Free, again!

Media converge, the Internet expands

Letter from Publisher Stephen M. Mindich Dear readers (old and new),

With this issue, the Boston Phoenix returns to a tradition of its earliest days, when -- at the time, as a small entertainment weekly called Boston After Dark -- we were distributed free.

NEW DESIGN: this week (above), last week (below).

Since a month ago, when we announced our intention to stop charging a cover price, we have heard enthusiasm and support from our readers and our advertisers. Many of our retailers -- including Store 24, CVS, and Out of Town News, which have for years been loyal sales outlets -- have agreed to keep distributing the Phoenix. We have also received a wealth of requests from retailers and restaurants throughout Greater Boston who now would like to distribute the Phoenix for the benefit of their customers. We are very grateful for and excited by all this support. Through these locations, together with our more than 300 king-size bright-red boxes, the Phoenix will be more accessible to more people than ever before.

Our decision has prompted some speculation, including the theory that free publications -- new and old, big and small -- prompted the move. As you all know, there are today -- and have been for years -- many free publications. We ourselves already were publishing five: the Portland, Providence, and Worcester editions of the Phoenix, and two Boston magazines, Stuff@Night and Stuff. The irony here is that far from being motivated by any free publication in Boston, we have been led to this course by the continually declining paid circulations of the Globe and other dailies across the country (to say nothing of the cut-rate subscriptions that national magazines use to boost their circulations). In today's environment, where the media are converging and the Internet is expanding, free information has become the rule rather than the exception. That inevitably affects the ability of publications to grow, or even to maintain their paid circulations. In fact, we already compete with ourselves through our own Web site, at www.bostonphoenix.com, and we urge you all to log on to it regularly. We believe a free Phoenix fits wonderfully well into this new paradigm.

We anticipate the pleasant surprise that our former paying readers (to whom we are ever grateful for their years of support) will have in reading the free Phoenix each week. And we look forward to bringing new readers to our award-winning journalism -- and the offerings of our advertisers. We hope even more of you will take advantage of both our printed publications and the online version of the Phoenix, with its deep archives of past issues. We are very excited by this opportunity and hope you all enjoy the media experience of the new millennium.

A final note: long-time readers will see that we've redesigned our covers. The Phoenix will be stepping away from its magazine-style covers and returning to a more newspaper-like format in which stories begin on the front page and jump inside. "The idea," says editor Peter Kadzis, "is to make the paper a more immediate read. A four-color art-related photo on the cover will catch the eye, and the story starts will engage the mind."

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