Some small newspapers still strong
by Jami Reinhart
Readership trends have not remained the same for all newspaper publications, and deciphering between publication size and circulation trends fills in some of the unanswered gaps as to which newspapers are just surviving compared to those that appear to be almost thriving.
"The small town paper is where the residents can read about what is happening with their city council, schools, friends, neighbors, crime. As for advertising, they want to see the ads for their community or neighboring areas," said Barbara Trebisovsky, Assistant Executive Director, Minnesota Newspaper Association.
The Internet, long past the days of the paperboy riding by on his bicycle to toss the daily newspaper on your front step. As the trend of news online increases, newspaper circulation remains stable for some publications, while others are thriving, and yet some have been experiencing a decrease in readership over the past few years.
As a small town weekly newspaper based in Clinton, Minn., the Northern Star circulates to about 1,800 people in three communities each week. Despite not having an online option for their paper, the circulation of The Northern Star has remained fairly stable for the past ten years.
“We have held our own pretty well,�? said Denise Gustafson, ad manager for the Northern Star. “Being a small town, we have enough former residents and alumni who keep up with back home. We have loyal people.�?
Stella Jacobson has lived in Clinton and raised her family there for decades, just likes the idea of a local newspaper.
"I have lived here all my life, and it's just more interesting to read about what is going on here," said Jacobson.
Lacking an online version of the Northern Star, it would appear that newspapers should be able to thrive on their own, but what happens when a small town newspaper offers an online version as well?
With an average circulation of 4,000 per week, Timberjay newspapers serve readers in northern Minnesota from Tower, Ely and Cook/Orr.
"We have been regularly stable," said Jodi Summit, general manager and Tower editor for Timberjay. "We have been more aggressive with making sure people are paying for subscriptions and not giving out as many free papers; our subscription revenue has been slowly growing."
With an option to view stories on its Web site, Timberjay posts about 20 stories online each week, in addition to offering online subscriptions.
"The subscriptions online have been pretty slow, we are getting about six to ten a month," said Summit. "We struggle to decide what to put up for free, and we do not have enough money to have someone keep track of the online stories."
According to Summit, one of the main reasons their circulation continues to remain stable is the fact that readers cannot get the news that is printed in their paper anywhere else.
As much larger publications compared to the Northern Star and Timberjay, the Star Tribune and Pioneer Press offer stories and news feeds covering a wider audience. Despite online options and breaking news availability, according to Trebisovsky, both the Star Tribune and the Pioneer Press are down in terms of circulation.
Though Trebisovsky acknowledges that the public generally hears about layoffs at larger companies, she says that newspapers are doing other things aside from layoffs to cut costs, including changing their web width to save on paper cost.
"It is not as much related to circulation," said Trebisovsky. "The industry is in a state of transition, but there are always going to be the people who like their paper."
Another factor newspapers look at when distinguishing trends in circulation is readership. According to Trebisovsky, in their most recent statewide readership survey in 2005, daily newspapers in Minnesota averaged 1.8 readers per copy, and weekly newspapers averaged 1.7 readers per copy. That number was 2.2 readers in 1994.
In addition to the fluctuation in readers per copy, Trebisovsky noted that since 1994, the total combined circulation for all weeklies in Minnesota has increased 2 percent, while the total combined circulation for all Minnesota dailies has decreased 14.5 percent.
Yet another factor affecting newspaper circulation is the economy. The better businesses are doing, the more revenue they have to contribute to the papers to advertise for them. Which means the worse a business is doing financially, the fewer ads a newspaper may be publishing for them, which in turn means less ad revenue for that particular newspaper.
"Subscriptions are important, but ads are the big support," said Trebisovsky. "If there's an area that's down or not doing so well, advertisers are going down."
So what is it that keeps the smaller town publications going, while some of the bigger ones are facing some hardship?
"The smaller papers are doing fine because they are local community newspapers and the main source of news in their communities," said Trebisovsky. "Your local paper is the one entity that actually has news gatherers; people who go out to seek stories and news on a daily basis."