Newsagent
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
A newsagent (British English), newsagency (Australian English) or newsstand (American English), is often a small business that sells newspapers, magazines, stationery, snacks and often items of local interest such as postcards and clothing emblazoned with sports team mascots. Newsstands typically operate in well-trafficked public places like city streets, train stations and airports. Racks for newspapers and magazines can also be found in convenience stores, bookstores and supermarkets.
The physical establishment can be either freestanding or part of a larger structure (e.g. a shopping mall or a railway station). On street corners in New York City, for instance, they are shacks constructed of steel beams and aluminum siding or roofing tin; and require a city permit to build and operate. Other New York newsstands are located inside hotels and office buildings and beneath street level in underground concourses or on subway platforms. During the 1990s, newsstands on some subway platforms were removed and then reopened in modular units designed to fit into the triangular spaces beneath subway staircases.
In recent decades, the most heavily trafficked newsstand in the world was reported to be Nini's Corner at Harvard Square in Cambridge, Massachusetts. At one time, the world's largest freestanding exterior newsstand was operated by Simon Weingarden (1881-1981) at the corner of Michigan and Woodward avenues in Detroit.
[edit] Australia
A newsagent manages a newsagency. This newsagency conducts either a retail business primarily offering a comprehensive range of newspapers and magazines from a clearly identified newsagency business and/or a distribution business offering home delivery of a comprehensive range of newspapers and magazines.
In Australia, this entity can be quite large and sophisticated businesses fully computerized which is a requirement from the Australian Consumer Affairs, employing over a hundred people although the average is about five. If authorised, it usually has an area base, protected by contracts with most of the Australian Newsagents' Federation recognised publishers/distributors. These recognized publishers/distributors include ACP Publishing, News Limited, Fairfax Publications, Gordon and Gotch, Rural Press, Western Australian Newspapers, Australian Provincial Newspapers and Retail Distribution Services. This monopoly has been a major source of contention between the newsagents and the Australian Consumer Affairs.
