Mixed Picture
April 3, 2009
Research compiled by Clyde Bentley
The flowers are blooming, but are they a celebration of spring or funeral tributes to the newspaper industry? The research reports this month give us a mixed picture.
State of confusion: The Pew Project for Excellence in Journalism’s State of the News Media Report at first glance contained very little to cheer about. Circulation continues to decline – the readership of print/online combined is growing. The report noted that newspaper ad revenues have fallen 23% in the last two years and that many of the major newspaper chains are on the brink of oblivion.
But the researchers also noted that “most of the papers of all these companies, however, are still profitable, and could continue in business once separated from the parent company’s debt. They also counted 48 million papers sold daily that generated $38 billion in ad revenue. It appears newspapers are less at risk than the chains that own them.
The report is as worthy of a good evening read as is a fine mystery novel. And it provides as many plot twists, shocks and puzzlers. Read it online at the Pew site.
Meanwhile at the database: One of the saner impacts of the media world’s current crunch is that newspapers are finally beginning to look at themselves as a news-gathering concept rather than just a word-filled product. The most obvious sign of this is the trend to report readership in “integrated” terms – the total of the print and online readers who consumed the paper’s stories.
Scarborough Research recently tallied these integrated numbers and determined that Rochester, NY, is the best-read city in the nation, at least in newspaper terms. Scarborough surveyors found that 87% of the folks in the Rochester Designated Market Area had read a print newspaper, a newspaper’s Web site or both in the previous week. Cleveland and Buffalo were very close – 86%.
In fact, newspaper news was well read in all 81 cities polled by Scarborough, averaging 75%. At the bottom of the list were Las Vegas and Bakersfield with a respectable 59%. True to our geographic nature, Missouri’s two large cities were a little south of the middle – 72% for St. Louis and 70% for Kansas City.
Even the staid researchers at Scarborough were a bit puzzled by the conflict of their high readership numbers and the gloom-and-doom headlines about newspapers. After noting that more than half the adult population reads newspaper news in even the low-end cities, senior VP Gary Meo rhetorically scratched his head:
“This data begs the question: is the constant negative news feed on the industry warranted when newspapers are actually being read by three-fourths of the adult population? When you look at audience data, it seems irrational that advertisers are leaving newspapers because the numbers speak for themselves.”
Friend me, quick: At least we still have Facebook. Or not. Gartner released a survey this week that showed newspapers are missing great opportunities in social networking. The research firm noted that newspapers a filled with content, but have not provided adequate search tools on their Web sites to let customers make the most of it. For instance, 49% of the readers polled use Google or a similar search service weekly, but only 20% use the search tools provided by newspapers and magazines. Only 24% share news tidbits with online friends.
On the operational side, Gartner found that many newspapers tell readers they have staff members on Twitter, but very few offer the ability to tweet news from their Websites. And editors take note: 52% of respondents said they when content catches their eye, they read it immediately. Only 9% bookmark it to read later.
The face(s) of friends: Most social networking fans (and 43% of us are) maintain profiles on two or more systems, the a study by InsightExpress showed. The study showed 71% of Web socializers have friends on multiple sites, primarily MySpace (78%), Facebook (71%), Classmates (22%) and Linkedin (11%). Flicker and Twitter make the 10% cut only for users with four or more profiles.
The good/bad news for traditional newspapers is the fanatical dedication users have to their social networks. For instance, 36% of respondents in the Cafemom network said they would rather give up food for 24 hours than forgo visiting their site in the same time. The upside, InsightExpress analysts said, is the opportunity to develop effective campaigns and connections to a very involved set of media users. The downside is that we too often let others develop those campaigns.
We’vegotreaders.com: Nielson Online’s latest report put well-timed smiles on the faces of many newspaper folk. The rating service found that more than half of the top 30 newspaper Web sites saw double-digit growth in the number of unique visitors in February. The LA Times site grew 36% year-over-year to 8.4 million visitors in the month. USA Today grew 25%, largely on the back of a new Tech section. And editors noted that the stimulus package, the octuplet mom, Rihanna and other big February stories didn’t hurt a bit.
Writing on the Niesen blog “Connecting the Dots, analyst Alex Burmaster also offered an interesting comparison between CDs and newspapers. A large Niesen survey showed many consumer plan to keep buying CDs rather than download MP3 files. Why? The joy and portability of a physical media product. While words on newsprint are not songs on CDs, Burmaster said the themes of themes of physicality, practicality, familiarity, and convenience may hold true.
"Digital can’t replace the traditional walk to get the morning papers, reading the Sunday papers in bed, or an impulse purchase of a newspaper for a train journey … Whether it’s habit, touch and feel, familiarity, techno-illiteracy or convenience, a significant chunk of the population will still require a physical version to hold in their hands.”
Which explains the headline of his blog post: “Reports of the Death of the Newspaper Are Exaggerated.”
Rupert leads the charge (for it): The media mogul who seems to make a buck, pound or euro on everything he touches had advise this week for his struggling competitors: Stop giving away free online news. "People reading news for free on the Web, that's got to change," Murdoch said at The Cable Show, a big annual cable television industry event. Among his many propertiesm, Murdoch owns the Wall Street Journal, one of the few papers to charge for Web access. Wallstreetjournal.com is "not a gold mine, but it's not bad." Look for changes at his other newspapers around the globe.
Unconvergence? From the academic world comes a disturbing survey report claiming convergence journalism is fading. In the traditional sense, that is. Susan Keith of Rutgers and Leslie-Jean Thornton of Arizona State surveyed newspapers and television stations across the country and found the number of cross-platform partnerships has plummeted. Newspaper cross-platform collaboration programs dropped from a high of 70% in 2005 to 50% in 2008. TV newsrooms had similar but slightly less dramatic statistics. Newspaper editors said they no longer find a need to work with TV stations.
I'd guess that most likely cause of that is the normalization of convergence in the news process. Almost 89% of newspapers surveyed said they did their own video reporting on the paper’s Web site. Here the research found newspapers outshine the TV stations. “Print journalists … were nearly 10 times more likely than broadcast respondents to support the most pro-Web vision of journalistic work.”
Ode to the master: I started writing this column after reading the work of the man I consider the finest newspaper researcher in the country. I met Gary Kromer several years ago at a Newspaper Association of America function. He is the president of the NAA Research Federation and was the director of research at the Ft. Worth Star-Telegram.
Was. Last month the Star-Telegram decided it could do without research in this time of stress and not only gave Gary a pink slip, but closed the department.
Gary holds a Ph.D., but comes as close as you can to being a born journalist. He started asa 12-year-old carrier and earned his first byline at 14. After years on the beat, he asked his editor why we do journalism the way we do, only to be told “because that's the way we do it." Unsatisfied, he went to graduate school “to find out if he was lying” (unfortunately, not often enough). He bounced around the news and commercial research world before settling in at the Star-Telegram for 23 years.
I have long enjoyed reading the NAA Research Federation discussion list, on which Gary unleashed a flood of observations on new data about marketing, consumer behavior and media performance. He shared with me his incredible list of research links and inspired me to track the research for the narrower scope if newsroom journalism.
Perhaps nothing has more embarrassed me about my own profession than our cowboy attitude that “we don’t need no stinking research.” Newspaper journalist have for generations sincerely believed they not only know what is right for the readers but feel they have a duty to ignore the cries of their own customers. The too-infreqent addition of a of researchers like Gary Kromer to major newspaper staffs helped us realize -- before it was too late -- that skill at writing does not equate to reading the needs of subscribers and advertisers.
At least, I hope “before it was too late.” McClatchy’s loss of Gary will undoubtedly be a gain for some other organization. And I’ll carry the torch for you, friend.
Contact Me:
E-mail - bentleycl@missouri.edu Twitter: http://twitter.com/MizzouBentley