McAllen Convention & Visitors Bureau

At my Rotary club meeting today, we had a presentation by the owner of the "Town Crier" newspaper. This is a weekly free publication that is delivered each Wednesday. He gave a great overview of the state of the industry and made the point that a large part of the financial "strain" in the industry is caused by a larger than normal level of debt by many papers. Debt service is the biggest financial issue facting newspapers today, which, if they can get past it, will mean that newspapers can be quite profitable even with the challenges posted by the internet and other competition. For us locally, his paper is growing as are many free weeklies across the country. They have incredible penetration and feature local positive news welcomed by their readers. This exempliefies again an advantage of living in the Valley. Our population is growing, our economy is growing, and even our newspaper readership is growing because we are such a desirable retirement community and retirees are among the most prolific newspaper readers in the country.