St. Croix Avis Stops Delivery by Mail

I called and told the receptionist how distressed I was to hear no mail sub. to the states. She had no info, but when I asked here to convey our thoughts to Rena Broadhurst, she asked me if I wanted to leave a name and #, which I did. We have gotten the Avis sent to the states forever it seems...we'll miss it. Was told there are no immediate plans for any internet link either. I find the new Daily News site less informative than it was before, so this is even more of an issue....at least we still have The Source.

What a way to run a newspaper by stopping mail delivery without notice.. How inconsiderate can you get!! Why
bother with a yearly subscription if you have to drive to the Avis office to get your daily newspaper? They must be hurting for money. Next thing you know Avis will disappear completely - hope not -- I still like to buy a paper couple times a week.

My wife works at a condo association in the office and the "owners" who had subscriptions rec'd this letter from the Avis. All of them are gonna be "ticked off".

Jumbie -STX

I've noticed quite a few places that don't carry it anymore.

The Avis always has a lot of ads in it, and most of the news is wire reports, ...so not sure why they would be hurting too much, unless they have an old fashioned or dysfunctional system for assembling and printing it ...which on this island I can't imagine 😎

However, managing and fulfilling a daily mailing list, would seem to be pretty labor intensive. Why wouldn't you just raise the rate instead of cutting people off? I'm sure there's an answer.

I just got the scoop from our mail lady. Turns out, Avis has been distributed by the USPS for years without a single payment. So, USPS asked for payment and this is what we get. I wonder if they'll try to get back payment.

So, the Avis has no online presence, does not accept credit cards, and will no longer mail their product, thus dropping a huge number of readers. How much more poorly could they possibly run their business? I guess they could stop accepting advertising, or stop printing news.

So, the Avis has no online presence, does not accept credit cards, and will no longer mail their product, thus dropping a huge number of readers. How much more poorly could they possibly run their business? I guess they could stop accepting advertising, or stop printing news.

Makes me wonder if their real business is something else...

It isn't so much "their" business as "her" business, and "she" is Rena Brodhurst, who is a real character. I cannot say if she is into anything else along the lines of what was suggested above, but I sort of doubt it. I can say, though, that a few of her more successful former employees over the last several years have come away with the same complaint: that the journalism has taken on a tabloid tone and the advertising base has shifted to birth, wedding and death anniversary notices.

For a long time I've wondered if the Avis has something to do with the reputation that St Croix has among the other Virgin Islands as being the unfortunate stepchild. If I were to judge the islands by their papers, I might easily come to the same conclusion.

And yet the Avis is a better paper than the Daily News, IMO.

Sorry, didn't mean to attack anyone personally... thought it was a larger business. And was only half serious.

So, the Avis has no online presence, does not accept credit cards, and will no longer mail their product, thus dropping a huge number of readers. How much more poorly could they possibly run their business? I guess they could stop accepting advertising, or stop printing news.

Well.... maybe "not so fast"....
Newspapers are in trouble everywhere as we know.
They're selling an inexpensive product that goes stale faster than bread.
Creditcard charges aren't cheap these days, especially when every penny counts.
And who's to say they have a "huge amount" of mail-only readers?
(btw...that sounds like a business someone could go into... reselling the Avis)

Announcements have always been a money maker for newspapers, but they also seem to have plenty of business ads too.

The Avis is the paper of choice for many StX localsm whereas, the VIDaily historically has a STT bias. On a regular basis I'm reminded how many people on island don't have the internet, or only have a slow connection, so I'm not sure putting the Avis online is a great business decision, let alone the cost. And many much larger newspapers are still trying to figure out how to stay afloat when giving it away for free online. Seems to me they have their "niche."

We ran the numbers a few years ago, on the price of the mail subscription, and basically the Avis was charging what the postage was for a newspaper rate to send the bundle off island..so they weren't getting any net money themselves (of course, if they weren't paying the USPS......, but I can't figure out how they could get away with that on the papers that went off island). We would have increased our payment if they had presented a sub. price increase in those terms....

In that case the real question is how did we taxpayers get taken for years by a non-paying customer of USPS? I'm pretty sure on the mainland you can't to long at all without paying your bill if you want continued USPS service...

I just got the scoop from our mail lady. Turns out, Avis has been distributed by the USPS for years without a single payment. So, USPS asked for payment and this is what we get. I wonder if they'll try to get back payment.

Not that it will matter in the long run but why no paperboys on STX? I'd subscribe if when I woke up the paper was waiting for me. At least in the areas that have dense enough populations it seems like it would be a good way to increase circulation, increase profits, and employ some of the youth.

Sean

Just saw this today. Am one month into a six-month subscription off-island, and am wondering whether anyone knows any more about this. I have not received the letter STX Bob did, and neither the STX nor STT phone numbers for The Avis are functioning. Last issue I got was the week ending Thursday, May 13th.

Thanks.

Iris Tramm -- As an off-island subscriber you are out of luck on getting any more Avis newspapers. I would call Avis asap and demand a 5 month refund on your 6 month subscription because the letter that was sent out clearly stated they would refund any mail subscriber if they wanted a refund. They have to be staffing the office because they still print a paper and people go to their office & buy a paper. I don't understand why you can't reach them via phone.

Jumbie -STX

Newspapers all over the country are hurting, I wonder how much longer they will be in business

Agreed. The problem is their phone is not working -- either on STX or STT. I mean, did Rena burn the building down? Did they forget to pay Innovative, too? Your testimony is that the biz is still functioning, just not mailing off-island?

The Avis is no longer mailing anywhere, on-island or off-island.

Jumbie said, "As an off-island subscriber you are out of luck on getting any more Avis newspapers." I believe Jumbie was referring to the fact that people on-island can still buy the paper at a store.

Agreed. The problem is their phone is not working -- either on STX or STT. I mean, did Rena burn the building down? Did they forget to pay Innovative, too? Your testimony is that the biz is still functioning, just not mailing off-island?

Too soon. Apparently they just turn their phones off over the weekend? WTF? There's no news on Saturdays? I called this morning and a lovely woman answered and said they'd calculate my refund and mail out a check. (I gave them my STX address, rather than risk having them send something stateside again.) She wouldn't confirm whether the reason for stopping off-island mail service was because they failed to pay their U.S. Post Office bill, but she laughed for a good 20 seconds when I asked. "This is just a decision the publisher has made", was the official line and, yeah, it sounded EXACTLY like when the military refuses to confirm or deny something everyone already knows they've done.

Sad. I was just commenting the other day that the only news media I still PAID FOR was this little teeny-tiny local paper because it reported all the small town minutiae that you can't get online -- the classifieds, the obits, those crazy-ass memorial ads, and the local (as they say in the trade) "flower show" coverage. I mused that perhaps this was the one way that local news media could survive the age of the internet. Honestly, I would have willingly paid more than the $80-something I paid for a week-delayed, six-month mail subscription.

After ten years on STX, though, this is more or less what I've come to expect. I'd love to see someone come in and do local news right -- even if it's a weekly paper rather than a daily -- as VIDN is heavily-weighted to STT and STJ coverage, but I think we're more likely to see bypass construction finished before that.

I give The Avis two years before it folds completely.

I'll miss the typos. I still have a copy of their headline: "EMANICPATION!" somewhere.

Yes you can still buy a paper at Avis building or you can buy a paper from any of the many places that have papers like The Corner Store in LaVallee, or most gas stations and grocery stores.. Even if you lived here full time & were a subscriber that got the paper in their daily mail --they are out of luck as well.

As to why the phone doesn't work at Avis on STX or STT --- wouldn't be surprised if they had not paid Innovative just like they didn't pay USPS.