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<\/a>Newspapers may be in their death throes, but they aren\u2019t dying quietly.<\/p>\n<\/a>Newspapers may be in their death throes, but they aren\u2019t dying quietly.<\/p>\n
When I wrote a column<\/a> in December about subscription rate hikes at the Billings Gazette, the column went viral \u2013 at least what passes for virility at Last Best News. Between our website, our Facebook page and the Facebook pages that shared the column, it drew well over 100 comments.<\/p>\n I\u2019ve continued to hear about it since then. A friend told me that she had just renewed her Gazette subscription for six months for a price lower than I am paying for a single month. A Helena reader said the Lee Enterprises newspapers now allow him to read only one article a day on his hand-held device.<\/p>\n \u201cMotivation?\u201d he asked. \u201cSort of like Apple slowing down old phones to force people to buy something they don’t want to buy i.e. a subscription, online or print.\u201d<\/p>\n David Crisp<\/p><\/div>\n Now it appears that similar things are happening at the Great Falls Tribune. T.J. Gilles, a former writer for the Tribune and a contributor to the old Billings Outpost and to Last Best News, sent along a link to a Facebook group<\/a> discussing what\u2019s going on at the Trib.<\/p>\n Commenters aired familiar complaints. They said their rates were going up, they were getting less news, and prices varied in wildly unpredictable ways. One canceled when the monthly rate jumped to $47 a month, then found that a friend was paying $22 \u2013 but getting billed for $27.<\/p>\n One woman\u2019s rate jumped from $32 to $51 a month, supposedly because she was on a route with few customers. Another dropped a subscription after the price went to $44 a month, while others were paying only $36.<\/p>\n One woman with a bargain rate said, \u201cWhen my paper tries to raise the rate, I call to cancel and they bargain over the rate to keep me. I\u2019m still paying the rate from before three rate increase[s].\u201d<\/p>\n Others complained about having to wait on hold for up to two hours to get a response from customer service. Some said that customer complaints are routed to North Carolina, where an answering machine takes all calls.<\/p>\n \u201cWhy in the Hell would anyone in North Carolina give rip about me and my issues,\u201d one asked. \u201cThey get paid even if they go to coffee and ignore the phone ringing!\u201d<\/p>\n One customer said that even when he suspended his subscription while spending the winter in Arizona, he continued to get billed for delivery service and holiday papers.<\/p>\n If I were running the Trib, I would worry most about the commenters who said they were giving up their subscriptions after many years \u2013 one after 63 years as a Tribune subscriber. Losing a customer like that is a punch in the gut.<\/p>\n![\"DC\"](\"http:\/\/lastbestnews.com\/site\/wp-content\/uploads\/1Crisp-mug-4.jpg\")
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<\/a><\/div><\/div>Now, some of those comments probably should be taken with a shaker or two of salt. It wasn\u2019t clear whether some subscribers were referring to digital or print subscriptions, or whether they had full seven-day-a-week subscriptions.<\/p>\n