Your daily update on the Globe’s home-delivery woes

Photo (cc) 2007 by Steve Johnson

Previously published at WGBHNews.org.

There’s a risk that updates on The Boston Globe‘s home-delivery woes are going to become repetitive. But the story is still unfolding, and there is news to pass along. I’ll try to keep this terse.

As you no doubt know, Globe chief executive Mike Sheehan has been making the rounds. He told Jim Braude on Greater Boston Monday that he does not expect the worst-case scenario—a four- to six-month delay before service is returned to normal—will come to pass. Instead, he put it at 30 to 45 days. That’s four to six weeks, still a significant lag. I’d say the Globe has four to six days before this really starts to hurt the bottom line.

Then again, it depends. Sheehan also told Barbara Howard on WGBH Radio (89.7 FM) Tuesday that the new distributor, ACI Media Group, would be using updated software today and that he expects significant improvements almost immediately. If the Globe can solve most of the problem in the next few days (and based on Twitter reaction this morning, things have definitely not changed for the better yet), then getting the rest of it right over the next few weeks might be acceptable. On the other hand, several more weeks of utter chaos will be devastating.

Another aspect of the Braude interview worth noting: Sheehan vigorously disagreed with an assertion by columnist/paper boy Kevin Cullen that the switch will result in lower pay for carriers. “Whatever they pay the delivery people, it’s not enough,” Cullen wrote, “and it’s more than a little depressing to think this debacle has been brought about by a desire to pay them even less.”

Sheehan responded that the savings he anticipates would not come from paying the carriers less, pointing out that ACI is competing for workers with the Globe‘s previous carrier, Publishers Circulation Fulfillment, or PCF. And he repeated his claim that the switch was driven primarily for better service. Lower costs, better service? Seems to me that we generally get to choose one or the other, not both.

In other developments:

• The Globe itself today reports that the paper may add a second vendor—possibly its previous vendor, PCF. The Globe also checks in with two other ACI Clients, The Dallas Morning News and the Palm Beach Post, and it sounds like both papers did a lot more advance planning than took place at the Globe. Executives at both papers say they are pleased with ACI’s performance, one of the few good signs in all this.
• WBUR Radio (90.9 FM) has more on the new software. It includes some good quotes from friend of WGBH News Sue O’Connell, co-publisher of Bay Windows and the South End News.
• The Boston Business Journal publishes an overview, including some interesting numbers on the Globe‘s reliance on print revenue.
• The screw-up is affecting delivery of other papers as well, since ACI is now competing with PCF and forcing delivery people to decide which company to work with. Among the papers that are been harmed are The Daily Item of Lynn and The MetroWest Daily News of Framingham. Larger papers such as The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and the Boston Herald—all of which continue to be delivered by PCF—have been affected as well.
• As for the Herald‘s non-coverage of a story that it would have been all over a few years go, I can’t top what my friend John Carroll has been doing. (Yes, the Herald is printed by the Globe these days.) Here is John’s latest update, which includes a tip of the hat to Beat the Press host Emily Rooney.