Spring Greetings:

What do you think?

I published the following italics TWENTY years ago.  I’ve inserted a few parenthetical explanations, fixed a couple of typos (Egads!), and will admit that the supporting facts have changed and are not quite as compelling, yet the general point remains valid.

May 2006 In The Know (The then name of the e-newsletter)

In the last few weeks, I've read countless articles in newspapers predicting the demise of the newspaper industry. Ok, that's a bit of an exaggeration - countless articles detailing the decline of the newspaper industry.

For those connected and very interested in the health of newspapers - politicians, other public figures, those within the industry, and certainly our competition - this might be very interesting reading. However, for 99% of reading audiences, there is somewhere between little and ZERO interest.

Belden (where I worked from 1997 – 2008) asks about content interests all the time (we average ~ 40,000 telephone interviews annually!), and the financial strength of the newspaper industry is not in the Top Ten list. It's not even in the Top One Hundred list!

So, excuse my language, but what the hell are we doing?

I defy anyone to cite a television news broadcast regularly pointing to the steady erosion of TV reach. Can you find a billboard saying, "Nobody ever reads Me"? And, I have never heard a radio station ad or promo pointing out the wonderfully low, single-digit audience reach of the typical station, have you?

Of course not.

Consider this CHALLENGE - and please forward this to all Publishers and VPs of Marketing and Editors of the land -

If you feel compelled to publish an article about declining circulation or audience reach (for some insane reason), then I challenge you to publish AT LEAST five articles pointing out the opposite reality (we've got a long way to go, so maybe it should be 10!)

As an example...

• More adults read the nation's newspapers on Super Bowl Sunday than watched the Super Bowl.
• Newspaper reach has actually increased as Publishers have leveraged their content expertise to create websites and develop niche and new products (it's great to see them keep on coming!) and expanded their geographies to meet growing marketplaces.
• Newspapers are typically the #1 and #2 reach vehicles in any market with the core print product and the web site.
• In most markets, it will take approximately 10 radio stations to achieve the same reach as the leading daily newspaper!

The list is virtually endless. Start writing. Go to your latest readership study and there will be columns and columns of data proving our value. Readers are tired of bad news, right? So, give 'em some good news about our industry and do it now. Stop the Madness and stop being our own worst enemy.

I thought this was interesting. One newsletter recipient is a friend in the microchip business. She reacted to the April e-newsletter by sending me an email. I've extracted a portion...

"...Small town people hold their breath every day until "the paper comes." Then they get local news, gossip, obituaries, columnist (s), school news, weddings and the Crossword. They read those papers front to back and miss nary a Classified. I think I'm going to reinvent myself as a small-town newspaper Publisher."

One could debate the size of a "small" town...yet there's NO disputing the fact that many newspaper audience segments devour the product. That's what advertisers need and want to know and there are plenty of times we don't effectively convey that message.

That’s was May of 2006.  With very minor updates and modifications, the EXACT same message applies two decades later.  Are you up to the challenge?  Wanna hear all about it!