The End of the Free San Diego Union-Tribune on the Web? (Oct 29, 2009)

But this was noticed on the right side of their pages on the "Today's Paper" section:

As part of a plan to overhaul and redesign our Web site, the Today's Paper section will be going away. On Nov. 1, it will be replaced by our eEdition, an exact page-by-page replica of the printed Union-Tribune, with online enhancements...

Does this mean that we'll have to start paying to read the newspaper online? Sure looks like it.

Given the fact that there isn't much proprietary content and no columnists that cover business and entertainment like the web bloggers can do, there goes one regular destination from my list of websites to visit daily if and when that happens.

I just skim the headlines, but have bothered to read the stories for only a dozen stories in the past month, most of which were from the sports media columnists and selected stories from the business section. It's nowhere near worth paying 75 cents a day for less than one story that piques my interest. A nickel, perhaps, but that's it.

If the local newspaper goes pay per read, will more newspapers on the web do so within a year? If they're not making money, then they'll have to start charging for the content to pay for their staffers and expenses. Of course, that also means that this radio blogger may no longer bother passing on links to the stories from the sosd.com website either.

The San Diego Union-Tribune brought back the TV Week magazine insert two months ago. Unfortunately, it's as unreadable as it was when it was last seen a year ago. Too cluttered. Too many niche channels. Too few details on the shows. I'm better off relying on titantv.com for updated TV listings with more detail and getting the channels that are relevant in my life.