A sad day in Birmingham, the Birmingham Post-Herald has ceased publication.
Growing up in the Magic City, I read the Post Herald which was the morning paper in town. The Birmingham News published in the afternoon.
The Post brought us sports columnists Paul Finebaum and Bill Lumpkin and probably the most famous Birmingham newspaper man, Howell Raines.
It was an aggressive newspaper. The smaller paper in town, it could take chances.
Things changed. In 1996, in the event that likely spelled it’s future doom, the Post switched to an afternoon paper while the larger “newspaper of record”, B’ham News moved to a morning publication. That change resulted in a drop in circulation. When it died last week, only 7,500 people picked up the paper.
Birmingham simply could not support two daily newspapers.
I’ve been hearing the same thing about television stations the past decade. Even without the internet people began saying some markets would not be able to support 4 or even 3 television news departments. The ad revenue just wouldn’t be there forever. It’s already happening in some markets as news departments now produce newscasts on more than one station. I wonder how much longer it will be before some stations to decide it just can’t do it anymore.
Goodbye Birmingham Post-Herald, and thanks.
Jamey the WB station in Birmingham is doing exactly that next week. They are shutting down their news department and letting the CBS station produce their news. About a year ago the same thing occured in Chattanooga. The Fox station there shut down their news department and they started letting another station do their news as well.