The Kansas City Star has undergone a lot of changes since I retired in 2006, and now a very big change is on the way.
This time, fortunately, change apparently won’t involve staff cuts.
But it will alter the basic look and direction of The Kansas City Star.
From what I gather, the biggest changes will be:
:: Shifting the focus from print to digital.
:: A redesign of both the print edition and the kansascity.com website.
:: The print-edition deadline moving up to 9.m. instead of about 11...The sports department is said to be particularly unhappy about that because, if true, it will be almost impossible to get the results of most Royals’ games and other 7 p.m. start-time events in the print edition.
A reliable source told me editor Mike Fannin laid out the plan at a meeting last Friday and said the changes would be phased in between now and September.
My source said the redesign probably will be along the lines of the Idaho Statesman, another McClatchy Co. paper that rolled out its redesign and new website early last week.
Also known as the “replica” edition, this is an electronic facsimile of the print edition. The reader can skim headlines and sections, and click on specific stories and photos for an enlarged view. (The New Yorker magazine went to the online replica several years ago, with the “zoom-in” feature, and it’s very easy to navigate.)
The Statesman is betting the e-edition will be a significant money-maker. For non-print subscribers, the Statesman digital package will be $9.99 a month or $99.99 for an annual subscription. As an introductory offer, the Statesman will give digital-only customers the first month for 99 cents.
If The Star follows the Statesman’s lead, it will continue to publish a print edition every day.
A big change at the Statesman’s is that there will be just four Sunday sections, including a separate sports section. Monday through Saturday, however, sports will go to the back of the A section.
Somehow, I have a hard time seeing The Star dropping its daily sports section. This is Kansas City, after all, and we have three major professional sports teams (the Chiefs, Royals and Sporting Kansas City) and four Division I schools (KU, K-State, Missouri and UMKC).
In addition, while other sections have shrunk (and some, like Metro, have gone away), sports has held its ground and is the biggest draw for many male subscribers. Indicative of the emphasis The Star puts on sports, just last week the Associated Press Sports Editors named The Star as a “Triple Crown” winner among large-circulation news organizations.
It was the fourth consecutive year The Star has won that honor.
To win the APSE’s version of the Triple Crown, a paper must rank in the top 10 papers in three of four categories: daily coverage, Sunday section, special print section and website.
The Star made the top 10 in website, Sunday section and special section, the latter being the paper’s “Football 2014” section.
**
I’m a little surprised The Star hasn’t moved its focus to digital before now. But it’s all got to do with revenue. Print advertising is still the cash cow and newspapers haven’t been able to get nearly as much revenue from digital ads. As a result, papers have been shifting the financial balance from advertising to subscriptions, raising prices for print as well as online subscriptions. The Star bumped up its print subscription price at least 20 percent this year.
For the sake of the city and KC Star readers, I hope Fannin and publisher Mi-Ai Parrish are able to make this change work, and I hope the paper doesn’t lose too many readers in the transition. What Fannin and Parrish are betting on is any downturn in print subscriptions will be more than offset by an upswing in digital subscriptions, ideally from younger readers.
This is a long-term proposition for The Star: It will take years to determine if the digital part of the equation pans out.
JimmyCsays: At the juncture of journalism and daily life in KC 
I live in St. Louis but have multi-generational ties to Jackson County, so I am interested in what’s going on across the state.
In 2011 after retiring, my wife and I did consulting work in Jackson County and decided to subscribe to the replica edition of the Star so we could stay current and better serve our client. Our contract expired in 2013, but we are hooked on the Star which we read on an i-pad and have been able to keep up on the news when traveling.
We now read the Post-Dispatch replica edition and have a subscription to the LA Times replica edition and a dead-tree subscription to The New York Times. We are probably not the average subscribers, but I find the replica edition so convenient, plus there is the serendipity of finding articles that you might not otherwise read on-line.
I suspect the problem that The Star has with someone like me is the ads, for the most part, are meaningless to someone living 250 miles away and past the time of his life when he’s consuming a lot of stuff.
Although I get leads on news articles via social media, I am rooting for the papers to thrive so there continues to be content and opinion that is done by professionals and properly vetted crusty old editors.
Nice post Jim.
As you can see, my buddy Tom is a voracious reader. He frequently enlightens me by sending me links to a variety of stories. I’m very fortunate to have at least three St. Louis readers — Tom, a transit expert; Gus, a Circuit Court bailiff; and Tim, a former Post-Dispatch editor. I will be anxious to see if the Post-Dispatch follows the Statesman and The Star…If you get any inkling, Tom, let me know.
Jimmy C,
As I read your comments, I could feel your hope and passion for the company and industry you have so faithfully been associated with most of your life. After living in Kansas City for a brief 3 years (many years ago), the city does have a special place in my heart, but I don’t share the passion for its elements (Power District, Airport, or even The Star) like you do.
I hope the Star’s management is correct in their assessment on how to turn-it-around. Looks iffy to me, but I am grossly ignorant about that industry. Well, to give myself some credentials…I was a paper delivery person in Louisville during high school!!!
However, I very much disagree with your last sentence…”…long-term proposition for The Star…it will take years to determine if the digital part of the equation pans out.” With the steady and ski-sloped decline in its print circulation and the lightening speed of change in the digital field…I predict that within 12 months The Star will be a very different communication product…or…out of business.
To the best of my knowledge, John, a major metropolitan newpaper has not stopped publishing altogether in several years. I think the initial shakeout is past. That doesn’t mean there won’t be more down the road, but The Star has been a strong moneymaker most of the time since its founding in 1880. I believe it will be around in one form or another for a long time to come. As I’ve often said, it’s the best news gathering organization in the Midwest, and that includes St. Louis, Denver and maybe even Chicago, where the Tribune has slipped badly under a period of inept management.
That replica edition broadly hints of the USA Today design…
I didn’t notice, mainly because I don’t pay any attention to USA Today. But that paper has succeeded as a national publication — along with only The New York Times and the Wall Street Journal — and many papers have borrowed some of its innovations.
I just dropped my Wednesday-Sunday subscription because I disagree with too many of the editorial board’s positions, so I don’t want to help keep the paper in business. Plus, it’s like a pamphlet even on Sundays. These are the same two reasons why I dropped my Columbia Daily Tribune subscription a couple of years ago.
Success is the only thing the NYT and USA Today share; certainly not their online site designs.
No one wishes for a dark Star, but an on-line Star Lite probably wouldn’t satisfy.
It’s a gamble, both financially and journalistically, but circulation to the print edition has been dropping dramatically for a decade or more. So, holding course really isn’t an option.
Maybe the Koch brothers will buy them for a song and change the editorial tone many of the Right-leaners have decried for so long…
; ‘ )
Of course, Jim, since I’m helping with a Star route 3 mornings a week, I’ll be curious to see how the earlier deadline affects my schedule in terms of trying to get in some sleep with the full-time weekday job and church on Sunday. But that’s just me. Looking at the larger picture, I think The Star would really benefit by cutting down on all the left-wing editorial propaganda and concentrating on just covering the news that people have a right to expect the paper to cover on a regular basis. It’s gotten so bad I can pretty much predict what the paper’s position will be on any given issue. But where’s the news from suburbia? Where’s the regional news? Less columnists like Ms. Osterheldt! More letters to the editor! At any rate, the experiment should be interesting.
The more I’ve thought about it, the more I’d like to see The Star return to its original place in the newspaper “constellation” by becoming an afternoon paper again. You know, it would be nice for a change to read a paper that included some news that had actually happened the same day the paper was printed/dated. I remember Dad telling us at some point that the earliest editions of the Nov. 22, 1963 issue of The Star had already begun to come off the press when word of what had taken place in Dallas early that afternoon arrived by way of the teletype machines, and within 15 minutes of the confirmation of President kennedy’s death,the front page plates had been changed out and revised editions were rolling off the press. That would be an impossibility under the current arrangement unless McClatchy was willing to run an extra. Screw the sports section! Just give the readers a preview of the evening’s game in the afternoon paper, and the writers would have plenty of time to do an in-depth analysis of the game the previous night in the next day’s paper. Readers can always be told that the final scores of the baseball games can be found on The Star’s website. Serious fans will already either be watching the Royals game on TV or listening to it on the radio. A great evening paper would be a welcome addition to my world given the pathetic offerings regularly found on the TV channels at night.