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« Becawz Thay Dont Caar if There Fyucher Reeders (an Riters) Kin Spel? | Main | Help Hope » October 19, 2007The Scene Saves the Spelling BeeLooks like the Nashville Scene may soon be picking up the ball that The Tennessean purposely dropped as Scene editor Liz Garrigan tells WKRN's Bob Mueller the paper has applied to be the new media sponsor of the Middle Tennessee Regional Spelling Bee. Good for them. And it appears the schoolchildren of Middle Tennessee won't have to wait a year for it to happen. WKRN blogger A.C. Kleinheider has more details. WKRN will have a story tonight on the near-demise of the Middle Tennessee Regional Spelling Bee and, presumably, the Scene rescue of it. I'm told it will air during the 5 p.m. news. Kudos to WKRN for running with the story this morning after they spotted it on the blogs. Also, a big part of the credit for the saving of the Bee must go to Kay Brooks for publishing last night an email she received from the Tennessean announcing they were ending their support for the regional Spelling Bee. If Brooks hadn't shared the email on her blog, the regional Spelling Bee might have disappeared quietly this year. Instead, her post generated rapid blog and media coverage that lead quickly to a new newspaper sponsor stepping forward. In its email announcing it was dropping sponsorship of the regional Spelling Bee, the Tennessean indicated that Belmont University was interested in sponsoring it next year. But National Spelling Bee rules require the sponsor be a newspaper, so it is unclear that Belmont (or any university) could have saved the Bee. The good news is, we don't have wait a year to find out. I'm sure the Scene wouldn't mind if Belmont offered free use of the Curb Center to host it, though. Congratulations to the Scene for understanding that sometimes the cost of not spending $5,000 is higher than the cost of spending it - and for recognizing that "word nerds" and good spelling are an integral part of the core mission of a journalistic enterprise. Update: Welcome Instapunditeers! The background to this post is in the previous post this link. Posted in Journalism & Media
Comments
Do you mean to say a newspaper stopped sponsoring a spelling bee to save a measly $5k? Posted by: Tim in PA at October 20, 2007 11:33 AMYep. We don't know their actual marketing costs, but that's about what other papers have spent each year doing their regional Spelling Bees. The background is in the previous post - at this link Posted by: Bill Hobbs at October 20, 2007 12:37 PMI was at a loss originally, but I think I have figured it out. If The Tennessean cannot figure out how to recoup at least 10K worth of advertising value alone from being the sponsor of the regional spelling bee (hint: big banner with "The Tennessean welcomes Regional Spelling Bee"), then The Tennessean should fire the business manager and use the savings from eliminating a useless person to sponsor the bee and pocket a significant savings. Get the name and idea that newspapers exist out there to children and maybe you might pick up some readers. Advertising a media product is always a problem, since most advertising takes place in other media, here is a perfect opportunity to introduce people to your product without having to cannibalize other media for them. Heck you might even get parents used to having a daily paper if you use your position as sponsor to publish word lists and spelling rule guides (which they will have to buy your paper to get = more eyeballs = higher ad rates = more money). Newspapers must be really hurting financially if they are willing to forgo the goodwill and ad potential of spelling bee sponsorship to save a little cash. Posted by: one of many at October 20, 2007 11:32 PMPost a comment
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