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Nola Media is telling readers the print edition will be familiar, complete and even better. Prototype pages included an expanded opinion section and color comics for the Wednesday edition, which will carry three days' worth of comics and crossword puzzles. Editor Jim Amoss, who oversaw a news operation that won four Pulitzers, said there will be plenty of news. "Reduction is something of a misnomer," Amoss said. "Yes, we're reducing frequency of printing, but the three editions that we will be printing will hold their own in news hole and amount of content against what is now distributed over seven days." Even after recent layoffs, including more than 70 from the newsroom, Amoss said the new operation is employing 156 people to gather and disseminate news. The Advocate hopes to grow its print audience by 20,000 in the New Orleans area. Currently, they sell about 400 papers a day there. Publisher David Manship said 10,000 free copies were being distributed this week. "I will be able to give the people of New Orleans, on a daily basis, news from around the state and around the world
-- and from New Orleans," he said. A New Orleans nonprofit news website, The Lens, is also beefing up its staff, and local television and radio station are ramping up their online presence. "Between The Advocate and The Lens and other things that may come up, yes, I think there will be more competition than they've faced to date," said industry analyst Rick Edmonds of The Poynter Institute. Advance is usually reluctant to release financial figures, but Mathews has been revealing some details. "Unique visitors" to Nola.com -- those who visit the site once or more
-- were up 31.7 percent year-to-date for August, he said. Print advertising revenue has been down for the past five years, he said. Audit Bureau of Circulation figures show paid circulation for The Times-Picayune at just under 155,000 for Sunday and more than 134,000 daily. It has never come close to the more than 257,000 figure prior to Hurricane Katrina in 2005, when the paper one a Pulitzer for its coverage. Manship, publisher of the Advocate, said phone calls for subscription information jammed lines when the paper's expansion into New Orleans was announced. "We're going to give it a minimum of six months," he said. "We think we'll be able to achieve some good numbers by then."
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