We have done close to 50 one-on-one conversations with various people on Onemyle.
While our conversations have been around discovering reactions from people to "Locality Stories" in general, a common feedback that kept popping up was "If I want to search for something or ask for help on something - does it quality as a Locality Story"
Chanced upon an interesting article on the founder of Mylapore Times.. and the way the editor and his team looked at every question during Covid as a story (there will be more people with the same questions - is the assumption)
Mylapore Times: In times of Covid, this community newspaper holds lessons for Big Media
The newspaper has been a staple in south-central Chennai since the 1990s. With the pandemic, it adapted to turn every Covid question from its readers into a story.
Some nuggets on business model of a locality newsletter from the article..
Mylapore Times may not have BHAG, but its balance sheet is firmly in the black. Before it stopped printing, the paper had an average weekly net profit of Rs 1 lakh.
Keeping the paper free eliminates the hassle of newsstand sales, agent commissions, and tracking circulation receivables. The revenue comes from advertising and classifieds that are hugely popular. A classified ad can cost as little as Rs 300, while an advertising column centimetre is Rs 220. Though not entirely comparable but to put it in perspective, the ad rates at the Chennai edition of the New Indian Express, with roughly similar circulation numbers, could be about 25 times higher.
The stories are short and crisply edited. Almost every story ends with the address and phone number of the person or service written about
There’s no space to spare for grandiloquent editorials. Instead, there’s a sunny 400-word column by D’Souza usually on something related to Mylapore or Chennai. On Saturdays, nearly 70 percent of the print run of 30,000 is door delivered and the rest stocked at prominent drugstores and department stores. The paper disappears in less than an hour.
There hasn’t been any income for nearly three months but Mylapore Times has managed to retain its nine-member staff on full salary, thanks to the prudence of the past. There may be enough in the bank to last a few more months and not pare down its monthly salary bill of Rs 2 lakh.
Lot of things feel right here :-)
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