Longtime Delaware Today Editor Mark Nardone has departed Delaware Today after 22 years at the regional magazine.
Nardone announced his departure in a farewell column.
Nardone worked on and later headed the editorial side of the magazine during a difficult period that features the same pressures facing all print media.
Regional magazines have not seen the precipitous decline in advertising as their newspaper counterparts, but issues tend to be packed with special sections and advertorials to make up for the changing landscape.
Nardone is now communications manager at Winterthur Museum Gardens and Library in northern Delaware’s Chateau County, an area frequently featured in Delaware Today.
Parent company Today Media has been seeing staff departures on the editorial side. Today Media has an internal posting for editor of the Delaware Business Times, a business journal that is published every two weeks. The Business Times also has a website.
No help wanted listing was found for the Delaware Today slot. However, four job openings have been posting for Gannett’s News Journal and Delmarva Now (News and Advertiser). The Delmarva Now position is based in Bethany Beach and mentions flipflops.
Please bring back the bongos to Action News theme
Anyone who wandered into the Delaware Valley over the past 40 years or so marveled at the Channel 6 Action News theme. As other stations went through many format and theme song changes, Action News stayed on the top of the ratings heap with the “If it bleeds, it leads formats” crime-heavy format and that song you can’t get out of your head
When renting a room in the Little Italy neighborhood on my arrival, the only station coming through the rabbit ears antenna was Channel 6. I couldn’t get the theme out of my head, especially the bongo drums.
Back in 2013, a TV news aficionado went through the archives and patched together the changes in anchors, culture, fashions etc. It’s an interesting piece you can view below. Click here for a post from Citilab on the Action News theme song that was dropped in most markets, but lives on in Philly.
By the way, I miss the bongos, which according to the story were dropped back in the 1990s.
Fewer print options in Cecil County
Big changes in the newspaper landscape took place across the state line in Cecil County, MD over the summer.
The Cecil Guardian weekly newspaper ceased publication in June and the Cecil Whig cut its publication schedule from three days a week to two. David Fike, who heads the Chesapeake side of Minnesota-based Adams Publishing Group blamed tariffs coming out of trade war with Canada for soaring newsprint costs that led to the decision.
Recently the tariffs were blocked by a trade commision but newsprint prices remain volatile as mills shut down due to a sharp decline in the number of pages printed at most papers over the past several years.
Mills left standing in Canada gained pricing power that put a further crimp on costs at newspapers seeing a decline in display advertising.
Several years ago, the Whig reduced its print schedule from five days a week down to two, with then-parent company ACM Chesapeake closing its Elkton printing plant and cranking out the Whig from its Easton flagship the Star-Democrat.
The Star-Dem also announced it posted a Monday E-edition and dropped the print edition from its six-day-a-week schedule.
The Cecil Guardian got its start as the Whig was struggling with a steep slide in advertising revenue. The same challenges faced the Guardian.
The Guardian is still posting content online.
The Whig and Star-Democrat are owned by the family of recrational vehicle and billboard tycoon Stephan Adams, who has snapped up 100 small dailies and weekies around the country in forming Adams Publishing Group. The company’s lone Delaweare holding is the Newark Post.
A radio affiliate in Salisbury, MD owns stations with signals that cover Sussex County.