Wayback Machine

If you've never heard of the wayback machine, you HAVE to check it out. It's an archive of websites and webpages back to the beginning of the website's history. Not every single page, ad, picture, graphic or link is available, but for the most part, I'd say the majority of the pages are there for you to see.

In my last post, I mentioned the high cost of classified advertising in the Ledger. I was wondering just how much the cost has increased over the last few years, so I just went to the wayback machine. I typed in www.theledger.com, selected November, 2002 and VOILA! I had the 03-04 rate card!

Here's how the Ledger's advertising costs have increased in the last four years:

Open rate, weekend, per line in 2004: $10.27
Open rate, weekend, per line in 2008: $14.70

That comes out to about a 15% increase per year.

They might try to claim that the reasoning is an increase in circulation, but check this out:

2002 Sunday circulation: 85,067
2008 Sunday circulation: 85,217

What then, if anything, could justify that much of an increase?

Check out the wayback machine, if you haven't already done so. Bookmark it and it can be a very effective tool.