THE DECLINE CONTINUES: ‘STAR’ DOESN’T BENEFIT FROM ‘CITIZEN’ CLOSURE
The Arizona Daily Star still maintained an average weekday circulation of slightly more than 100,000—and Sunday circulation numbers near 150,000—but according to 2009 numbers compiled by the Audit Bureau of Circulations, the city’s morning daily did not benefit at all from the May 2009 closure of the Tucson Citizen.
According to the audit, released last month, the Star‘s average paid circulation for Sunday was 143,738. From Monday through Friday, that number dipped to 104,340. Monday was the weakest day (100,263), and Thursday the strongest (109,140). Saturday’s average was 112,138.
However, when broken into quarterly numbers for 2009, the Star actually turned in stronger tallies in the first quarter, when the Citizen was still around. In January through March 2009, the Star had an average Sunday circulation around 155,000, and a weekday circulation of 122,000. Those numbers dipped significantly during the spring and summer quarters—not surprising, given Tucson’s hot-weather exodus—but they didn’t pick up as much as the Star might have hoped in the last quarter of 2009. In that three-month window, the Star circulation average for Sunday was 147,907, and 105,952 on weekdays.
Last-quarter 2009 numbers were well below the numbers from the same quarter in 2008 (154,450 for Sundays and 118,713 on weekdays), a suggestion that the poor economy and the deterioration of the daily-newspaper print model are far more significant than any bump the paper might have received by picking up some of the roughly 15,000 subscribers who hung on to the Citizen until the end.
In the last five years, the Star‘s paid Sunday circulation average has gone from 168,227 in 2005, to 163,777 in 2006, 159,266 in 2007, 153,974 in 2008, to last year’s tally of 143,738.
Monday through Friday numbers were 138,953 in 2005, 137,379 in 2006, 131,452 in 2007, 121,399 in 2008 and 104,340 in 2009. That’s nearly a 16 percent drop from 2008 to 2009 alone.
KILBURY WINS ROCKY MOUNTAIN EMMY—AND WAS THE LAST TO KNOW
Scott Kilbury was trying to catch some Zs in the midst of a busy weekend that had him hosting Butterfield Stage Days in his hometown of Benson, attending a high school reunion and preparing to take the kids to Sunrise Park Ski Resort. With a schedule like that, there’s no time for things like the Rocky Mountain Emmy Awards, even if they were hosted just up the road in Phoenix.
On Saturday night, Kilbury started receiving texts.
“My wife said, ‘You won something,'” Kilbury said. “I had forgotten about the whole thing. Then I tracked down information on Twitter, and they said another Scott had won, so I figured they got confused.”
They hadn’t. Kilbury and Scott Light of Phoenix TV station KPNX shared the On-Camera Talent Anchor news award. For Kilbury, it’s his first news-related Rocky Mountain Emmy; he has two other statues related to his sports work at KOLD Channel 13.
“I was just happy to be nominated in a news category. It makes me feel like I’m validated at this desk,” said Kilbury, who transitioned to KOLD’s morning show three years ago. “I had gone to (Rocky Mountain Emmy) dinners before, and you have to pay for the dinner, and then if you don’t win, on the drive home, it’s, ‘Wow, that sucked.'”
KOLD registered other Rocky Mountain Emmy winners as well. KOLD news anchor Heather Rowe, who was nominated in the category Kilbury won, received an Emmy along with Paul Durrant for “Ticket Hot Spots” in the Special Assignment Report news category. Durrant also received an editor Emmy in the No Time Limit news category. Richard Beissel, who now works in Phoenix, landed an honor in the sports version of the same category. Wade Stai‘s “Because Wade Was Crazy” piece garnered Editor Short-Form accolades.
Meanwhile, KUAT Channel 6 received a half-dozen honors. Sooyeon Lee Johnston closed out her distinguished days at Arizona Public Media with wins in Arts/Entertainment Program Feature, Arts/Entertainment Program Special and Magazine Program Feature. Luis Carrion was honored in the Teen News Single Story category for his “Youth Farming” segment and in Historical Culture for a piece on a Native American filmmaker; and Thomas Kleespie won for Southwestern Gems in the Documentary—Cultural category.
Jeanie Bergen and Mitch Riley (he may have more of these statues than anyone in town) combined for four awards under the Tucson 12 banner; Will Holst, who might be right with Riley in number of wins, helped UAnews.org receive two Emmys, while Dave Sitton was honored for his play-by-play work on UA men’s basketball games.
REBECCA TAYLOR PARTING WAYS WITH KVOA
Popular weekend news anchor Rebecca Taylor will say goodbye to NBC affiliate KVOA Channel 4 at the end of the month.
“KVOA offered me a very nice raise and renewal package to stay on as weekend anchor/lead reporter, but after three great years with the station, I’ve decided to move on,” said Taylor via e-mail. “I have some exciting opportunities in the works, which I can’t discuss right now, but when the time is right, I’ll be excited to share the news with everyone.”
For Taylor, this brings her second Tucson stint to an end. She worked briefly for KMSB Channel 11 before accepting a reporter position in Phoenix. From there, she was hired for KVOA’s morning show, but later transitioned to the weekend news desk.
Taylor says she was not included in KVOA’s mandate to transition reporters into multimedia journalists (MMJs)—with reporters required to record the video for and edit their own stories.
“Rebecca has done a great job for us for the last three years. We are disappointed she is leaving KVOA. We wish Rebecca nothing but success in future endeavors,” said Kathleen Choal, KVOA’s station manager and news director, via email.
This article appears in Oct 14-20, 2010.
Rebecca Taylor leaving?? Not really a surprise. Interesting to see where she goes. Probably not to PR marketing in Tucson for washed -up/fed-up anchors and reporters. Maybe to Fox News national since she maintains the “look”. Thought I remember reading she has a musical career on the side. But that would not jive with a weekend anchor desk job she has had. Just never got the feeling she was enthusiastic about TV news…especially in the morning. She was so unhappy in the morning, especially at the commercial cutaways for the five minute updates during the Today Show. Oh it was almost too painful to watch. She has a big market appearance and makeup job. Not sure why she took the Tucson gig in the first place. Anchoring chops? Well, she’s got those now. Good luck Becca. Cherish your future weekends, and early mornings.
You Rock Kilbury! Greatly deserved. Perseverance and early mornings indeed. Now for the dream team of Scott Kilbury-Erin Jordan- Alan Kath all in the same morning show preceding the Today Show. And streaming too. Keep dreaming. Still miss not seeing you and the gang on the ever-changing opening for the football Friday night show segment. Great local television that was.
Dave Sitton got a nod for his play-by-play? Yeesh. He’s worse than listening to the grass grow.
Hard to predict what Rebecca Taylor will do…she is pretty polished, but may be overshooting her talent. Entertainment reporter in Dallas? TV Guide channel? I think if she wants to go serious with anchoring she needs to lose a little bit of the Stepford Wife look- cut the hair to something less overwhelming (same with Gina Trunzo), definitely…..we’ll see.
Kudos to both Scott Kilbury and Dave Sitton for their work….Why do I get the feeling that Taylor will re-surface as the main talent/anchor at Fox 11?
The Star is so biased that if you don’t agree with them, they cut your freedom of speech. No wonder they are loosing out, I heard in a couple of years, they will have a big bill come due, and will put them under. If they don’t let everyone in the county have freedom of speech, not just the left they will go under.
To:
From: Mikki Niemi niemicat@hotmail.com
Arizona Daily Star discriminates against people who don’t agree politically with the editors.
Fact: On November 3, I posted a letter from a candidate which was sent to me with instructions to forward to at least 10 people. I placed this in the comment sections of the online star. The letter was critical of Rio Nuevo and Trasoff. This letter had been paid for by the candidate for a campaign add and was published in the Star on November 2. Someone online complained about the post and I reposted it. Again this was taken off by readersOn the next day I could not post I received this from Debbie Kornmiller the Star’s “reader advocate”
Mikki:
Commenting privileges were removed from this account on Monday because posts reported for moderation were reposted. The reported posts were content that was not original in nature. When you post someone’s else’s published material you are violating their copyright, which has legal ramifications. You continue to have read privileges.
Debbie Kornmiller
Reader Advocate
I wrote a e-mail to her stating that I had permission to post this letter and it the copyright was transferred to me by the candidate she sent this email and took my wife off from commenting also. My wife had not made any comments for several weeks. But was taken off as punishment for what she perceived that I did.
My wife wrote several e-mails, she told them that I never commented on her sign in. Debbie Kornmiller wrote that Dorothy who had done nothing was taken off permanently because she refused to agree to rules that other people didn’t have to agree to.
Thank you for your patience. I’ve talked to my bosses about your request that commenting privileges be restored to your email account.
Please know that we rarely restore commenting privileges once that function has been removed.
We agreed that I would restore your commenting privileges with the provision that you not allow others to use your account and that your posts stay within our guidelines. Any breach would mean an automatic and permanent suspension. A third chance would be out of the question.
I need to hear back from you that you will abide by our guidelines, that you will not allow others to use your account and that you understand the consequences. At that time commenting privileges will be restored.
Debbie
This address as well as your yahoo and msn accounts no longer have commenting privileges. Posting copyrighted material is against the law. The ban is permanent.
Debbie
We protested to her boss John Bolton and this was his response.
I’m not inclined to overrule Ms. Kornmiller. She keeps a close eye on the reader comment moderation and is tasked with enforcing the guidelines on a consistent basis, and I see nothing to suggest a different outcome is warranted.
John Bolton, online editor
I then wrote to the publisher John Humenik requesting a face to face meeting with all three of them and this was his answer.
Mr. Niemi,
I’m sorry. That will not be possible.
John
I then wrote to the CEO of the Star Mike Jameson and this was his response.
I wrote to Kornmiller and showed her that under her rules for having permission to post another persons letter I had not violated them, also the star published this letter on November 2, and the rules say posting something from Star is ok.
John Bolton her boss wrote back that there were other problems with me. She made up rules as she went along and finally slandered me by saying I made sexual slurs, moderation of reposting. No were in there 10 pages of rules does this say about reposting.
John Bolton
You did not respond to several calls from Roberta Young, our editor and publisher’s administrative assistant, when she tried to set up a conference call with you. In that unprecedented opportunity to speak to Mr. Humenik, Debbie Kornmiller and me, you would have heard that your banning was related not only to the posts of the Kozachik material, but also to some posts involving sexual slurs, and for your actions to undermine our moderation process, including the resposting of material that had been removed.
We’ve considered and reconsidered your case in much detail. We’re not going to restore your reader comment posting privileges. You still have privileges to log in and read the site.
There are no further appeals available to you, and we will not respond to further communication on this issue.
John Bolton, online editorArizona Daily Star / StarNethttp://www.azstarnet.com(520) 618-7868
These accusations are false. Kornmiller lied and just told Bolton what he wanted to hear
I never received any calls as he says I did. I stopped my Cox home phone in December, because it had not been working so I was unable to receive these “messages” they knew my cell phone and e-mail and could have contacted me that way if they had actually tried.
As an interesting point last month I circled pro Republican letters to the editor in red, and Pro Democrat letter in red. I did this for a period of 18 days. The score was 3 Red to 73 Blue. I have not been able to get a letter to the editor at all in the last two years.
The star is blatantly pro democrat and Kornmiller has been leading the way to unfair and unbalanced reporting since 1981.
Don’t advertise in the star, we have dropped two subscriptions to the Star.Sell you stuff on Craig’s list, is Free. http://tucson.craigslist.org/
Too bad Rebecca Taylor is leaving KVOA. But I’m wondering if she is going to stay in Tucson…I hear Fox 11 is trying out new things with their news department. She would be by far the best regular week night anchor. Of course, from what I understand she likes music, especially country music so I could see her working in that industry too.
But I think RDiddy is thinking the same way I am. If she was leaving Tucson, she probably would have said something to the effect. If she is staying in Tucson, she probably has enough respect and dignity to not say anything since she is still employed at KVOA.
What is Rebecca Taylor doing now?