Israel Postal Authority bids to deliver newspapers

The Postal Authority could soon be delivering not only your mail, but your newspaper as well. Authority chairman and acting director-general Yossi Shelli announced that, with the opening of mail services to competition, the attempt is being made to find postmen and women more work instead of dismissing some of them.

The authority will in the next few weeks initiate negotiations with newspaper publishers who, he said, spend about NIS 200 million on distributing their publications to subscribers each year. The authority intends to suggest cheaper alternatives, Shelli said.

Asked how the post office would manage to deliver daily newspapers before breakfast, when mail usually arrives later in the morning, authority spokesman Yitzhak Rabihiya said postmen could be sent out earlier or two separate rounds could be made. He did not say how this would affect the distribution of newspapers to kiosks, which is carried out by the same private local distributors who now bring papers to subscribers’ homes.

Besides the daily newspapers, the authority wants to increase its distribution share of magazines and other journals published inside Israel and abroad, some of which are delivered by private companies.

The market for Israeli and foreign journal subscription distribution totals an additional NIS 200m. a year and is constantly growing, especially in the Dan Region and Jerusalem, he said. With more than 2,000 Postal Authority mail deliverers visiting every home and office in the country every weekday, Shelli said, it would be a shame to waste such a resource.

Shelli reiterated his complaint that some private mail deliverers are breaking the law and regularly violating Communications Ministry instructions by delivering envelopes rather than just packages.

“Whoever illegally eats into our business should not be surprised by the Postal Authority’s intention to enter their field of activity,” Shelli warned.