BY SHAVANA ABRUZZO | A dollar doesn’t stretch very far these days, but it can still get you a slice of pizza, a song on iTunes (sometimes), and now, a copy of the Daily News. Our pals in publishing — all Community News Group and NYC Community Media publications are printed at the News’ printing press — have slashed the weekday newsstand price of New York’s Hometown Paper by a quarter in all five boroughs as of Jan. 11.
The media grapevine buzzed over the price drop, which comes just seven months after the News hiked its copies to $1.25 each. Some print pundits speculated the News drove up sales with its strong gun-control advocacy after the San Bernardino shootings, while others credited its financial fluidity to a fresh round of layoffs.
News nabobs only said readers shouldn’t look a gift horse in the mouth.
“As New York’s Hometown Paper, we look for every opportunity to bring our loyal readers the news they need at a lower price point,” Bill Holiber, president and chief executive officer of the Daily News, said in the press release.
Consider the quarter-saving no chump change, either.
“Life in New York City is hard enough and we figured we’d put 25 cents back in the pockets of our faithful readers,” said Ricardo Flattes, circulation sales and consumer marketing director. “It all adds up.”
Founded in 1919 as the Illustrated Daily News by Joseph Medill Patterson, The New York Daily News was the first successful tabloid newspaper in America, with the largest circulation in the nation. It later changed its name to the Daily News, attracting readers with its sensational coverage of crime, scandal, and violence, and lurid photographs, cartoons, and other entertainment features. By 1930 its circulation had leapt to more than 1.5 million, and in the next decade increased to two million, delivering the lowdown on political wrongdoings behind President Warren G. Harding’s Teapot Dome Scandal, and the socially intriguing romance between Wallis Simpson and Britain’s King Edward VIII that led to his abdication.
On Oct. 30, 1975 the Daily News brought the nation to a hush with its gut-punching screamer, “Ford to City: Drop Dead.”
Now, trusty readers applaud the cheaper price.
“It means that the New York’s hometown paper is still in business,” said Flatbush resident Tom Harris, 54. “And I won’t have to rummage about looking for that extra quarter.”
On Jan. 17, and every other Sunday after, readers who purchase the Daily News below 34th St. (for $1.25) will get a bonus: our sister publication, Downtown Express.
