Distribution

Development

Johannes Gutenburg’s printing press of the 1450s increased the number of copies produced in a day, allowing and encouraging wider distribution at lower cost. In 1611, Nathaniel Butter hired buxom “Mercurie women” to attract buyers for his paper on street corners. Street kiosks, booksellers, and postal systems became common methods. Ships brought European newspapers to American colonies and carried colonial newspapers back to Europe.

Benjamin Franklin, who began as a printer’s devil and newspaper carrier for his brother’s New-England Courant, became a newspaper publisher and postmaster for the colonies. His reforms of the Royal Post improved newspaper distribution by cutting delivery times in half and by allowing newspapers to move between post offices at no charge. President George Washington authorized construction of all-weather “Great Post Roads” from Maine to Georgia and New York to Kentucky to unite the country by assuring speedy delivery of mail and newspapers. The reluctance of subscribers to pay for their newspapers forced publishers to beg postal carriers to [Page 493]collect the fees. As the first U.S. postmaster, Franklin added another reform: postal carriers paid publishers in advance for every subscription, and then had to collect from subscribers.

In 1833, Benjamin Day introduced the most significant changes in American newspaper distribution with his daily New York Sun, the first “penny paper.” Day copied a London distribution method suited to a working-class readership. Newsboys bought the Sun at wholesale rates (66 cents for 100 papers) and sold the papers for one penny. Enterprising newsboys sold the Sun on street corners and built routes of subscribers. By letting newsboys profit from distribution, Day enabled them to earn more than adult laborers.

Day’s model (made possible because advertisers paid 80 percent of his production cost) spawned dozens of imitators. Philadelphia merchants insisted on knowing the names of a newspaper’s subscribers before buying advertising space, so Philadelphia publishers required carriers to provide a current subscriber list. Adults, drawn by the potential profits to be made, began selling papers. Some became brokers, buying papers from every publisher and reselling them to newsboys and retailers. By 1850, such brokers controlled newspaper distribution in every major city, even negotiating wholesale rates with publishers and setting profit margins for carriers and retailers.

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