Newspaper circulars are the backbone of what’s left of the newspaper advertising business, so the news in Sunday’s Advocate is big: two of the largest grocery store chains in New Orleans, Rouses and Winn-Dixie, are shifting the bulk of their advertising to The New Orleans Advocate.

Over the next month, they will leave their advertising home of many decades, The Times-Picayune.

As Bruce Nolan, my former boss, “people’s reporter” and major character in the book noted when sharing this news on Facebook, this may sound like inside baseball to those who don’t know the newspaper business, but “this is a hard punch in the mouth” for NOLA.com/The Times-Picayune. “The rockslide triggered in 2012 rolls on,” (which the book documents), Nolan added.

However, New Orleans native and “TP Watcher” blogger Bill McHugh wonders if the switch has more to do with rock-bottom advertising rates offered by The Advocate than by the grocery chains’ interest in advertising in a daily, home-delivered newspaper. “You don’t need a daily paper to deliver a once-a-week grocery ad circular, which leads me to believe that the real reason for the switch has more to do with ad rates than circulation,” McHugh commented on Facebook. “Were Rouses and Winn-Dixie offered a sweetheart deal to get them to switch?“