Newspapers in the United States (US) are successfully extending their reach beyond the core printed products, resulting in net increases in audience, a new study from Scarborough Research has found. The findings are from its Integrated Newspaper Audience (INA) project, a measurement that combines the audience of traditional printed newspapers with the audience of their websites.
Integrated Newspaper Audience, or INA, is a measurement of the combined net reach of a newspaper's seven-day print and seven-day website audiences. Scarborough measures printed newspaper readership and newspaper website audiences on a local market level.
The INA analysis also provides other insight into the characteristics of newspapers' online audiences. The audiences for newspaper websites tend to be younger than those of printed newspapers. Dispelling the common misperception that young people are not engaged by newspaper content; the analysis indicated that newspapers across the board are successfully attracting 18- to 34-year-olds to their websites.
About 30 per cent of adults who visited the Tampa Tribune websites, TampaTrib.com and TBO.com, each week are in the 18-34 age group. On the other hand, 22 per cent of adults who read the weekly printed newspaper in an average week are within this age group. Similar results were found at the Atlanta Journal-Constitution's sites, ajc.com and accessatlanta.com, where 37 per cent of weekly visitors are ages 18-34, compared to 28 per cent of weekly print readers.
The analysis also revealed that not only are newspaper website patrons just as desirable from a marketing perspective as their print counterparts, in many instances, they are even more upscale. Visitors to the Washington Post's site, washingtonpost.com, provide a prime example of an upscale online audience. About 60 per cent of those who read at least one issue of the Washington Post during the past week have annual household incomes of $75,000 or more. In contrast, 73 per cent of the visitors to washingtonpost.com have annual household incomes in this range.
When INA was examined from a national perspective, it became clear that some newspapers and regions performed better than others online. In some instances, the reasons for this disparity were readily apparent while others were not so obvious.
In general, newspapers that have nationwide appeal and cachet, such as the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, and USA Today perform well online. Newspapers that have a specialty area of expertise — typically driven by the prominent industry in their geographic location — could also have national appeal.
The Washington Post (politics), the Detroit News and the Detroit Free Press (automotive), and the Los Angeles Times (entertainment) might draw online readers because of their specialty coverage of an industry. Overall, the appeal these papers have to people across the country, whether it is because they are "national" in nature or have certain industry content, is also apparent in their local markets.
The study found that 25 per cent of the Washington Post's total integrated audience, representing 778,502 readers, read the daily paper and visit the website. Another five per cent of the total integrated audience was online-exclusive: These 140,521 readers relied solely on the online version. In all, the Washington Post's websites attract more than 900,000 readers per week.
Another common feature among newspapers with a high penetration of website readers in their local market is that they are often located in markets/regions with the highest rates of Internet penetration, such as San Francisco, Boston, Atlanta, and Washington. These regions tend to be in research "hot spots" where there are a high concentration of pharmaceutical, life science and high-tech companies. Accordingly, these markets typically have large concentrations of young, well-paid professionals.
David Barie, senior marketing researcher, the Washington Post, confirmed that market makeup does play a significant role in the success of newspaper Internet sites. He pointed out that among all Scarborough-measured markets, Washington had the highest concentration of college graduates; those with postgraduate degrees; young adults with college and postgraduate degrees; and adults in legal, computer/ tech, life, physical or social science occupations; and, of course, those employed by the federal government. Washington also has the highest concentration of adults who access the Internet at work.
Outside of the large papers with national appeal, there are also some local/regional publications that are among the top online performers. The Arizona Republic, the Tampa Tribune and the Atlanta Journal-Constitution fall in this category.
Interviews with content development and business executives from the above newspapers, as well as from the Washington Post, revealed that these papers are succeeding online for a number of identifiable reasons. One key aspect cited by newspaper executives is the way in which the websites fit into their companies' business strategies.
Among the success factors revealed was a deep understanding of the distinctiveness of the web as a medium. While all four of the media companies surveyed indicated that their printed newspapers and websites share content, they also unanimously emphasised that it is not simply a "cut and paste" activity. They all customise their content to appeal to web visitors who have different habits and expectations than those who prefer the printed product.
Hyde Post, vice president, internet, for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution's website explained: "From the start, we viewed online as a different medium with a different audience. Content from our newspaper is a strong component of our online content mix, but it is built on continually trying to strengthen four key online audience drivers: urgency (people want to know stuff as it happens), utility (web users expect good searchable database content and functionality), visual energy (people expect to see what happened, there is a strong expectation in all forms of online content that the visual will be there), and community interactivity (people will become stakeholders in your product if you make them part of the content equation). We don't succeed at all of those every day, but that is the core of our audience-building activity."
Those responsible for online content at other newspaper websites shared a similar perspective. The Washington Post faces the challenge of serving both local/regional and national/international audiences, each of whom have their own distinct audiences. To address these very different constituencies, content from the printed paper is enhanced and repackaged to improve its relevance and ease of consumption for each group.
Tim Ruder, vice president of marketing, Washington Post/Newsweek Interactive, maintained: "Much of the content we have on the site is created by the newsroom at the paper, but then we add a lot to that in terms of how it's packaged, the level of interactivity and the use of multimedia (audio/video), including e-mail and things such as podcasts and RSS. These enhancements drive the content to make it as useful as possible in the context of an Internet experience."
Newspaper companies are also willing to devote resources and/or to collaborate with other media properties to aggressively promote their sites. It is clear, the Scarborough study asserted, that newspaper-affiliated websites that are part of a larger multimedia organisation have an advantage in leveraging sister properties for maximum promotional impact.
"We have the state's largest newspaper and the state's most watched TV station pointing people to the site every day," explained Mike Coleman, vice president, digital media for the Arizona Republic and KPNX-TV, Phoenix's NBC affiliate. "It has just been a constant drumbeat of promotion, telling people that azcentral.com is the place to go. Our aggressive promotion and the site's intense focus on having the deepest news reports and overall content offering in the market have really helped us."
Ted Stasney, market development director of the Tampa Tribune, concurred that harnessing the power of cross-media promotions has played an important part in the success of TBO.com, one of two Tampa Tribune-affiliated sites. "Our parent company also owns WFLA-TV, the NBC affiliate in the Tampa Bay area, so TBO.com has the distinction of having both newspaper and television convergence partners," he said.
However, these findings do not suggest that newspaper websites without corporate ties to television stations cannot promote their sites powerfully and cost-effectively. Successful newspaper websites seek out and leverage complementary media partners to achieve heightened visibility, regardless of whether they are owned by the same company, the Scarborough report maintained.
The name of the game for newspaper companies, the report believed, has become "multiple platforms," where the newspaper website offers another way to distribute editorial and advertising content. When the audiences of these platforms are considered as an integrated whole, they could have the power to create a fundamental shift in how newspaper readership is perceived.
Hyde Post, of the Atlanta Journal Constitution, summed it up: "Part of our opportunity is having multiple platforms to reach the audience in our market. Our challenge is to make them work effectively together and apart. One at a time, they can be niche target opportunities; together, they can form the new definition of mass."
It is this new definition of "mass" which is giving the newspaper industry an opportunity to put a more positive spin on its own story. The report said, "The world is changing but newspapers are changing with it, and now they are growing thanks to their Internet audiences. The INA data confirms that newspaper websites have undergone an important transition in the minds of media executives as well as readers. They are no longer a footnote in the story of a newspaper's success; they have become a headline."
