A New Report Greets US National Newspaper Week Urging Publishers To Concentrate On More Local Information Plus Make All Their Platforms Advertiser Friendly

Philip M. Stone October 1, 2006

A year in the making at a cost of some $2 million, the American Press Institute (API) has released a study of how newspapers can do better in this environment of lower circulation and declining advertising dollars, and it concludes that publishers should look beyond the traditional revenue model, and also make it easier for people to do business with them.

The key word for editorial is “diversification” and the key word for advertising is “cooperation”. The study, “Newspaper Next” The Transformation Project” gives publishers a D+ grade (near failing) for not “looking beyond the traditional revenue model. Most signs indicate that the newspaper itself is likely to shrink into a boutique product, serving an ever-smaller audience and advertiser base. The pace of shrinkage appears to be accelerating.”

Editorially, while publishers realize that local news is king, they need to understand that this is no longer a “one-product-serves-all” marketplace. The local single newspaper product just cannot satisfy all local needs, and the study urges publishers to develop various products that can satisfy all local needs.

“The land rush to meet local information needs has barely begun,” the report said. Among the suggestions are that publishers should develop special products, for instance, for commuters (the onslaught of free newspapers produced by publishing houses protecting their own paid-for newspapers seems to indicate that message has already taken hold in Europe).

Another example could be for those newspapers located in places with a strong tourist trade. How about a newspaper product that appeals to them, and tells them where everything is and how to get there? (In Florida, for instance, during the winter tourist season some newspapers devote special columns to Canadian news since so many Canadian tourists, “snow birds”, visit the state to get away from the Canadian winter.  And if there are language groups that prevail among tourists (French, Spanish etc.) then print in their language, too (In Europe, for instance, during the summer some newspapers print a column of English language news including information about local events).

The report also recommends that the local newspaper – print and digital platforms combined -- should become THE local database for information on such facilities as the region’s medical facilities, parks, schools and the like, and they should also encourage consumer comment on such database subjects as restaurants, mechanics, contractors etc.

Put simply newspapers need to turn themselves into news companies. And that means experimenting outside of their own core news product.

“They need to create online communities and discussion forums to facilitate the flow of information,” according to Scott Anthony, managing director of Innosight, a consultancy helping with the study.

Advertisers have complained for years that placing ads in newspapers is no easy procedure, and placing ads on newspaper web sites is just about as difficult. The study says that has to end. And what advertisers would really like to see is an easy way to buy ads nationally for both print and online – one purchase for an ad printed in many group and independent newspapers and their web sites across the country. The study says that is absolutely the way forward.

Interestingly, 72% of the senior newspaper executives who were interviewed during the study said they believed they were missing major advertising opportunities by not having the necessary cooperation between publishers for such a plan to work, but only 49% thought the publishers were capable of successfully organizing and running joint online initiatives.

Fifty-four per cent thought the way forward was to partner with such companies as Google and Yahoo to pursue online opportunities. That actually goes a bit against the grain of the thinking of such moguls as Rupert Murdoch who seem to be thinking that they don’t need portals to do their work, that they can do it all themselves. Perhaps that’s easier to organize within one big powerful company and it is more difficult to get going between many publishers.

And that is why the National Newspaper Association (NAA) has been working for nine months already on just such a project. John Kimball, NAA marketing boss, said that as of yet there are no breakthroughs on how to accomplish such standardization.

“We’re just beginning to understand what those standards should be. One of the things advertisers mention when they talk about newspaper advertising is that they accept the value of it, but they say it is complicated to buy. There are 1,500 newspapers and lots of things are not standardized,” he said.

The key to all of this if for publishers to look at their various platforms from the consumer’s point of view. Publishers should ask themselves, “What do you hire a newspaper to do for you?” and then answer that as a reader and as an advertiser. Or a more direct advertising question, ““Would you hire this newspaper to do the job for you, or is it just too difficult a sale?”

“Newspaper companies are on the threshold of a huge opportunity, according to Steve Gray, managing director of the project and a former managing publisher of the Christian Science Monitor. “If they move now to master the new ways that people can get and give information, they have the opportunity to meet more news and information needs for more consumers and businesses than ever before.”

Can newspapers accomplish this change? Anthony, the Innosight consultant, says they can.  “The pilot projects using the Newspaper Innovation Method clearly prove this to be the case, but it will take internal courage and commitment to make these dramatic changes if newspapers are to survive and grow."

With Wall Street already beginning to lower newspaper advertising revenues forecasts for 2007, now would seem a good time for publishers to implement many of the study’s recommendations.