With this week’s issue, the Idyllwild Town Crier has more than doubled its circulation from about 2,400 to more than 5,400 by going to full Hill distribution. Everyone with a U.S. Postal Service box in Idyllwild, Mountain Center and Garner Valley will find a free issue of the TC in their mail each week.
Many restaurants and other businesses around town are sporting distinctive 5-inch-by-7-inch placards in their windows advising tourists to “Get Your Town Crier, Idyllwild Newspaper, Free Inside” and will distribute copies of the paper free to all who enter. We expect tourists and second-homer owners to see the signs, go inside for their free TC and perhaps buy something else, too. And local innkeepers can continue to come to the TC office each week to pick up free newspapers for their guests.
We anticipate seeing many more tourists around town reading TCs in the restaurants and on the streets. To businesses on the Hill, this all means more than twice as many people reading your ads.
As you’ve already noticed, the TC is sporting a new size and format, too, going from the older tabloid to the larger, more familiar broadsheet used by most newspapers. This will give us more options in controlling the color and quality of ads placed by our advertisers. If you’re an advertiser, it also means readers will spend more time on your ad page.
This is all part of our effort to ensure the survival of Idyllwild’s only newspaper so that it can continue to serve our community by reporting on our nine local governmental entities — which no other media covers — and by continuing to keep our community informed as to the organizations, activities and events that make living on our Hill special.
Jack and Becky Clark
Co-publishers
