When the Los Angeles Times reduced their book section to a measly page-and-a-half spread due to budget cuts, I canceled my subscription, as did thousands of other readers. In an attempt to cut costs, they lost subscriptions. I may not be a financial analyst but if you lose your readership, doesn’t the cost of your ad space have to make up for it? I wonder how this decision has affected them overall.
I was catching up over at Book Group Buzz and apparently the Washington Post has the same idea. Click here for the article. It saddens me to no end that these sections have to be cut.
Book Chatter 
not related to this post: I’ve assigned you the letter D.
You know, I cancelled my subscription to our local paper over 2 years ago, but I continue to get it (weekends only, which is what my subscription was). I asked my husband about it, and he thinks that we keep getting it because it artifically inflates the number of subscribers so that when they sell ads they can say “we have THIS many subscribers”, even if some of us aren’t paying. Not directly related to your post, but something to think about.
Book reviews aside, our paper is only to have home delivery Thurs-Sunday soon! Supposedly other big city papers are watching to see how it goes and may end up doing the same in the future, depressing:(
I’m in the DC area and was seriously upset when the Post announced they were dropping Book World. How sad!