Miss. Paper Shifts to Afternoon Publication

By: Jim Rosenberg As the summer ended, the Delta Democrat Times in Greenville, Miss., reverted to afternoon publication, and last month it took on production of its sister paper to the south, The Clarksdale Press Register.

The DDT's was converted to the morning cycle in 1998 by former owner Freedom Communications, but when Emmerich Newspapers acquired it in 2001, many readers asked for a return to afternoon deliveries, according to owner Wyatt Emmerich. A subsequent survey showed the 9,317-circulation newspaper's customers were equally split between morning and afternoon preferences.

"We're still glad we did it," Emmerich said, two months later. As far as any effect on circulation, he added, "I think it's too early to tell, long-term, what will happen." But afternoon papers, he continued, typically do better in Mississippi, and in his market, mornings mean competing with a couple of metro dailies for readers' attention.

Single copies now go on sale by noon, and subscribers receive their papers by late afternoon. Sunday and holiday editions still show up in the early morning.

The eight-unit Goss Urbanite press in Greenville now also prints the 5,798-circulation Press Register in the same shift, thanks not only to the DDT's reversion to afternoon publishing, but also to Clarksdale's electronic page transmission capability and the implementation of computer-to-plate imaging.

Since printing moved 75 miles downriver, the Press Register "absolutely" runs more editorial and advertising color, said Emmerich.

Given the change of press and change of schedule, both dailies also look better these days: "When a paper's printed at one in the morning," Emmerich remarked, "quality control is a little hard to enforce."

Good color quality was hard to come by on Clarksdale's 30-year-old King Press Daily King, which also had printed several weeklies. Last December's closure of King Press, said pressman James Martin, also has complicated repair work.

Quoted by his paper at a party for the final press run in Clarksdale, head pressman Rick Thompson said that for its age, the press "did a good job," but that it was designed for spot color, not process color.

Martin recalled the day not long after starting his job when the publisher asked him and an assistant to print the paper themselves. "The only two people back there who could run the press," he said, were out -- one preaching, and the other cooking at the Delta Jubilee.