To be honest, I expected an avalanche.

I knew the changes coming to the daily newspaper on Monday were significant -- no daily Floridian section, no separate daily business section, comics and crosswords and a collection of other things combined into a new classified ads section called BayLink. And when you change something significant which people have come to know and expect in their daily routine, it can be a shock.

Still, the economic forces stressing the newspaper industry are well known, so that may explain why the telephones weren't ringing off the hook when we implemented our changes on Monday. Unofficially, I hear the number of complaints were significantly less than the complaints we got when we redesigned the newspaper to a smaller size in 2006. Of course, I hope that smaller number doesn't mean readers don't care enough to complain, anymore.

It's probably heresy to acknowledge this, but even as an employee of the Times I had trouble getting through every newspaper every day. Indeed, newspapers weren't really designed for that; the idea was to offer a huge chunk of material in each day, with the hope that everyone could find some thing to like every day. And I think we've done that well for quite a long time.

But today's times make undertaking that mission every day a little less feasible. Read media trade publications or web sites and you will see a depressing litany of buyouts, layoffs and departures. Bob Woodward is offering to write for the Washington Post as a contract writer for $1 a year at that newspaper, among 100 staffers there who will take an early retirement buyout. David Broder, their longtime political writer and considered one of the deans of American political journalism, will also move to contract -- i.e., no benefits -- status.

So tough times are everywhere and they have come to the Tampa Bay area media scene. Which leads me to ask those of you reading this blog who get our print product: What do you think? Does the new Times meet its mission of giving you a more manageable chunk of news each day? And what -- besides going back to the old system, which ain't going to happen -- would you tweak about what's going on now?

Believe me, at a time when ever reader counts, we really want to know... (click on any image to enlarge)