According to the Library of Congress, over 2,500 newspapers have been published in Colorado’s history. The most recent number is 176 newspapers available in the state. Sixty of those papers are free circulations and the rest are paid.
There are 13 newspapers publishing every day of the week. The biggest newspaper according to circulation is the Denver Post. They send out about 416,000 papers, every day.
Total circulation of newspapers in Colorado is 2,529,159/day. One prospective customer asked me if anyone still read the newspaper. Ponder that: two and a half million newspapers each day in Colorado. The number of papers printed every day in the United States is 161,108,977.
The first Colorado newspaper was the Rocky Mountain News published in Denver from April 23, 1859 until February 27, 2009.
Somewhere near 44 of the 176 newspapers in business are owned by people who are nearing retirement age.
We have printed 832 newspapers which contained over 13,000 pages of news and information, much of which is impossible to find in any other place. In addition, we have produced a 16–32-page Summer Guide for 16 years; fall, winter and spring Rye High School athletic calendars; and two special edition, mass mailings each year.
The Denver Post has 201 employees. We have two, and a writer that is paid per story. We also have a person who delivers the paper to five locations in the community. Both U.S. Post Offices, Valley Market, Loaf n’ Jug, and Days Inn.
We have printed from three different sources. When we bought the paper, we used a printer in Colorado Springs that is no longer in business. We printed at the Pueblo Chieftain until they closed that facility, and we currently print at the press of the Santa Fe New Mexican.
Of the 832 newspapers we have printed, we have never missed an issue. On less than a handful of occasions the printer had problems and delivery was delayed by a few hours; and in one case, the paper had to be reprinted because the address labels were wrong. We purchased additional papers and put correct address labels on them. 'Neither snow, nor rain, nor heat, nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds' is a phrase long associated with the American postal worker. It is true for the publisher of your local paper.
Occasionally, some individual won’t get their paper. I would guess 70-80% of the time it is because, despite a very liberal policy, your subscription has expired. The second most frequent reason is that your newspaper is in someone else’s mailbox. We, of course, can help you solve the first problem; the second one is a little out of our hands, although many times we send you another copy.
In the first several years we were open, there were a number of people who were easily convinced that we were going to close the doors. Several years later, we closed our office during COVID and moved to our home to reduce expenses and the rumors resurfaced.We were done. Finished. Ended.
By the way, we never missed an issue during COVID and managed to stay in business, continuing to print 16 full-color pages despite so many news source closures.
When we moved closer to our children/grandchildren the denizens of destruction again nodded their heads and said, “I knew they wouldn’t make it.”
By that time we had been printing a paper every week for over 10 years. And, just this week, we heard the painful report that rumor in the valley is that we are closing. The person seemed surprised to see our newspaper at Valley Market and said, “You do still exist!”
In the words of Mark Twain, “ The rumors of my death are greatly exaggerated.”
Go pick up the Greenhorn Valley View next week. The odds are strongly indicative that it will be there.