Perhaps the most noticeable single theme is optimism. While full of sobering data and often critical of newspapers, the studies are strikingly upbeat. The project’s kickoff report in the spring of 2001, the first of dozens, signaled the tone with this opening declaration: “The study shows that forces outside newspapers’ control–such as the explosion of competition, a perceived lack of consumers’ free time, and demographic changes–are dwarfed by the things that newspapers can control.”
AJR lists “four cornerstones of readership growth”:
- providing excellent customer service
- improving editorial and advertising content
- building recognition and loyalty through stronger brand promotion
- reforming management and culture.
Yes times four. Better content, service and management are obvious, but promotion is almost entirely ignored by most newspapers. We build a great product every day full of stuff people might be interested in at an incredibly cheap price, then expect the product to advertise itself. It doesn’t work that way anymore, folks. Hire the best talent, take some of the fat out of that bottom line and promote the damn thing.
See also, “What They Like.” You won’t like it because it obliges you to think about what readers want vs. what you want. If you’re a boss you won’t like because it says you have to pay us more and be constructive rather than defensive. And if you’re chasing those younger readers, you won’t like it because it says you’ve really got your work cut out for you.
Attracting younger readers requires more radical innovation. About two-thirds of lighter readers are under 40. In a report last spring, the institute said, “Generations X and Y are less likely to find that newspapers inspire them, have stories about people they know, have writers with whom they can identify, or help them be smarter or be more interesting.”
Between 2000 and 2003, it noted, “we found that generally people with a well-established reading habit were reading more, and lighter readers were reading less.
“What that tells us is that while improving current practices will grow readership overall, something quite different is necessary to reach lighter, younger readers.”
Interviews with younger, lighter readers found that a primary issue is “how to manage all the information coming at them.” For too many, “their local newspaper seems to them a repeat of what they have already heard…and not worth the time to page through.”
Researchers itemized four “brand concepts” that could help: frequent, prominent news updates; “talking points” that present issues in depth and encourage debate; “enrichment” sidebars adding background and “painless education”; and “guides” to additional sources in other media.
These in particular should frost all our cookies:
Local-local news tops the list of content that drives readership. The
research itemizes, in order, the content it says has the top potential for increasing
readership:
- more intensely local, people-focused news, including community announcements
and obits- more lifestyle news, such as health, fitness and medicine, home and garden,
fashion and travel- more stories, and more featurized stories, about “how we are governed and global relations”
- fewer stories and photos about natural disasters and accidents
- shorter stories about movies, TV and weather
- more stories about business, economics and personal finance, especially ones
offering commentary and advice- more and longer stories about science, technology and the environment
- fewer but more locally focused stories about crime and justice
- more features and commentary about all levels and types of sports.
Each of us has at least three things on this list we would cover only at gunpoint, yet all these things are stuff readers want but we won’t provide. How come? Note they’re not saying give us more idiot celebrity news. Just stuff that matters to their lives. This should be a lot easier but it’s going to be the hardest to overcome, mostly because we’ve been in an industry that has, historically, allowed us to impose our view of news on the readers.
True story about a real newspaper: The boss hires this research firm to ask all these questions about his paper and gets almost all the same answers. He implements a few cosmetic changes that suit his prejudices and ignores the rest of the recommendations, and nothing fundamentally changed at the paper, including its circulation slide.
Let’s hope things have slid far enough that we feel we can’t afford that kind of management anymore.
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