Rack update

In response to some of the comments below, it occurs to me that I haven't been as clear about the rack distribution mess as I ought to be.

There actually are two companies out there signing stores to distribution agreements. One is River's Edge Distribution of Great Falls, which is owned by the Great Falls Tribune, which is owned by Gannett, which is the nation's largest newspaper company -- one of the few left with the resources to swallow somebody like Lee Enterprises. River's Edge is the Montana branch of DistribuTech, which has the national contract for publications in Albertsons stores.

The other company is Community Racks of Montana, described in the post below. It claims to have contracts with the two big IGAs, County Markets, Western Drug and a few other places. I am still trying to confirm whether these contracts are legitimate.

Tony asks, What can be done? I wish I knew. Since the Albertsons agreement appears to be national, local managers probably are impervious to pressure. But a little pressure never hurts. For various reasons, I don't really think the Trib is in this for the money; I think it wants to protect access for its own (and Gannett's?) free publications. If a few local newspapers should happen to fold ... well, Gannett could live with that. In some respects, I would feel safer if the Trib was in it for the money.

Community Racks, I suspect, is just in it for the money, and its managers may be too stupid to know that alienating their potential customers to death isn't a bright way to start a business. I'm a little nervous about going public with all of this in The Outpost (do I really want to advertise the fact that some rack locations may get paid while others don't?), but I think that's probably what I ought to do.