Philadelphia Bulletin
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The Evening Bulletin is the name of two Philadelphia, Pennsylvania newspapers.
[edit] The Old Bulletin
The first Evening Bulletin was first published on Monday, April 17, 1847 as Cummings' Evening Telegraphic Bulletin and served Philadelphia for 134 years, ceasing publication as The Bulletin on Friday, January 29, 1982.
It was widely known for its slogan, "Nearly Everybody Reads The Bulletin", and was at one time the largest-circulation afternoon daily in the U.S.
(Source: The Bulletin, January 29, 1982)
The original Evening Bulletin was founded by Alexander Cummings, born in Williamsport PA Nov. 17, 1810, died July 16, 1879, in Ottawa, Canada, where he was U. S. consul. He also founded the New York World newspaper. He was an American Civil War officer, governor of Colorado Territory, and held various government posts. He lost control of the Bulletin to stockholders in the 1850s. From 1859 until 1895, the paper was edited by Gibson Peacock. Upon Peacock's death, it was bought by William L. McLean. In 1895 the Bulletin was last in circulation of Philadelphia's 13 dailies. By 1915 it was first, a distinction it held until near its demise. Circulation reached 750,000 daily by the mid-1960s, and it was long America's largest evening paper.
Nearly every big-city evening newspaper in the nation suffered the same fate as the Evening Bulletin. Traffic congestion in the middle of the day made it difficult, if not impossible, for delivery trucks to distribute newspapers in an efficient manner. The other option, of course, would be to buy enough trucks and hire enough drivers to get the papers delivered - and pass the cost along to subscribers and advertisers. This, however, would have put them at a distinct competitive disadvantage with their cities' morning papers. (Morning papers don't have this problem because their trucks are out on the street between 1 a.m and 5 a.m.)
But a considerably greater factor in the demise of the afternoon newspapers in the latter part of the 20th century was competition with the new medium of television. Morning newspapers are traditionally read around the breakfast table on the train or bus to work, and they have been better able to preserve their readership base (although that, too, is slipping). Afternoon papers would generally be taken home and enjoyed in the evening. With the advent of television (and, to a lesser extent, other forms of entertainment), afternoon dailies have been failing across the country. Not only is their entertainment value supplanted by television, but often the television news is more up to date.
On its last day of publication, the Bulletin changed its slogan to "Nearly Everybody Read The Bulletin."
[edit] The New Bulletin
The Bulletin is a daily newspaper that started publication on Monday, November 22, 2004 as a resurrection of the first Bulletin under different ownership.
