When the U.K. tabloid newspaper
Daily Mail inserted copies of CDs by Peter Gabriel, Dolly Parton, Duran Duran and UB40 to try and jump-start sagging newsstand sales, nobody got really bent out
of shape. But when the paper recently gave away Prince's new album weeks before its official launch, music retailers had had enough. "It is an insult to all those record stores who have supported
Prince throughout his career. It is yet another example of the damaging covermount culture [that is what they call inserting CDs and/or DVDs into newspapers across the pond] which is destroying any
perception of value around recorded music," the co-chairman of the Entertainment Retailers Association ranted.
While we wait breathlessly for the Recording Industry Association of
America--which has endeared itself to teens and college kids across the nation by suing them--to tell us why this is somehow different from "illegally" downloading songs, you have to laugh when one
endangered species threatens another. What it tells me is that retailers like HMV have stopped buying enough dead-tree display-ad inventory for the Mail to give a crap about hurting their
sales. But the funniest statement came from a Mail spokesguy who said music retailers are "living in the old days and haven't developed their businesses sufficiently." Talk about the pot
calling the kettle black! You don't see the Virgin Megastore dropping free newspapers into buyers' shopping bags as an incentive to buy a CD (and U.K. newspapers have lots of pix of great-looking
topless babes!).
In New York, the newspapers are constantly hawking sweepstakes where you can win a bazillion dollars if you buy the paper. Or they insert a cheesy photo of a bygone Yankees
team (I guess since the current Bronx Bombers kinda suck). One extraordinarily desperate paper gave itself away free in the affluent suburbs every day for a couple of weeks. Which resulted in roadside
litter usually reserved for post-prom beer cans. Not to mention hysterically angry letters to, you guessed it, the local paper complaining about the unwanted home deliveries.
Where I live,
newspapers would have to insert $100 bills to get most of my neighbors to even bend down and pick up a paper they normally wouldn't read. Given the average age of newspaper readers, bending down is no
small thing. And even then the kids here are too spoiled and lazy to go door-to-door after the delivery and steal the money. Too much like work, ya know.
But I could warm up to the idea of
newspapers bribing me to buy them. They just need "covermounts" a little more creative than a Prince CD. A free oil change and a car wash would have some appeal, but only if they assigned an
investigative reporter to make sure the quick-oil-change shop wasn't trying to upsell me to solve problems that my car doesn't really have (something they routinely do.)
It would be cool if
The New York Times, instead of periodically raising its home delivery price, would lower it in appreciation of the fact that I have been a subscriber for about 40 years, and haven't canceled my
pricey subscription to read it all online like everyone else.
I might be incented to try a new paper if it offered a coupon to hire one of those consultants that help get your kid into college. Or
if it sent me a box of steaks with an ironclad guarantee that I would never get any follow-up snail mail from the beef retailer. Something that does not happen in nature.
Better yet, how
about a paper that will promise to customize its content to my liking (more high school sports, no food columns, etc.) and fire off a copy into my email inbox about 6 a.m. so that the news isn't left
over from last night? Hmmm, that or a Prince CD? You make the call.