I just received the annual renewal bill in the mail for my Tulsa World subscription. I currently receive the World at my home 7 days a week. $204.00 for an annual subscription renewal (plus carrier gratuity which I have always paid to the tune of around $30.)
I used to subscribe to the Tulsa Tribune for 15 years, and only switched to the World when no other local daily option became available. To be without my local Tulsa paper would be a major adjustment for me. I have really been PO'd lately about the World's blatant bias regarding the river tax issue.
Should I send them a $234.00 check or not? I thought the World might hold subscription rates at least equal to last year, since they downsized the paper to decrease newsprint costs. No such luck, as the subscription prices increased.
Just quit paying the bill, maybe they won't notice and keep delivering. Most papers will usually contact you a month or so after you let a subscription end to offer a special(cheaper) deal to resubscribe. You might go that route.
I let my subscription go a few years ago. They make no attempt to be accurate or check their facts.
The only way I would concider taking out a subscription is if they made it softer and cheaper than toilet paper.
Then atleast I would have a use for it.[}:)]
You can read the paper on the internet in .pdf format each day for free. Just like looking at the real thing.
http://www.tulsaworld.com/mm/pdf/pdfindex.aspx
You can get the paper for half of that as a new subscriber special. All you have to do is quit for 30 days to be considered a new subscriber.
Consider getting the weekend paper. That should knock the price down a bit.
Sq is right. Not sure why they screw over subscribers but you have to be "new" to get a good rate. Or perhaps if you just tell them to give you that rate or else...
I get the paper and read it almost daily, just a habit I suppose.
Weekender is like $72 annual for new subscribers. Only knocks about $30 off.
If its cost you object to then become a "new" subscriber. Just like cell phone companies, they would rather give anyone off the street a better price than long term loyal customers.
But if its content, like the bias detectors object to, get a grip. Its their newspaper and anything printed from weekly throwaways to Architectural Digest have their own biases. Learn them and keep them in mind as they pursue their agendas.
Use a newspaper to learn about what's happening in your community. Who else will give you blow by blow accounts of births, deaths, crimes, sports, weddings, comics, business openings/closings/activities, scandals, and on and on....ALL IN ONE PLACE and in a portable form that can be used to sue them with?? And even though most of it is immune to bias (either the man died or he didn't) they still tolerate and print, letters and criticism from the stupidest, least informed among us.
Its hilarious to me that people swallow up attitudes of CNN, Fox and Limbaugh in large quantities, continue to believe that the internet is a reliable, credible source of local information, yet can't abide a privately owned newspaper, whose mission statement is to serve its community,....lobbying for its views.
Hating the local newspaper is a birthright and common to all communities.
We get it at work, otherwise I'd never read it anymore. Helps pass the time in the executive washroom.
We've let our subscription lapse twice now, and they always contact us in about a month to offer us a subscription at 1/2 price.
Nick
Renew for the local listings and the "wow" factor. "Wow they are so biased." Can you get home delivery of the NY Times in your neighborhood? I can't in mine or I would subscribe. I know that all media have their bias but I have never seen a paper so nakedly pursue their own agenda. The World devotes no ink at all to the opposition. And the content is very thin at best, anyway. The local TV channels are as bad with the exception of the OETA nightly Oklahoma news report which is surprisingly excellent. If all you read is the World and all you see is Channel 6, or 8 or 2 -- you are lacking a lot of information that many here in the U.S. enjoy.
There is also a ridiculously low student rate. If you have a kid at home, as for that.