Boston Globe owner John Henry took to the paper’s opinion pages to apologize to readers after some subscription problems lead its own editorial staff to deliver the Sunday paper this weekend.
“I want to personally apologize to every Boston Globe subscriber who has been inconvenienced,” Henry wrote Wednesday. "We recognize that you depend on us, and that we’ve let you down. We’re working around the clock on a variety of fronts to solve this.”
Henry added that improving the paper’s subscription service was a major concern for him after buying the paper from the New York Times Company in 2013.
“When I purchased the Globe two years ago, more than half the subscribers who were not renewing their subscriptions told us it was due to delivery service issues,” Henry wrote. “Week after week, I reiterated that fixing this had to be one of our highest priorities. Before I arrived, the Globe had moved away from operating its own delivery service. That was a mistake.
“Instead, the Globe instituted a somewhat expensive plan to try to remedy the reported problems. By the beginning of my second year it was apparent the service was not improving. So we began to look for an alternative delivery service.
“We settled on ACI Media Group, generally recognized as the best in the business. The firm’s first bid not only contained the service improvements we were looking for but was substantially cheaper — more in line with other regions in the United States. We thought we’d found what we were looking for, but this overnight transition was much harder than anyone anticipated.”
You can read the full piece here.
