Q. Who made the decision to print the two crossword puzzles back to back so that there is no way that two people can work them at the same time? There is no way the puzzles can be cut out individually.

A. A few months ago, StarNews Media made a strategic decision to cut down on the amount of “filler” space used in each day’s edition.

Filler space is generally a promotional ad that is placed in a section just to fill a hole on a page when there is not a paid advertisement available and editorial content is not an option for that section. The puzzles appear each day with the classifieds.

To keep the classified ads flowing properly and to and to anchor the puzzles in the four corners of different pages, we were having to publish the equivalent of about eight pages of filler each week. Each page costs thousands of dollars to produce, so by eliminating those ads and reworking these sections, we were able to save money without eliminating news content from the paper.

While it may not be an ideal solution for puzzle fans, our analysis indicated that this was most cost-effective solution to the dilemma.

That said, we apologize for the inconvenience that this may cause some of our readers.

RELATED LINKS:

Now that the StarNews has been sold, will the NYT crossword puzzle be discontinued?

What happened to the Sudoku and Crossword puzzle in the game section of the paper?

Date posted: June 7, 2012

User-contributed question by:
Edana Schmidt