Small papers vs. big metros

I work for a 16K daily. I may be whistling past the graveyard here, but I truly believe that papers in this size range that provide a community service will survive.

Mom and granny aren't going to read about little Johnny on ESPN.com, so as long as there is a market for prep coverage and other local-centric (not hyperlocal, I hate that shit) focuses, we will have a market and in turn a job.

We are next door neighbors to a fairly good sized paper (35-40K I think) and they don't do half the prep coverage we do with twice the people. We have had many calls over the years from their frustrated subscribers asking if we would cover their county's border schools the same way we do ours. They don't cover their local minor league team which plays less than two miles from their office.

That's why I think smaller papers that provide something readers can't get otherwise will be OK in the long run.

 

The problem you run into with that approach is that I think you sacrifice 100 potential readers for getting 10 guaranteed readers. Grandma and grandpa love reading about little Muffy's 75 (for nine holes) at the Division 4 girls' golf practice meet yesterday, but the 25-year-old young professional, the customer you want to make for life, or at least for a subscription term, doesn't give a crap. He'd rather read how the Pistons did last night.

 

That's the key - balancing both. We're lucky, we have a local football team people are absolutely crazy about. I'm talking Permian levels here. But at the same time, the parents think every non-league soccer game 50 miles away should be covered and the old-timers are pissed when golf scores knock off the MLB round up.

 

don't forget...Grandma and Grandpa aren't going to be around to sustain the product for very long...what readers will replace them?

 

"Little Muffy?" Nice.

But in many of these rural areas, there aren't that many 25-year-old professionals. Just working people whose families have been in town for three generations...

 

I'm the SE of a 10K daily (no Sunday paper). We have two in sports, 13 total in the newsroom. We have lost 1.5 positions in the last year. I now sometimes shoot photos but that is OK with me. No way I would go to a big daily to just to get a "buyout" some day.

 

All I have to do is look around the room to see how smaller my paper is. A year ago, we had two weeklies working out of our office. One publisher, one editor, one designer, two ad reps. My paper had three news reporters and myself in sports. The other weekly had two writers. The company ran three other weeklies out of another office. Year later, two of the other weeklies merged into one. The second one run out of our office is no longer published and we have two news writers and me still, thankfully.

 

I don't know if our staff is beefed up because of the size of our county (200K), but we're right around 20K circ with the following: 6 FT in sports (SE, design guy/ASE, 4 reporters; once was 7); 2 photogs (once was 6); 4 news copy eds/designers (once was 5, maybe 6); 2 features; 7 news reporters (one left within the past month); online content coordinator; 1 community/general newsroom (plus 1 PTer who essentially works FT hours). Editors/management: exec., county (retiring next week), city, editorial page, sports, features.

We've always been blessed to have a pretty big sports staff for our size, though the dramatic reduction in photo has been a big concern.

Then again, I wonder if the beancounters see a lot of fat that could be trimmed.

 

One suggestion: Maybe the smaller papers aren't feeling the classifieds meltdown that bigger papers are feeling. I'm at a 40k and I've always noticed that we monopolized the classifieds compared to the community papers in our circulation. They've never done more than a few pages of classifieds. It makes sense because if you are selling your car and you live in the burb, you'll reach a lot more potential buyers in the city rag than the suburban rag. Same with houses, employment, etc.

So if you aren't selling many to start with, when the bottom drops out, you won't feel it as much.

This is just a suggestion. Maybe some folks working at the smaller papers can comment...

 

That's why I say localcentric not hyperlocal. I hate even the thought of pulling MLB in favor of rec league stuff. That's not what we do. But if there is something big locally going on, we make sure it's covered.

 

If the 25-year-old professional is a Pistons fan, he already knows how the Pistons did last night. What thriving papers will do is give readers something they can't get on the Internet 6-12 hours before they get their papers. It takes about 5 minutes to read the Sports section in the major metro in our area because it's filled with roundups and other national news I've read about much, much earlier. The main news section is the same way. Maybe I'm wrong, but I don't think I'm the exception.

 

Right on. Wire has its place ... but give me an entire section full of it in lieu of good local content, and I'll stop buying your newspaper.