The Post is doubling its weekday price to 50 cents. Why? It's the "result of increased production and transportation costs."
The Post's owner, News Corp./Rupert Murdoch, first offered the tabloid for 25 cents in 2000. When the Post managed to surpass its archrival, the NY Daily News, in circulation in 2007, the Post went back on sale at 50 cents, but for only 10 days, leading Daily News editor Martin Dunn to say, "We did seven years of them being half our price, and they could barely give it seven days. All of a sudden they’re squealing like a pig stuck on a skewer.” (The News currently leads the Post in circulation, but by a mere ~14,000 readers.)
The Post has long been considered profitless, which is why Murdoch hoped to buy Newsday, in order to consolidate backend production operations. Recently, the Post's format went a little smaller, perhaps so it could be printed on the same press as another News Corp. newspaper asset--The Wall Street Journal. And today, the Post makes rallies to fellow News Corp. employee Bill O'Reilly's defense by slamming O'Reilly bete noir Keith Olbermann.
