And, I’m sorry, VegaBean. I actually meant to post this to samclem’s thread.
But I guess he’ll see it here.
I have no clue as to why.
For crying out loud, Sam, I merely listed two papers that permit advertising in their sports sections, but said advertising is remarkably sparse. It more or less echoes the OP’s experience with his hometown newspaper, The SF Chrinicle.
Don’t you think Roderick Femm’s (of the SF Chronicle) post surprising? QUOTE
“I haven’t looked at today’s Sports section, but I can quite believe there was no advertising there. There would be advertising if advertisers wanted to run there. Typically most don’t.” (emphasis added)
If I were trying to reach men in the SF area with my ads, I’d damn sure consider advertising in the Chronicle’s sports pages — especially if I’d be the only advertiser there. So would a hell of a lot of other advertisers.
I find the situation baffling. Three papers, zero to a pittance of ads in their sports sections. There’s a reason. Big advertisers do their homework. Homework seems to say, avoid the sports pages. But why?
I have an idea of what might be going on. I’ve noticed over the last few years that there’s been a lot of ads for ::ahem:: massage parlors located in the Sports section. Could it be that after some complaints, they got rid of the massage parlor ads, but in order to be all legal with regards to equal opportunity and stuff, they decided to just not have ads in the Sports section at all?
Sports pages tend to be some of the last pages to go into the paper and the stories on those pages tend to be the least cutable to fit available space because of statistics and such. Often when asked by composing how much space he needs, a sports editor will say he needs a full page (especially on weekends and Mondays when sports are so featured).
On other pages, stories are often “cut to fit” but that is not as common on sports pages. It still happens, but not quite as frequently. I know of some papers, I am not that familiar with the Chronicle, that tell composing not put ads on sports pages since you are never sure just how much space sports stories are going to take up of the assigned pages until the last minute. House ads (or ads for the paper itself) can be made to fit any space left over.
Ads are generally dropped into a paper days ahead of actual day the paper runs. House ads can be put in at the last minute. For instance take a look at the classified pages and see all of the house ads that are there in case any last minute sales come up. If there are no house ads, you have a very robust economy.
Newspaper people hate to pull ads so they can get all of a story on a page but they will do it if the story is not cutable and absolutely must go in, but it most often happens with sports. It is easier to just not run ads (and less offensive to people who had their ads pulled) on those pages especially if there is a limited number of sports pages and a lot of sports going on.
TV
Thanks very much for your superb explanation.
The Beacon Journal is a well-respected paper.
For a bit of international perspective I have Sunday’s Sun-Herald at hand. The sports section is the back 32 pages - there is a 1/4 page ad on the back page, another on the 3rd from the back, a full page hair loss ad 23 pages in and a 1/2 page beer ad over the page. At the other end of the paper the first 30 pages have ads (some full page), then after 2 pages of letters and editorials come 29 more pages with ads.
Quite a neat little mystery - worthy of some phonecalls tomorrow.
To begin with, please read TV time’s post, above. (#24, I think.) It tells all.
Not in San Francisco. Sin is big business. There were 40-foot signs of neon topless dancers on Columbus avenue. And the massage parlors and escort services are on the movie pages.
I’m sure this happens in every section. The main news, world news, and local news especially. A sudden murder wave, a fire still burning, etc. Anyway, in the business the newspaper is considered an advertising sheet with a “news hole”, not the other way around.
The difference is that there is a significant proportion of the newspaper reading public who are keenly interested in getting all the sports news and will throw a fit if anything’s cut. Compared to other parts of the paper, sports (and comics) are relatively sacrosanct.
Sorry, but I have to disagree. All the regular-deadline sections of the paper are laid out at the same time, including sports. Last-minute moving (or worse yet, removing) of paid ads would be an event of some moment, and just does not happen very often.
As someone noted above, adult ads are located with other “entertainment” in another section, so those ads would not be in sports in our paper. I am not a regular reader of the sport section, but I believe that the most frequent advertisers are auto aftermarket (parts, etc.), some auto dealers and auto manufacturers, and some general interest (such as the cellphone ad noted in an earlier post). Why aren’t there more of these, or more types of advertisers in sports? I will try to find out.
And in turn, I will have to disagree with you.
Sports is written and laid out when it is convenient, and that varies based on the newspaper. At the small local daily where I used to work, we covered mainly highschool sports. These mostly occur in the evening where other “hard news” occurs all day (and evening) long. Most of the non-sports reporters worked during the day, most of the sports reporters worked at night. Sports was laid out right after it was written (late at night), while news was laid out the next morning (we were an afternoon paper).
I do agree that removing an ad is a huge deal and is almost never done. It would be more likely that an ad is removed because of an error (and it would have to be a particularly egregious error) than because of space. Moving ads from page to page is rare as well (i.e. I’ve never seen it happen, but I’ve only been around the business for three years). Moving ads from one place to another on the same page happens occasionally, usually just to make the “news hole” a more convenient shape to fill.
As for ads, generally the ads department and the news department are kept separate (i.e. the people who lay out the stories and photos are not the same people who lay out the ads…) and the pages are set up by ads well in advance. Thus, as a designer, you have to fit the stories into the space provided and not the other way around. I’ve asked editors to cut stories or photographers to crop photos numerous times, rather than move or cut ads. It’s just not done.
I’ll also echo TV Time’s sentiments about house ads. If there’s a little extra space at the bottom of a page, a house ad can be made quickly, on the spot, and to fit any size and shape. These allow for a lot more flexibility when designing a page, and additionally can serve as cost-free advertising for other parts of the paper (e.g. they can direct readers to the weather page or to the paper’s website, where they will presumably see other, paid ads).
Finally, I have no idea why sports would be ad-free. I’m currently working on a college paper (a specialized market, perhaps), and am the primary sports designer. From what I hear, the advertisers love the sports pages, because it’s the most targeted space you can get (in our paper at least). We have one bar who sponsors the agate page, and another who has a large ad there every day.
I apologize for not being clear. By “laid out” I meant that the ad positions and news hole are determined at that time. Of course, the news stories flow in after that in whatever sequence is best for the news staff.
I have asked around, and the consensus here seems to be that for most of our advertisers, the sports section is too targeted. That is, as a major metropolitan newspaper we generally attract advertisers who want to appeal to a broad range of people, and relatively few advertisers who want to appeal to the narrower, targeted market in sports. This doesn’t seem terribly intuitive to me, but I sort of understand it, and it would likely be different for smaller market newspapers.
It doesn’t make much sense to me either, but the market doesn’t always have to.
The thing that seems to stand out the most to me is that advertising in Sports or in the News section costs the same. Perhaps people feel that advertising in the News or Business section is more bang for the buck?
It just goes to show you that efficiency is not the natural result of a free market.