How is my newspaper different weekday vs. Sunday? ..

1
Newspaper Content
Newspaper Industry Results


2
The Impact Study
Readers/Consumers

• Readership
• Satisfaction
• Brand equity

The Organization

• Workforce analysis
• Mgt. Practices analysis
• Cultural analysis

3
The goal

• Create a baseline to evaluate content
• Be objective
• Be comprehensive
• Be precise
• Be consistent
• Capture differences in approach
• that might matter to readers.

4
Dimensions of content

• Theme
• Origin
• Geographic focus
• News style
• Visual complexity
• Overall structure
• Presentation promotion

5
What we did

• Study newspapers that represent typical days with
  typical stories
• Gather enough information to speak about
  individual newspapers and the newspaper industry
• Maintain the highest quality standards

6
Questions for today
Does size matter? What kinds of news are
covered? How do newspapers present content to
readers? How does content relate to the consumer
factors?
7
Does size matter?
8
Average pages per issue
9
Stories per issue
10
Pages of listings per issue
11
Photographs per story
12
Percent of pages with color
13
Staff vs. wire service stories
14
Do differing resources translate into different
editorial approaches?
15
Story and photo area
16
Stories with color photo
17
Front page geographic focus
18
Overall geographic focus
19
News style
20
Stories with go and do info
21
What kinds of news are covered?
22
Story themes by story count
23
Themes by story count in local news
24
Top 5 story themes 10-25k
Monday-Saturday
Sunday
25
Top 5 story themes 25-50k
Monday-Saturday
Sunday
26
Top 5 story themes 50-100k
Monday-Saturday
Sunday
27
Top 5 story themes 100-200k
Monday-Saturday
Sunday
28
Top 5 story themes 200k
Monday-Saturday
Sunday
29
Story topics

• Sports, Politics/government and Crime/legal
  dominate coverage
• Differences around the edges

30
How do newspapers present content to readers?
31
Sections per issue
32
Architectural stability
33
Content promotion overall
34
Content promotion by type
35
Race in front page photographs
36
Gender in front page sources
37
Using your individual content report.
38
Individual report sections

• Individual data
• Overall content
• Themes
• Structure
• Front page content and themes
• Diversity
• Content promotion
• Definition of data terms
• Methodology

39
Reading the report
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Questions for the break

• How is my newspaper different weekday vs. Sunday?
• What are the biggest differences between my
  newspaper and others in the circulation strata?
  How do I interpret those differences?
• What do I suspect matters to readers?

41
How does content relate to the consumer factors?
42
Logic of building readership
Recognize Opportunities
Improve Satisfaction
Increase Readership
43

• Are newspapers with higher satisfaction doing
  anything differently?

44
Industrywide relationships with content

• Quantity of content including dedicated sections
• Length/complexity of stories
• Geographic focus
• News style
• Photographs, graphics, color
• Related listings

45
Content promotion levers

• Overall measurement of in-paper content promotion
• Four types of promotion
• General brand promotion
• Up-coming content promotion
• Same-day content promotion
• Web site content promotion
• Relates to some kinds of stories more than
  others.
• Some types of content promotion are more
  effective than others.

46
Arts

• Quantity
• Story count
• Total story space
• Days/week with lifestyle/arts section
• Content Promotion Levers
• Overall frequency and size
• General brand promotion frequency and size
• Same-day promotion frequency

47
Business personal finance

• Commentary, criticism and advice
• Quantity
• Story count
• Total story space
• Days/week with business section
• Content Promotion Levers
• Overall frequency and size
• Same-day promotion frequency
• Up-coming promotion frequency and size
• Web site promotion frequency and size

48
Crime, courts legal

• Local, staff-written
• Quantity
• Story count
• Total story space
• Content Promotion Levers
• None

49
Food, health, home fashion

• Quantity
• Story count
• Total story space
• Feature-style stories
• Content Promotion Levers
• Overall frequency and size
• Same-day promotion frequency
• Up-coming promotion frequency

50
Obituaries, community announcements ordinary
people

• Quantity
• Story count
• Total story space
• Content Promotion Levers
• None

51
Parenting religion

• Youth section
• Length and complexity
• Story area
• Photo area
• Community announcement listings
• Content Promotion Levers
• None

52
Politics, government war

• Quantity
• Story count
• Total story space
• Days/week with an opinion section
• Color photographs
• Feature-style stories
• Content Promotion Levers
• Up-coming promotion frequency and size

53
Popular music

• Graphics
• Color photographs
• Quantity
• Story count
• Total story space
• Entertainment listings
• Content Promotion Levers
• Same-day promotion frequency and size

54
Science, technology environment

• Quantity
• Story count
• Total story space
• Days/week with computers/technology section
• International focus
• Length/complexity
• Story area
• Photo area
• Feature-style stories
• Content Promotion Levers
• Same-day promotion frequency and size
• Up-coming size

55
Sports

• Feature-style content
• Content Promotion Levers
• None

56
Television movies

• Length/complexity
• Average story area
• Average photo area
• Content Promotion Levers
• Same-day promotion frequency
• Up-coming promotion frequency and size

57
Your individual report

• Relationships are industrywide only
• Does not provide relationships unique to your
  newspaper
• Provides a picture of how your newspaper is
  already performing on key areas
• Circulation-size and industry wide averages
  provided for perspective

58
Reading the report
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Sample scorecard

• Crime, courts legal
• Local, staff-written 45 52
• Quantity
• Story count 23 29
• Total story space 4.6 6.2