Have you done your Mother's Day shopping?
Whoops — neither have I! But help is on the way in Saturday's Post-Bulletin. This weekend's "always worth reading" edition will have a monster load of store fliers and advertising inserts. More than 30 advertisers have Mother's Day-oriented inserts in the Saturday paper, with a lot more than $500 in coupon value.
Some papers calculate the value of the advertising in a much more aggressive way — one can argue that the advertised deals in our weekend edition total thousands of dollars. But sticking just to coupons, we've counted up a minimum of $500 in value so far.
So, a coupon or two at the grocery or another favorite store and you've not only covered the cost of the Saturday paper on newsstands, you'd also cover the cost of home delivery for a full week.
As one of my favorite Rochester advertisers, attorney Jim Suk, says: "Think about it."
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One last point on ad fliers and inserts: A few people have contacted us recently to ask if any inserts are left in our warehouse after the paper is out, and whether they can have those inserts free of charge. Sorry, Charlie: Advertisers make sure that any leftovers aren't distributed free, and I think it's reasonable to say we'd rather you buy the paper.
PENCIL THIS IN:Among the 500 or more news reasons to pick up Saturday's paper: Jeff Hansel's coverage from Houston, Texas, on the MD Anderson Cancer Center, which uses incredibly high-tech proton therapy to treat cancer.
We went to Houston to check out the Anderson Center because it helps to make real what Mayo Clinic is about to do, which is create a $200 million "pencil beam" proton treatment center, named for benefactor Richard O. Jacobson. The Jacobson Center will occupy a full block in Mayo's downtown campus and be one of the clinic's biggest investments ever in cutting-edge medical technology.
The center, as Hansel says in his stories, "is expected to be a draw for visiting physicians, scientists and reporters. Few treatment centers offer proton therapy, and only one in the United States currently offers the type Mayo plans to install: 'pencil beam' therapy that can target tumors electronically."
Mayo hopes to have the center open for business in 2014 or 2015, but we wanted to help readers get a clearer idea of what this program is all about and what it means for Mayo — and the future of cancer treatment. Hansel came back from his Southern junket a few weeks ago with bags full of reporter notebooks, photos and videos, and we'll spread the wealth beginning Saturday.
MORE TV LISTINGS:If you're an attentive reader of our TV listings, hopefully you've noticed that we now run the program schedules for a few more channels. We've added two of KTCA's digital channels — TPT Minnesota and TPT Life, Rochester cable channels 396 and 393 — and KSMQ's Worldview and Create digital channels, Rochester cable channels 397 and 398.
Those are in the daily TV listings in the B section, as well as the Total TV book in Saturday's paper.
We take a fresh look at our TV listings frequently to make sure they're as complete and useful as possible. If you have feedback on ways to make them better, l'm all ears.
