Barring a “small miracle,” the Route 66 Pulse newspaper will cease publication after its current issue.
Early Friday, I received an e-mail from Bob “Crocodile” Lile, president of the Old Route 66 Association of Texas and a frequent contributor to the Pulse, that spilled the news:
Sadly, advertising revenue and subscriptions have not kept pace with expenses and we did not have a solid network of distributors in place across the country to deliver papers and sell advertising, so this may be the last printed issue. It is just simple economics, no return on investment and one cannot keep pouring money into a money losing enterprise no matter how entertaining, wanted or needed, so the publisher has decided to discontinue publication. I will be delivering the July/August issue to you within the next week. […]
Who knows, maybe there is a solution to our problem; all we ask for is a small miracle. Hope you have enjoyed reading and distributing the Route 66 Pulse. Thanks from the bottom of my heart.
This morning, I talked by phone to Jason Bernhardt, associate publisher of the Pulse. He confirmed that Mercury Media Group of Richfield Springs, N.Y. , which owns the newspaper, would be discontinuing the publication.
“We just incurred losses for too long,” Bernhardt said. “We hit a glass ceiling in terms of our advertising. It was just not getting any better.”
Bernhardt also agreed that fuel prices, which continued to rise in the past two years, also created difficulties in distributing the newspaper to all 2,200 miles of Route 66. (Disclosure: I turned down a job offer from the Route 66 Pulse shortly before it launched because of my concerns about advertising and distribution.)
Bernhardt said there is an editor’s note in the coming issue that explains the suspension of the publication.
The Pulse had been published several times a year since June 2006 and was free at many Route 66 businesses, restaurants and motels. The Pulse also had a number of mailed subscriptions to those who lived far from the road. At its peak, Route 66 Pulse boasted a circulation of 30,000.
Bernhardt and other Pulse officers are holding out hope that a corporate sponsor will revive the publication, or that the fledgling Route 66 Alliance could eventually adopt the Pulse for its newsletter or magazine.
Bernhardt said the Web site will be maintained for “as long as humanly possible.” But he doubts the newspaper’s writers and photographers would continue to make contributions without pay. “So it may be the end of the online site as well,” he said.
Although the Pulse will likely soon vanish, Route 66 News will still be here for reports about the Mother Road. I say that with no sense of triumph. I felt a timely online news site and a feature-focused print publication could happily co-exist. Any sort of publicity for Route 66 is a good thing. So the loss of the Route 66 Pulse is a loss for the historic road as well.
Too bad. I liked the Pulse. It’s how I learned about sites I wanted to visit. I hope it can be revived.
It is unfortunate that the economics of the times have forced an end to The Pulse. The paper served the Route 66 Community by being able to provide news of the Road faster than a quarterly publication could ever hope to.
This website has long been an excellent source of news about and along the Road, but the Pulse reached an audience that, in many cases, were unfamiliar with Route 66 and introduced them to the wonder of America’s Main Street.
The Pulse will be missed.
I was researching subscriptions to this publication and others after finishing a this week from St. Louis to Chicago and back; covering all alignments of the old road. I was disheartened to find out the newspaper would not be published anymore.
This just stresses the importance of subscribing to other publications and patronizing businesses that are on the mother road or that support the mother road. Without money, none can survive.
If someone picks up the paper, I would sure love to subscribe to it.