Comic Strip Syndication: Bad Business

Last month, I blogged about newspaper syndication, explaining what it is and giving them some praise. However, the system is faulty more than it is supportive of the cartoonist, the newspaper and the syndicate itself. Why is this? Simply because the business of newspapers comic strips has changed over the decades, even before the internet. Syndication was in fact a pretty good system at one point and parts of it still are.

Though the business has changed, the syndication system has not adapted well. The result is not so much in how comic strips are distributed, rather in what has happened to the funny pages. They have become stagnant with a lack of fresh new comic strips.

A business must grow to not only succeed, but to survive. Growth comes from continuous higher returns. The life of a comic strip used to end when a cartoonist retires or dies. The result is a sudden loss of income for the syndicate. But this provides a great opportunity to introduce a new strip, right? The problem is that the new strip cannot make as much money as the old strip, because it takes time for the new one to gain popularity and readership. This is then a financial loss for the syndicate. Their growth is stunted.

The syndicate's answer to this problem is to continue the old strip as either reruns or under penmanship of a new cartoonist. This way, they avoid having to take a loss and can at least keep their current level of income from that strip, even if it is no longer substantially gaining readership because it's like 30+ years old! Throw into the mix several syndicates competing for that rare open slot and you have a tough situation. Newspapers, cartoonists and you, the readers suffer.

Do you think there is a better answer? Let me ask you my dear blog readers, what do you think can re-ignite the funny pages, the same old comic strips or fresh new ones?