New Saturday format coming to The Sacramento Bee
At The Sacramento Bee, we’re working every day to deliver reporting that helps you live your best life and that holds those in power to account. And every day we learn more about how we can better serve a growing community of readers.
More than 5 million people visit sacbee.com every month. That’s leaps and bounds ahead of the number of people we reached when we were at our peak in print subscribers.
It’s hard to believe, but the high-water mark for daily print newspaper readership was in 1990. Sunday readership peaked in the U.S. in 1995.
Readers’ habits have been changing for almost 30 years. And so have we.
You now can receive our news alerts on your phone and via your inbox. You can follow stories on our YouTube channel and by liking us on Instagram or Facebook. We offer a daily morning news briefing through Amazon’s Alexa and Google’s Home, the leading smart speakers.
But about that print decline. Since 2005, local newspaper advertising has fallen 68 percent nationally and Facebook and Google now account for 77 percent of local market digital advertising spend.
It’s easy to see why we do business in 2020 looks much different than it did 163 years ago when this publication started — as a six-day-a-week newspaper. And why our approach must continue to evolve.
But our mission of providing high-impact journalism in the public interest has not changed. Our commitment is stronger than ever, and we see it when elected officials introduce new policies on the heels of Sacramento Bee reporting, in how budgeting priorities are established and when those in need find support in the wake of our reporting.
In late 2019, we announced we are moving to a new format for our Saturday editions. Starting Feb. 22, we will no longer produce a printed newspaper on Saturday. We will launch a Weekend Edition that includes expanded newspapers on Fridays and Sundays.
Saturday features, including the Drive section, Home & Garden, comics, puzzles and TV listings, will now appear in expanded editions in print on Friday and Sunday. We will publish an e-edition, or digital replica of the printed newspaper, on Saturdays and you can find it at www.sacbee.com/e-edition.
We will also continue to publish breaking news to our website and across social media platforms seven days a week.
We’re engaging with you on topics you’ve told us are important, and we continue to offer a more robust experience for you when you arrive across our many platforms. Consider:
▪ The launch of the Tipping Point series, which offers a thoughtful weekly dive into how our region is growing.
▪ The January addition of three Sacramento Kings reporters who previously worked for Sactown Royalty, a blog run by SB Nation and owned by Vox Media that is being nearly shuttered.
▪ Our new Community to Newsroom Pipeline project, which elevates the voices of diverse contributors.
Our goal is to continue to grow the number of supporters who subscribe to The Bee, in print and digital combined. That’s important because the more reader support we have, the less susceptible we are to advertising changes.
The newsroom is newly focused on what subscribers are reading at sacbee.com, diving into data in ways we never have before to better serve you. We have work to do, but I believe in a robust future for local digital journalism.
We welcome your story ideas and suggestions, from why requested speed bumps on your street are delayed to getting your perspective on how we can together solve for our most significant challenges, such as affordable housing and homelessness. You can share your ideas and suggestions on our Tipping Point feedback form.
We appreciate your continued support. It will help ensure we have deeply reported, high-impact local news for the next 163 years.
If you have any questions, comments, or concerns related to the new delivery method, please give us a call at 800-284-3233 or email us at customerservice@sacbee.com. We will do everything possible to ensure your satisfaction.