New Pennysaver Melds Online and Print Advertising

Jay Barrett/KMXT

Print journalism may be facing tough times around the country, but in Kodiak, one man hopes there’s enough advertising revenue to support a second publication. Kevin Bass is the publisher of the brand new "Kodiak Shopper." Its first issue hit the streets this week at a number of retail locations around town.

Bass, who moved here about a year and a half ago from Tennessee, works as a surgical technician during the day at Providence Kodiak Island Medical Center, and says he spends about four hours after work every day and all day Saturdays maintaining the Kodiak Shopper website, laying out the paper and selling the display ads in it. The first issue of the tabloid-sized paper runs 16 pages.

— (Shopper 1 47 sec "I wanted to have a … decided on a classified paper.")

Bass says he intends some of the content in the print version of the paper to be driven from the companion Kodiak Shopper dot com web site.

— (Shopper 2 35 sec "You can upload pictures … content on the website.")

As far as competing with the Kodiak Daily Mirror, which has been publishing for over 60 years and seen weeklies come and go over the decades, Bass says his focus is different:

— (Shopper 3 36 sec "The Daily Mirror is a … get something off their chest.")

Bass is hoping locals will submit content for publication, but he does have some simple rules:

— (Shopper 4 29 sec "Some of the content … for content for the paper.")

The first issue of the Kodiak Shopper has about 15 display ads – a couple of them full-page in size – but so far only four classifieds. People can take out up to two free classifieds at a time, and they run online for two weeks and appear in one issue of the bi-weekly print publication. Bass has the Shopper printed in Anchorage.