Oh, To Be Ann Arbor

Time magazine reports that the publishers of the Ann Arbor News -- Advance Publications -- shut down the town's only daily, which was losing money, and replaced it with a website, AnnArbor.com, and a companion print edition that comes out on Thursdays and Sundays.

This is a fabulous idea, and as soon as the Times-Dispatch turns its next money-losing corner, it should do it, (and make those two print editions tabloids.)

Advance Publications, owned by the Newhouse family, is saving on newsprint, printing and delivery. A staff of 316 has been reduced to 60. They link to 80 bloggers, who are paid little or nothing and don't require health insurance or retirement benefits. The covered news is decidedly local and refreshingly interactive.

And here's some brilliant thinking outside the box: web readers rate the web ads and the ad voted the best deal of the week gets a coveted space on the cover of the Sunday print edition. (Way to get people to look at the ads!)

Ann Arbor is also blessed with a couple who provide extensive, exhaustive coverage of local government and civic association meetings on their own website, a site that gets so much traffic, they're able to make it their full-time and only jobs. An alternative monthly is thriving, and so is a new start-up weekly, all picking up the advertising that once went in the daily.

This sounds like an exciting media town even if it's a major municipality without a daily newspaper.