Bacon's Rebellion

Democracy Thrives in Sunlight

Lee Enterprises Newspapers in Virginia Combine Huge Online Subscription Price Increases with Difficult Cancellations

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by

sherlockj
in , , ,

Notice from The Roanoke Times subscriber services. https://subscriberservicesdsi.lee.net/subscriberservices/Content/Leaving.aspx?Domain=roanoke.com&_mather=2864cc43d3f9efd3

by James C. Sherlock

Lee Enterprises, in a bold move, has massively raised prices for online subscriptions to its Virginia newspapers, to some of which I subscribe.

Lee’s “brands”  here include:

  1. The Daily Progress – Charlottesville
  2. The Free Lance Star – Fredericksburg
  3. Danville Register Bee/Go Dan River – Danville
  4. Bristol Herald Courier – Tricities – Bristol
  5. Martinsville Bulletin – Martinsville
  6. The News and Advance – Lynchburg
  7. The News Virginian – Waynesboro
  8. Richmond Times-Dispatch – Richmond
  9. The Roanoke Times – Roanoke
  10. Culpeper Star-Exponent – Culpeper
  11. SWVA Today – Wytheville
  12. The Franklin News-Post – Rocky Mount

I have for years subscribed to the ones in bold above.  Online ad sales must not be going well.  Lee in a sudden move has roughly tripled online subscription prices.

It also has made it very difficult for customers to cancel.

Perhaps someone should look into this to see if the difficulty of the cancellation is legal.

How to cancel. No online cancellation is available. (See the image above) for subscriptions I made online and automatically renew.

Yet Code of Virginia  § 59.1-207.46. requires:

B. …. Each supplier making automatic renewal or continuous service offers through an online website shall make available a conspicuous online option to cancel a recurring purchase of a good or service. [Emphasis added.]

I’m not a lawyer, and Lee Enterprises, I am sure, has more than one, so it is more than possible that provision somehow does not apply here.

Nonetheless I have asked the Attorney General’s consumer protection folks to examine this case.

The phone call can be trying.

The operators, when you get through to one, are trained to do everything they can to get you to stay. They read a script with multiple offers at multiple prices for various extensions of subscriptions.

I have found it difficult to get them off script.

In one of those calls this morning, I was informed of an “early cancellation fee” of $25 if I did not let my subscription run thorough July 11, the date through which I have already paid.

Bottom line. Lee Enterprises has the freedom to run its business as it wishes within the law. The “easy in, difficult out” model is hardly exclusive to Lee.

Virginians in turn have the freedom to understand the Lee business model — stripped newsrooms, easy subscriptions, huge, sudden price hikes, difficult cancellations — and decide if that is offset by the value of their products.

For many it may be. It’s not personal, just business – on both ends of the transactions.

Including my notification of the Attorney General.

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Comments

24 responses to “Lee Enterprises Newspapers in Virginia Combine Huge Online Subscription Price Increases with Difficult Cancellations”

  1. walter smith Avatar
    walter smith

    There are reasons the papers are failing…
    Here are two…

    https://s3.amazonaws.com/whip-radio-tu/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/25115025/jeff_schapiro.jpg

    https://bloximages.newyork1.vip.townnews.com/richmond.com/content/tncms/assets/v3/editorial/3/0e/30e68b9e-bc43-563b-9a59-a69162890124/5a0a6be719415.image.jpg

    1. WayneS Avatar
      WayneS

      I’m terrible at placing names with faces. Who are those guys?

      1. walter smith Avatar
        walter smith

        Jeff Schapiro and Michael Paul Williams.
        A far cry from JJ Kilpatrick and Ross Mackenzie…

        1. WayneS Avatar
          WayneS

          Thanks.

          You are correct RE: Kilpatrick and Mackenzie..

  2. Dick Hall-Sizemore Avatar
    Dick Hall-Sizemore

    Thanks for the warning. I subscribe to all that you do, as well as to the Lynchburg paper. I have not encountered the increases, yet. In fact, I had let the subscription to the Roanoke paper lapse and recently received an offer to renew it for $1 per month. I have begun to question their value to me because I don’t check them daily and, when I do check them, there is a lot of overlap with them all running the same state-level stories. (economy of scale, I guess).

  3. Kevin Brown Avatar
    Kevin Brown

    A group in Fredericksburg is attempting to stand up an alternative online local news source, with nonprofit status, called the Fredericksburg Free Press. So far, however, the leadership of this group is heavily weighted with well-known local liberals, with only token conservative involvement. The FFP leaders profess to be committed to nonpartisanship, citing the SW VA Cardinal News as an example of their intended product. It remains to be seen if this FLS alternative achieves its advertised objective.

    1. Dick Hall-Sizemore Avatar
      Dick Hall-Sizemore

      If the conservatives don’t like where the FFP seems to be going, get your own online news source established.

      1. WayneS Avatar
        WayneS

        The Fredericksburg Freer Press?

        😉

    2. VeteranMom Avatar
      VeteranMom

      Liberal isn’t a bad word. It’s a political and social philosophy that promotes individual rights, civil liberties, democracy, and free enterprise. To which of those things do conservatives object?

  4. Super Brain Avatar
    Super Brain

    I went through the same thing to cancel the RTD.

  5. Super Brain Avatar
    Super Brain

    The folks in Danville at my mom’s assisted living read the Chatham Star Tribune. Have not seen the Register there in a while.

  6. Randy Huffman Avatar
    Randy Huffman

    I live in Charlottesville and subscribe to the Daily Progress, and have yet to see a rate increase, YET. Their advertised rate for online is around $11 per month, but we get the Sunday paper and get the online for essentially the same price per month, give or take. Starting late June, they discontinue a daily paper and go to a 3 day a week hard copy model, delivered via US Mail (Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday). I have yet to see how this will affect our rates, and if they are going to offer to send us one day a week. They just hired a new Editor, so we will see.

    With this digital age, it is perplexing (disheartening) you have to subscribe separately for similar content. Seems to me merging some or all the papers is inevitable, then have a “Charlottesville, Waynesboro, Roanoke section, etc.).

  7. Nancy Naive Avatar
    Nancy Naive

    Negotiate! For example, a Sirius XM Platinum Plan will cost nearly $400/year if you sign up online or renew automatically. Call/Chat with a representative and you can get it for under $150.

    Usually the first thing I do is start with the lyric from Steely Dan, “No static at all… FM.” Gets off on the right foot.

    These outrageous prices and tactics rely on American’s distaste of barter and fear of offending or missing out. If you have to, CANCEL. Then in a week, or two, call them up and ask if they are still unwilling to negotiate.

    1. Midlo Citizen Avatar
      Midlo Citizen

      The magic rate for Sirius is $90 per year. Turn down the first two offers to get that price.
      I just start the conversation “Cancel my service” and they skip to the best offer right away.

      We cancelled the our RTD subscription in January and are still getting the online paper at no charge. The must want to keep the readership numbers up.

    2. James C. Sherlock Avatar
      James C. Sherlock

      The sales rep with whom I spoke was negotiating as fast as she could. I passed.

  8. LesGabriel Avatar
    LesGabriel

    Wow. If they are tripling on-line rates, what will they do with hard copy prices? They are already close to my breaking point. Why stick with hard copy? I am both old and old-fashioned.

    1. VeteranMom Avatar
      VeteranMom

      I have autopay, which is dangerous, because I didn’t fully realize I was now paying about $60 a month. I just got notified my cost will go up to $78 a month for hard copy delivery.

  9. f/k/a_tmtfairfax Avatar
    f/k/a_tmtfairfax

    The FTC is considering strengthening its negative option rules. https://www.faegredrinker.com/en/insights/publications/2023/6/summer-2023-automatic-renewal-law-update-ftc-proposes-sweeping-amendments-to-negative-option-rule

  10. DJRippert Avatar
    DJRippert

    My understanding of Australian law is that the big social media sites (like Facebook and Twitter) have to pay journalists when users post the journalists’ content to their social media sites. I also heard (on the radio driving to work this morning) that a music recording group was suing Twitter for users posting copyrighted songs and music videos.

    Personally, I think Big Tech (specifically, the big social media organizations) have profited enough through the use of other people’s content. The Aussies may not have it perfectly right but they are moving in the right direction.

    Of course, what’s sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander. Unless the regulations define a minimum size of social media operation to have to pay for content … Bacon’s Rebellion might have to cut a few checks to the periodicals with “linked to” articles in blog posts on this site.

  11. Turbocohen Avatar
    Turbocohen

    I’ll say it again.. Since buggies have been replaced by cars, the buggy whip has become a symbol for anything that is hopelessly outmoded. Same goes for newspapers. You know, at one time, there must have been thousands of companies making newspapers. And I’ll bet the last company around will be the one who makes the best damn newspaper you have ever seen. How would you like to be a stockholder in that company?

  12. Stephen Haner Avatar
    Stephen Haner

    This is what hedge funds do. Squeeze, squeeze, squeeze, milk, milk, milk and if/when the underlying business dies, they chase alpha somewhere else. The only viable models left are a) some gazillionaire willing to have a media business that doesn’t produce huge profits (Bezos, Murdoch, and they ain’t LOSING money) or the outlets backed by oodles of dark money. Even Virginia Public Media stories on energy now has to disclaim that Clean Virginia has helped to fund them, for example.

    Building a mainly news outlet here was the point four years ago, but that’s been ruined by the culture war/Defense of the Lost Cause obsessions and 317 stories on nursing homes. Hey, I get it, we’re getting to that age, but still boring.

    RTD also hit me with the price hike, from $5.99 to $10.99 per month for online only. That’s about my limit.

    I also pay for the WSJ online and that includes a hard copy on Saturday. Takes me days to get through that. That one edition is more useful and chewy than two weeks of RTD. 🙂

    1. DJRippert Avatar
      DJRippert

      I always wondered about the strategy of making BaconsRebellion a news outlet. Doesn’t a news outlet require actual reporters? And don’t actual reporters need to be paid?

  13. WayneS Avatar
    WayneS

    If they are going to triple their price it should cover a blanket subscription to all of their papers.

    1. VeteranMom Avatar
      VeteranMom

      They get enough people to cancel and they can shut down the paper and claim it as a loss, which will also make them money.

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