Readers respond to Gazette adding sports pages, dropping Sunday stocks

Updated Tuesday, Aug. 16

I've received a few calls and e-mails, as expected, but not many after making the following announcement in The Gazette newspaper on Sunday, Aug. 14. The announcement was that, on Aug. 28, we will:

-- Restore two pages to our sports report in the printed Gazette.

-- Stop running the stock market week in review and weekly mutual funds pages. Weekday listings will continue, however, in the printed newspaper.

Folks who disagree with the decision have been cordial, with some suggesting that we consider adding certain mutual fund and stock reports in the daily newspaper.

I have received about half a dozen calls or e-mails from people. All but one don't like the pending change. The complaints have been less about dumping the Sunday stock listings and more about restoring two pages that had been taken away last winter for sports on Sundays. These folks have had enough wall-to-wall sports from their collective media outlets and aren't interested in more.

The move to add two sports pages is a response to strong demand people have for sports news and information, especially during the college football season. Our online sports coverage can be found here.

I pointed out to one caller that our market research shows people expecting more of us when it comes to sports. That's fine, he said, but he makes spending decisions on what he wants, not market research, and he isn't more interested in sports than in the stock listings. It was a friendly exchange and I understood the caller's position. I make the same kind of argument as a consumer of others goods. I also think, though, that The Gazette has plenty to offer.

Interestingly, rack sales of our newspaper increase after a University of Iowa football victory. Go figure.

As for the Sunday stocks in the newspaper:

The reasons for the move are:

We believe the Sunday listings aren't read enough enough to justify the amount space devoted to them because of the great majority of our readers who:

-- follow stock listings during the week.

-- follow stock listings online or another source.

We have beefed up our Sunday business report with the tab, Business 380, and website, Business380.com, to attract business-minded readers who do not rely on print for stock market listings.

We want to devote the space that now carries the stocks to expanded sports coverage, which was reduced earlier this year to make room for the stock listings.

Other points:

You still can read stock market listings in The Gazette newspaper:

-- Daily listings for the previous day's close of selected stocks of local interest are in the Money section on Tuesdays through Saturdays and will remain there.

-- Readers several years ago selected in a survey those stocks that run in the daily newspaper.

The Gazette went through a period in which it did not run the Sunday stock and mutual funds reviews. The features have been in the newspaper since May 10, 2009.

You can check real-time stock updates are available online at our site, Business380.com.

You are reading this blog post online so you likely get your

stock market information online. But as the caller I cited noted before, some people like to get information with the kind of ease a printed newspaper delivers.