By Bob Allen
Starting next year, Texas Baptists will receive their denominational newspaper in e-mail inboxes rather than postal mailboxes, as the Baptist Standard moves to digital-only format starting with the Jan. 14 issue.
The move coincides with decisions by national magazines Newsweek and The Sporting News to cease print publication at year’s end due to declining circulation and advertising revenues along with rising costs to produce and deliver print publications.
Current subscribers to the Baptist Standard will automatically receive by mail a new monthly printed magazine titled CommonCall highlighting feature-oriented stories geared toward human interest and practical aspects of the Christian faith over breaking news.
The digital Baptist Standard will continue to deliver the type of content that readers have come to expect in the newspaper’s 124-year history. Nonsubscribers will still be able to access top news and cover stories, but other features such as columns and Bible study lessons will be premium content available only to paid subscribers.
“We realize some of our readers wish we’d never change, and we regret disappointing them,” said Baptist Standard Editor Marv Knox, “but these moves offer us the first opportunity to increase our circulation in more than 30 years.”
Founded in 1888 as an alternative to the Texas Baptist and Herald, published by controversialist S.A. Hayden, circulation of the official news journal of the Baptist General Convention of Texas peaked in the late 1970s with more than 390,000 weekly subscribers.
In the 2011 Southern Baptist Convention annual, the now twice-a-month newspaper that must compete for readers with another statewide paper supported by the breakaway Southern Baptists of Texas Convention, reported a print circulation of 30,133.
Last year the Baptist Standard’s parent company launched FaithVillage.com, an Internet-based gathering place for evangelical Christian young adults and teens both within and outside of the Baptist fold.