The Zeitgeist

Take the Paddles of Life to Your Daily Paper
(Good ideas for weeklies as well)

(This appeared online in December 2019)

With the constant and inexorable decline in print ad dollars and the persistent erosion of circulation and market share, perhaps it's time for daily newspaper publishers to start thinking out of the box and reach for a totally new print paradigm. Print publishing finds itself in a similar place to where radio was with the advent of television. For decades, radio ruled the broadcast roost but couldn’t compete just delivering to the ear what people wanted to see with their eyes. Radio had to reinvent itself, and it did. The reinvention was so good that radio has been and still is a thriving industry even today. Book publishing has survived the onslaught of the tablet and e-reader. We can learn from both experiences what print needs to do to remain competitive along with adapting some new ideas as well. For daily papers in particular, we need to develop a whole new model as opposed to just slashing costs left, right and sideways. Here are some ideas: People like print, they just don't want to pay for it. Give up on the downward sliding paid circulation model and like radio and most of the internet, provide the print edition for free. To maintain audited circulation, move to controlled/requested circulation where readers sign-up that they want it. Deliver via the US Postal Service and stop using the dwindling and often unreliable supply of carriers. Provide some additional free papers via news racks, boxes and at key locations in your market. The focus here is on reach and market share. If your share of the households in your market has declined to 10, 15 or 20 percent then you need to hit the 50 percent threshold to be viable as an advertising medium and relevant editorially. If you're not hovering at least at 50 percent, why should anyone advertise with you? Why would talented young people want to work for you if you're invisible? Even better if you can get to total market coverage of 90 to 100 percent. Reduce publishing frequency -- Unless you're in a seriously major market, stop thinking it's 1979. Reduce publishing frequency to 3X a week (Wednesdays for food, Fridays for the weekend and your Sunday paper). This will have the effect of saving you money on printing, delivery and every other assorted manufacturing cost. Additionally it will force consolidation of existing advertising on your busiest days. Newspapers need to recreate "The Thud Factor," thicker papers make a visual impact and create communal peer pressure to advertise (everyone goes where everyone goes!) and will also give you a more impressive editorial hole making you more of a must read (more about that below)."Thrice weekly, but never weakly." Local, Local, Local. Most folks get their breaking news online, on the radio or TV. Drop all the AP and national and world wire stuff. Put those pages and those resources to work on expanding local and state coverage. Put world and national as a summary or a briefs column if you must have it. Stop trying to compete with electronic media for breaking news. If you run national or world stories it should tie-in to your local market and be heavy on analysis. Add more lifestyles (especially food and restaurants), people, local business and sports coverage. Everyone likes to see themselves in the paper. News about Trump they can get anywhere. Promote evening reading -- Who has time in the morning to sit down with a paper for 20 to 40 minutes? Everyone is dashing off to work, school or other activities. Promote reading after work as a way to calm down and relax from the day, or after dinner or before bed (as a way to help sleep -- screens are known to inhibit sleep, reading things on paper helps it). Perhaps consider becoming and afternoon/evening paper even. But if you are keeping it local and heavy on features or sports, it won't matter when you deliver so long as it's before 5pm. The cable news networks all have higher ratings at night than in the morning or during the day. Newspapers should emulate this. Drop your ad rates -- See what Google and Facebook are charging locally. What are the rates for a local radio, cable or broadcast TV campaign? Make sure your rates are lower than everyone else so that it's a no-risk, no-brainier for people to include you in their media buys. Go for volume (think McDonald's) instead of a few ads a day. Offer even more discounts for multiple pages or inserts. Bonus web ads free for print contracts. Offer free (yes, I said that) classifieds for consumers to promote more readership and regain market share. Heavily discount business classifieds. Oh, and make sure your display ads LOOK GOOD and are written well (Design2Pro’s “Ad Factory” can help you in the looks department) so when the advertiser looks good, ads get more readership and more response. This leads to happier advertisers who'll spend more money with you. At the end of the day it's about image, exposure and results for the advertiser and more revenue for you.

This is no time for newspaper publishers to walk around sulking, complacent or resigned to defeat. People are still reading a lot of printed books -- because the books have content not available elsewhere (again, drop the national and world wire coverage, increase original content) and because people have screen fatigue. I work at a computer or smart phone screen all day. By 5 or 6pm my eyes have absolutely had it. It's comforting to read from paper after staring at screens all day. One final thought -- remember as kids your mother would warn you not to "sit on top of the TV because you'll go blind?” Well, that's what most of us are doing every day, sitting on top of the screen. Promote the idea of R&R for the eyes and peace of mind that comes from the printed word. If book publishers can do it, so can you.