Give the Oakland Press credit for pursuing the daily newspaper readers abandoned by the Detroit Free Press, Detroit News and Flint Journal when they shrunk publication of the printed version to three days a week.
New numbers show that the OP picked up several thousand readers (not a great coup for sure) but at least they went up, and not down in circulation.
Thanks to a frequent reader for the link.
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9 comments:
I used to buy Oakland Press several times a week when they had a box outside my gym. Many times the Journal box was empty and I can't go a day without an actual paper. It was decent. Then the box was gone. Kinda like the family jobs were. One moved to Iowa, one moved to Lansing and one retired. Guess which one is the scariest?
I can't confirm precise numbers but the Midland Daily News feels it has been able to convert over 800 former Bay City Times and Saginaw News subscribers simply because they have remained a daily product. And the pace of conversion is growing because people are disillusioned with the product. It feels more like a opinion page for bloggers than a newspaper. Some of the errors caught in the pages makes you feel as though the writer has never been to the city he or she is reporting on. In this case unfamiliarity breeds contempt.
Wm in Bay City, MI
Jim does anybody know how The Journal circulation numbers, or any paper that is only 3 days a week anymore, is reporting? Are they considered a daily paper or a weekly? News at The Journal is that circulation has dropped 10 percent...a number they consider much smaller than they expected, but a recent conversation with a now "former" circulation district manager leaves a much different impression. How are they skewing the numbers? Many people who cancelled the paper said they kept getting it, even though no longer paying for it, which one person suggested might be a way to keep circulation numbers artificially inflated. Any ideas?
Anonymous 15:31:
Good question. I'll do a little research over on ABC to see how they are handling that.
I don't have any comprehensive figures, but anecdotally I know of people who have continued to get the paper long after they cancelled it.
Just today I heard from a former subscriber who said the paper came for several months after they stopped it and quit paying for it.
This past weekend it finally stopped for good.
The short answer is I don't know.
I highly doubt the Journal is keeping customers active that have not paid for the paper on purpose.
We are getting stops every week over the three day per week thing, and they are listing that as the reason on the stops, so they are keeping track of why people are stopping.
The problem they are having is within the carrier mail system at the Journal.
Something has changed since going to three days and we are not always getting the stops as we should. This makes it hard on the carriers because they end up short papers and having to go out during the day and recheck the route list to make sure it is right. I have already had to do this three times since the end of May and normally once a year is good enough.
If you are getting a free paper please call the Journal and let your carrier know.
I don't know if the keeping of cancelled subscribers is widespread, or not. I just know from the story of one person, who I trust implicitly, that he tried several times to get the paper stopped over a period of months and it wasn't until last weekend that it finally stopped coming.
Could be an aberration, but he kept a number of us informed of his efforts to stop the paper over the entire period. FYI, he lives in the Grand Blanc area.
ABC publically released its 6-month numbers for 9/30/09 this morning. Bay City, Flint and Saginaw are all still grouped with the "Daily" group of papers; each shows daily and Sunday numbers through May 31, and the Thur.-Fri.-Sun. numbers thereafter.
Using the current numbers (averaging Thursday and Friday into one number) against the "M-F" and "Sunday" numbers from March 31 of this year, here's what we've got:
Bay City: Thu.-Fri.: 24,643; a drop of 3,045, or 11.0 percent. Sunday: 34,350; a drop of 2,549, or 6.9 percent.
Saginaw: R-F: 30,599, minus 4,394 or 12.5 percent; Sun.: 41,361, minus 4,447 or 9.7 percent.
Flint: R-F: 66,036, minus 5,033 or 7.0 percent; Sun.: 80,192, minus 7,013 or 8.0 percent.
I'm sure the three papers will directly announce these number to their readers (you know, like they published those Arbitron numbers for local radio stations all those years . . .), but just in case they forgot, now you've got 'em. Boy, wouldn't the TV stations, Radio stations and remaining advertisers like to see some 6-month, 12-month, 5-year and 10-year comps! Ouch!
At least Newhouse still has that flaming ball of success known as MLive going for it.
Regarding Midland, I didn't see their numbers on the chart this morning, nor did I see any of the Gannett properties on the chart.
Regarding the "Newspaper That Will Not Stop" syndrome of this past summer, I heard at least seven instances of it from people who were absolutely furious that they were "still getting that piece of crap and all it does is fill up my recycle bin." One guy had called three times in an effort to stop delivery.
Oh, an addendum to the previous ABC numbers; the comparison from the 3/31 daily numbers to the 9/30 daily numbers was a bit too kind to the papers, as it did not take into account the fact that the 3/31 numbers were based over five days of publication, while the 9/30 numbers were based on two. Put another way, to get a better comparison, you'd have to figure in the fact that the current daily circulation for each of the three papers for Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday is zero, zero and zero. Same for Saturday.
So the question is, will advertisers be charged 7 to 9 percent less since readership has dropped at least that much? And if not, why would any advertiser pay the same (or more) for a paper that is reaching fewer people?
Does anybody know if advertising is making any headway? I heard stories that are written are sometimes not printed because enough ads weren't sold to allow the paper to go up enough pages to include the news.
Maybe they should make it an advertising special section thing where if you buy an ad, you get a story. That would work.
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