even only a third of what they requested.” Can someone diagram that sentence?)
Dave’s problem with the USPS is twofold- he doesn’t like the new rates, and he doesn’t like the idea that the USPS wants to charge more for items that need to be sorted by hand- like, well, newspapers.
Dave specifically finds fault with the increase in rates for “In-County” periodicals, which he says will go up as much as thirty percent under the proposed rates. What Dave doesn’t mention is exactly what the current price is. If you take a look at the most recent USPS RPW report, you’ll find that so far this year the US Postal Service has handled 373 million pieces of In-County Periodical mail. For the same period, the USPS has taken in 34.8 million dollars in revenue for that mail. Do the math- the average postage on an In County paper is 9.3 cents! A thirty percent increase would boost that to a positively astronomical twelve cents!!
Not only that, but Dave contends that the new rate structure would “force our local papers to leave the local post office to be sorted elsewhere before coming back to the local post office for delivery. Gone would be same-day local delivery.”
Can you believe that? Not only will it cost twelve cents, but it might not be delivered the same day?
According to Dave, this is crazy, because he is positive the USPS is making a profit delivering his papers for nine cents apiece. Now at this point, you would think that Dave would just take his business elsewhere. After all, if it’s so obviously profitable to distribute newspapers for nine cents each, there must be tons of folks clamoring to get into the business. But no- Dave seems slavishly loyal to the good old post office. He says that “It’s going to cost our industry a lot of money to prove to postal officials that they are making a profit on the business we do with them”.
Hunh? If it’s obvious, it shouldn’t take much cash to prove it, right?
Unless of course, “proving it” means greasing enough lobbyist’s palms to get continued subsidies for in county papers written into postal reform legislation. But Dave couldn’t possibly mean that, could he?
Ozarks Newsstand - USPS uses child’s ploy to ask for more and more
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May 29th, 2006 12:40
That’s a pretty good reply, Had me laughing.
September 2nd, 2006 12:30
Here’s the text of the original piece, which is no longer available at the newspaper’s web site:
My 4-year-old grandson knows how to negotiate. Experience has taught him that he is more likely to end up with two new toys if he first asks for four.
U.S. Postal Service officials haven’t forgotten what it’s like to be a kid. They do the same thing when asking the Postal Rate Commission for rate hikes.
However, there is a difference. My grandson is cute and I love him even when he outwits me. But nothing can make me like anything about the USPS asking for a 30 percent rate increase while counting on me to feel as if I’ve won if they eventually get half or even only a third of what they requested.
If the USPS actually gets what it’s asking for, beginning in mid-2007 it would cost an average of 25 percent more to mail newspapers to in-county subscribers. For some publishers, the price hike would be as high as 30 percent.
This is part of the same rate case that would take first-class stamps to 42 cents next year.
But that isn’t the worst news coming out of the USPS in regard to our business and you as our customer. If they can’t chase us away with rates, they appear determined to do it with policy. In the name of automation, they want to impose standards that would force out of the mail stream products the shape of a newspaper, or at least force our local papers to leave the local post office to be sorted elsewhere before coming back to the local post office for delivery.
Gone would be same-day local delivery. We might not even get second-day delivery locally. On top of that, they and we would be spending more money to make service slower.
Local postal officials recognize a customer when they see one and they know how to take care of customers. We have terrific experiences with local post offices. They know us and they know you and they want both of us to be served. I see it-and I appreciate it-every single week.
And we get terrific cooperation from folks at the Springfield Sectional Center, where they have demonstrated a genuine interest in making things work better for all of us. Hopefully, all of our out-of-state subscribers are seeing quicker delivery most recently as a result of some of those efforts.
Unfortunately, it must make too much sense for people at the local level to actually be trying to win customer support with good service, because the people at the top seem determined to react to a declining customer base by driving more customers away.
Indeed the postal service is losing customers at the same time its mandated service area is expanding. That’s not a good position in which to be, and I agree that changes must occur. But driving away more customers is not part of the answer.
The fight is long from over. It’s going to cost our industry a lot of money to prove to postal officials that they are making a profit on the business we do with them and that driving away a profitable customer base, especially one that has been at their side in trying to win Congressional and White House approval on some key funding issues, is not the right answer.
Therein is another apparent difference between my grandson and the USPS brass. He knows where cash comes from and he knows how to keep it flowing his way.
February 7th, 2007 23:30
I don’t work for a newspaper and don’t have to deal with the in-county increase, but you do realize that a weekly newspaper delivering to a circulation base of 20,000 is looking at an increase in rates of $31,200 over the course of a year? I think it’s important to look at it from that perspective. You laugh at 3 cents, but that can have a big dent on the bottom line for the local paper.