Readers are asking why MySaline’s obituary listings changed, and that makes sense, because I haven’t done a great job of explaining or promoting the change.
At the end of every obituary page, there is more. It tells you that for the full obituary to be published, there is now a fee and you can get started by clicking the link. We have been posting them for free for 16 years. For comparison, the local paper charges $100 and the Little Rock newspaper charges as much as $300. We are offering to publish the full text of an obituary – as much text as you want to use so you can say everything – along with up to five pictures, for only $50. So the person submitting the obituary is able to say and show lots more about their loved one, yet it’s a lot less expensive.
While we would love to do everything for free, the reality of it is that in order to keep a business running, you have to make money. MySaline pays someone to post the obituaries and therefore MySaline has been losing money on posting them.
It’s not my favorite way to go about this. I know that people want to read the obituaries in full. If all the people that looked at the obituaries wanted to donate on a regular basis. That would generate plenty of revenue for us to keep doing it without charging individuals for publishing their obituary.
Since the beginning of starting MySaline, it has been my mission to allow anyone to access local news and events for free. I feel that news should be available to everyone, not just the people who are able to pay for it. This means that we have to find revenue in ways other than charging a subscription fee. Local news outlets charge anywhere from $5 to over $30 per month for their news and it’s worth every penny. So is MySaline, but that’s just not our mission. Advertising is the other way media companies fund their business. Yes, we occasionally sell t-shirts and yes we occasionally host events. Except in rare cases, advertising is what allows media to exist.
This decision to start charging for a full obituary did not come quickly. I have been thinking about it for years. It’s hard to compare my business to other industries, but just for the sake of comparison, maybe there are three diners. One diner is selling lunch for $20. Another diner is selling it for $10. My diner is giving it away. We could make the decision to cut staff, or to stop distributing food all together, or perhaps we could suddenly become independently wealthy… or we could find something in between that makes sense and is still a great deal. This is the decision that I made.
I hope that I have built a company reputation that is in line with the print media companies that have preceded MySaline. I hope that families will entrust us to publish their announcement commemorating their loved one. To get the information to submit an obituary, visit www.mysaline.com/submit-obits.