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First off, I'm sorry for your loss. It's a tough time.
As to the cost of the obituary, it's a shame that the funeral director couldn't give you specific prices. Rather than just rant about what the obit cost you in your letter to the newspaper, detail the process you went through, explain why you were shocked at the price, and ask if the newspaper couldn't provide a little rate sheet to all the funeral homes in their readership area so others, like you, don't have to learn about obituary pricing the hard way. You might also plea for a reduced rate since you weren't provided with a rate sheet and were told it would be $100-$200.
If I were you, I think I'd be more upset that the funeral director couldn't give you specific pricing and instead said $100-$200. And you might suggest to him that he should request rate sheets from all the newspapers in his area. I'm sure they'd be happy to provide them if asked.
I live in a small city that's served by a small daily newspaper. I know they offer "paid obituaries", but as far as I know, most are free. I know they used to be, as I was the editor-publisher of the paper years ago. We had an obituary writer (family section editor) who used a certain format for all obituaries. I believe the "paid" obit came about when some people wanted to write prose instead of use the standard format. That's fair, imho. A "Paid obituary" line ended the obit to clarify that it wasn't written by the staff.
Color in a newspaper is very expensive to produce. First the photo must be scanned and 4 separations made -- cyan, magenta, yellow and black. A negative, then a 24"x40" metal plate is made for each color, and one plate goes onto a unit of the press. Our small newspaper had 4 units all total when I owned it, and each unit produced either 2 or 4 broadsheet pages. If it was all black, we could run 16-page sections; if we had a full-color photograph to print, we could only produce a 4-page section at a time as one web of paper ran through all 4 press units to pick up the respective colors of ink. Then we had to pay a staff of "stuffers" to stuff all the sections together. (All this is to give you an understanding of why color is expensive in newspapers, magazines and other mass-produced printed material.)
When my late wife died several years ago, her daughters and I stopped at the newspaper office to ask about the obituary. We were given a choice to sit down with the obit writer and give her the information or to write it ourselves, with the understanding that if we wrote it ourselves it could be edited. We chose to write it ourselves. It wasn't edited. (Disclaimer: My former position at the newspaper could have influenced this some, as well as the fact that my wife had been on their news staff until a couple years before her death. The editor also wrote about her in his weekly column, and the competing weekly newspaper devoted 3 or 4 pages to her and her writings, as she was a columnist for them at the time of her death.)
Location: West of the Catalinas East of the Tortolitas
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When my husband died, I wrote the obit and I contacted our small town newspaper who ran it for free. It was a in box form, with a border, 1/4 of a page, B&W photo. For that same obituary in the Colorado Springs Gazette, it was $575.00 and in the Denver Post, $800.00. Since we had friends and family in both places we had thought that would be a good idea, but after seeing the costs, we skipped them and just used our free local paper.
My husband's and my parents all died between 1989 and 1991, and I wrote all four obits with family help. They were all published in the Denver papers (Denver had two major dailies at the time), but I wasn't paying, so I don't know what the costs were back then...but I'm thinking about $250.00.
A simple obituary ( not long and no photo) in the closest daily paper was $200 and free for our weekly small town paper.
However, a simple death notice ( just the bare facts) for that paper cost nothing and was in the online edition.
It is the paper that sets the price .
It is a bad time to have to deal with these types of things and is one more reason that planning ahead is such a good idea.
One hates to sound cheap but I now know how I could have saved many hundreds of dollars had I not been making decisions 'on the fly' at a very vulnerable time.
When my Dad passed away twenty years ago, the funeral director suggested we contact the newspaper directly as they had just started charging and he wasn't sure what that charge would be.
I was stunned to find out that the newspaper would charge us several hundred dollars for an obit. It wasn't like we were taking out an ad to sell a used car or anything. One of the reasons many subscribe to the newspaper is to read the obits. We would be providing the newspaper copy and paying for it?
I don't think so.
I understand that newspapers have to make money somehow but several hundred dollars for an obit? $35 - $50 maybe. But $385?
I have never seen a color photo either. I did not put a picture in any obit I had control of. Why would you think color would be included? Or any picture when given an average price? I think you are blaming the newspaper for your mistake. You should have asked how much it would have been with no picture. I bet it would have been about $200.
Thank you for your thoughts. Both color and black-white photographs of the deceased are commonly seen here in the Daytona/Ormand Beach area, and probably more obits have them than not. Regarding the use of color, this is something my sister wanted. We were aware it's a more expensive process but in the event were quoted up to $200. That was the baseline we went with: one obit and one color photo for a quoted estimate of $200.
My beef with the newspaper, such as it is, is that there are no published rates or indications of what their standards are for obit charges. Being able to see those rates would have helped us make a better decision.
The key in this instance, however, was the funeral home. When the funeral director initially quoted us $200, she could have been more specific in terms of how the rates were determined, and maybe even had examples of previous obits with their costs. This particular funeral home routinely forwards obit and photo information to the newspaper, and it should be well informed as to approximate costs.
When my Dad passed away twenty years ago, the funeral director suggested we contact the newspaper directly as they had just started charging and he wasn't sure what that charge would be.
I was stunned to find out that the newspaper would charge us several hundred dollars for an obit. It wasn't like we were taking out an ad to sell a used car or anything. One of the reasons many subscribe to the newspaper is to read the obits. We would be providing the newspaper copy and paying for it?
I don't think so.
I understand that newspapers have to make money somehow but several hundred dollars for an obit? $35 - $50 maybe. But $385?
I'm surprised people do it.
The ink and paper probably cost more than $35 - $50....just saying...
When my father died five years ago, he was a prominent person in his community. I felt that he needed and deserved a lengthy obituary recounting his primary accomplishments in life. I wrote the obituary and than edited for length to keep as much superfluous material out of it as possible.
The local newspaper ended up charging me close to $500 for the obituary anyway. As others have commented, most papers charge by the word. I don't think I dealt with the funeral home at all over his obituary. I think we dealt only with the newspaper.
Newspapers are in a difficult financial position these days. Many have gone under. Others are much smaller. Virtually all, have laid off staff that have been with the paper for years. Electronic media and the internet have made it possible to read endless periodicals for free and the local newspaper can't help that. It struggles to stay afloat.
The one thing that the local newspaper can offer that you can't get by reading the Washington Post online is local news. They realize this and are trying to make as much from it as possible. Deaths and obituaries may be the main reason why anyone reads the local paper anymore. So, the newspaper takes advantage of this fact and charges as much for obituaries as it can. Those paying for obituaries are paying not only the cost of what they want printed, but an additional amount to help run the local paper.
It can be "sticker shock" for those trying to get an obituary for a deceased loved one printed, but its simply a function of how the modern world operates. In my father's case, I paid full price for the obituary, but the newspaper compensated by interviewing me following his death and printed the full text of the interview in a special article. I don't resent what they did at all.
The ink and paper probably cost more than $35 - $50....just saying...
Oh, no doubt.
However, newspapers are in the business of providing content for readers. Their subscribers pay a substantial fee to get this content. Paying for an obit is paying to provide content for the newspaper.
Although, I guess you could look at it as paying for a public notice of when the services will beheld.
Though in our family, everyone we wanted at the services would know about the time and place without having to track it down in the newspaper.
I think you have gotten accurate info here, re: cost per inch, color photo running up the cost considerably, etc.
What surprises me is that you keep referring to the funeral home as "quoting you a price," yet in your original post, you clearly state that this was an ESTIMATE, and I would bet that it was based on the average cost of obits, most of which do not include all the items and inches which you and your sibling included. If you wanted an actual quote, you should have submitted that to the newspaper and asked them how much it would cost. Surely you would know that this varies and is not something a funeral director would be able to quote you a firm price on?
Newspapers are businesses. When a person "buys space" for an obit, it is no different than a car dealership buying that same space. Think of a newspaper as a piece of real estate, and there is only so much space to sell. Each space costs x amount to purchase. Adding such things as spot color, logos, full color, etc adds to the cost of production for the item going into that space.
You "bought" a large space with deluxe additions to the space. You paid a fair amount for that space.
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