September 1st, 2011 
joel 
First Press and Tower Post - Sept. 1, 2008
Three years ago today Press and Tower was born.
Since our humble beginnings on Sept. 1, 2008, we’ve generated 488 posts, received 3,362 approved comments, and almost 160,000 visits to the site, including almost 18,000 different visitors in the past year. Our Facebook page for Erie radio old-timers called “We Rocked Erie in the 20th Century” has over 220 group members from across the country engaged in lively conversation about their days in the Flagship City.
This was a year of celebration and sadness; great improvements and unfortunate setbacks.
We mourned the passing of Frank, Chris, Al, and Bob. Rupolo went to Florida, Nat The Hat to Texas, Cassie to NYC, and Joey to OneCarribeanWeather.com. Even the Jennings rejoined the South.
Sadly, GlobalErie fell off the face of the earth, and we lost 40 skilled workers and about 12 column inches per page when the newspaper outsourced the actual newspaper part of their business south of the border; the Venango County border that is.
But we also gained, especially in the area of a rebounding advertising climate, the embracing of social media and new technology, and some strong investment in the product that the Erie media consumer can benefit from. We now have a fun old-time TV Low Power TV digtial trio, and are getting at least one new FM station, while a couple AM’s simulcast on FM translators now. And the GoErie iPad app is coming.
Don’t forget, as Sean and Kim remind us consistently, we can “Like” them on Facebook or follow them on Twitter!
Let me just say that I “Like!” and appreciate each of you for reading, commenting, encouraging and supporting this effort. I am always open to ideas for improving this special community of consumers and producers and would love your feedback. Thank you for being gracious when my editing gets heavy handed, and for understanding that in the end we all want excellent, responsive, interactive media that improves our community and quality of life. We are all “for Erie.”
That makes this little “two cans and a string” of a media voice worth all of the effort. Thank you…and on to year four!
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Deep Background for September 2011
Is your hometown newspaper experiencing “shrinkage”?
What apparently seems to be an unintended consequence of outsourcing the Erie Times News to the Butler Eagle is the actual shortening of the newspaper by about 2 1/4 inches, losing in the vicinity of 12 column inches per page. This rather significant reduction in available space is forcing the layout folks to be “creative” in presenting their regular features. So instead of having the weekly Sunday “Work Orders” feature all contained at the bottom of the front of the City/Region section, we just get a picture, with the story behind the dilapidated building after the jump to a page inside. The use of the eye-catching bottom strip ad 6 columns wide also seems to be greatly limited since the move to Butler.
Maybe these trade-offs are no big deal to the average reader, but to me it seems that these changes have put a damper on the innovative design and ad opportunities that won awards and happy customers for the paper.
Whether it’s minutia like column inches lost or dead air, or big stuff like job changes and format predictions, we talk about it all in the open forum. Drop a comment in below, or via e-mail, or by Twitter @pressandtower.
Embrace the chaos!