Newspapers coverage of arts vs. entertainment

[Guest fiafour]

I have often heard that it is best to write the advertisers instead of the actually paper. (This goes also for complaining to television stations.) They papers and stations often won't care what you think, BUT ADVERTISERS DO.

If you start writing advertisers that you are upset with the change. They will start to realize that their ads are going to reach less people and they will start to pull their slots. The papers will then realize to keep their funding they need to please you.

[Alexandra]

Good point, fiafour! It's easy to reach advertisers by email, too Check out who takes out the big ads in your paper's arts section (for lack of a better word) and let them know you are a reader who wants to read about dance (or ballet, or the arts).

[Morris Neighbor]

If I may briefly invoke my years in the ad game (and my upbringing in the home of a Procter & Gamble executive), I'd point out that some advertisers are more sensitive than others, depending mostly on the paths available to reach their audiences.

MacDonald's, which can use any mass medium, will send its own inpectors to meat plants in response to consumer complaints. Film, theatre, and book advertisers, who *MUST* be in the Times to satisfy their various constituencies, are much less responsive. Indeed, many movie, theatre, and book contracts actually require a certain amount of ads in the paper, so letters in this area are likely to fall on deaf press agents.

With ad rates far too expensive for most dance companies to buy more than a tiny announcement, the dance world has little leverage here. After all, where can they reach so many prospective audience members?