4 February—Due to a catastrophe that struck the Monitor edifice yesterday, today’s disquisition will be a little less tiresome than usual.

First, Wiley Miller’s Non Sequitur panel in yesterday’s Hearst RepublicanAmerican was brilliantly trenchant, as usual. It pictured a couple standing on a snow-cleared street, looking at a sign warning “CAUTION, WATCH FOR DANGEROUS ICE.” In the balloon, the man says, “I miss the days when we assumed that’s just in regard to the weather.”

On the subject of the Hearst RepublicanAmerican, then, a loyal Monitor reader writes:

“I know how much you like the new version of the Waterbury rag so I thought I’d let you know: I’m just about to pay my bill for the next 8 weeks of 7-day print. It used to be $48.00 before any tip added for the delivery person. It just increased to $66.00 for 8 weeks, a 37% increase. That now means if it doesn’t increase again soon, the annual cost will be about $400.00 vs. about $300.00 in the past, a 33% increase.

“I will need to decide soon on whether to continue with delivery of a newspaper that has virtually no local news coverage and sports news that is generally a day late and concentrates on UConn and national coverage that interests me little.”

So that’s price optimization pure and simple. Despite what they may say, Hearst is in the business first and foremost to make a profit. And their bean counters are counting on the forbearance and charity of the shrinking cadre of HRA legacy subscribers who haven’t yet done the rational thing and dumped their subscriptions (because the execrable rag is hardly worth taking out of the plastic bag it comes in) staying the course till doomsday.

The Hearst RepublicanAmerican, which isn’t worth anything like $300 a year, certainly isn’t worth $400 a year, let alone the $1,600 published “subscription offer” joke. But Hearst Connecticut Media’s subscription terms have proven to be rather flexible because reduced circulation generates reduced advertising revenue—and their ad and obit sales people appear to be considerably more adept than their editorial staff. (Not that it matters, but do people actually read ads? Anywhere?)

So a call to subscriber service with a threat to dump the HRA will probably reduce the pain somewhat. And if a remote operator doesn’t or can’t give satisfaction, a direct call to the customer service manager should . . .