With the convergence, I have access to more than 100 Tribune reporters who are out there gathering news. We want to have it all, if the public wants to be told about it, read it in depth, or if they want to get online quickly to check it out. For the Tampa Tribune the convergence resembles a moth's attraction to bright lights. The metro newspaper's staff wants to bask in TV's illumination, but fears being altered by it. The attraction is understandable.
Television offers a much larger potential audience for the newspaper.
The Tribune's 1999 circulation was more than 235,000 daily and 327,000 Sunday copies, but the Tampa television market includes 1,485,980 households and WFLA is the longtime market news leader. With convergence, the Tribune stands to reach thousands of new potential readers. The online site, TBO, benefits from television's reach and the newspaper's reputation and content. In those talks, the details began to surface about the deep cultural problems converged newsrooms would face. But new opportunities sprang from those meetings, too.