I'm busy wrapping books this evening and I just noticed that the addresses I printed out have First Class Mail rates on them and a sticker stating that it is First Class Mail.  What happenned to Media Mail?  My printer has not been working for awhile so I was hand addressing for a couple months and never noticed this before.  Am I just behind the times? 

The books are not all the same weight either so I would imagine that media mail will be cheaper for most of them.  I will be taking them to the post office so I will be able to ask which is cheaper or does PBS already know that First Class is cheaper??

So far, every time it's printed out with the First Class rate, it's been right. I'll be curious if it's the same for you. :)

Mine prints out First Class if the book is small enough and it's been pretty accurate. The rest, the bulk actually, get printed out media mail. Ever since I've joined I've had the PO tell me if it's cheaper or nearly the same to send First Class - that's usually the case with the smaller PB.

The only time it's not accurate is when I'm sending two books to one person but obviously the wrapper only printed for one book.

The change happened with the last postal rate increase.  One of the conditions they had to follow to get the rate hike I think was that books under a certain rate were to be automatically sent as First Class because the Media Mail rate went up so much.  If you take your books to the post office to mail they have to do the same thing.

It all worked out.............  First Class was actually cheaper on all of the books except one and with that one it was only a few cents difference to mail First Class over Media.    Seems like PBS was right on all that it printed out. 

Just FYI

First Class is cheaper for up to 6 ounces (1.98).  At 7 ounces it is 2.15, so I will usually still use first class since it is only 2 cents more.  8 ounces or over it goes to media mail.

Also, PBS bases its weight on their "wrapper" system, so if you mail using bubble mailers or boxes, you may get a different result.  I've noticed that a couple of times, but I'm pretty sure its because of the bubble mailer I use.  (I use bubble mailers and print my own labels with postage via Paypal.)