Tampa publisher shares roadmap to relevancy

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More than 125 operations and production executives attended the 45th annual Metro Users Group meeting in May.

MUG was established to support the introduction of offset printing, which is now the dominant technology for the newspaper industry, according to MUG President David Stenstrom. Although a number of papers still print with flexo and letterpress units, most are migrating to offset, he said.

MUG keynote speaker, Joe DeLuca, vice president and publisher of the Tampa edition of the Times and tampabay.com, spoke to attendees about ways newspapers can become relevant and instrumental in delivering the information their communities need.

"What we do is important," he said. "After all, the First Amendment to the Constitution is written for us," DeLuca told attendees.

Local news is the crux of the newspaper product, he said, regardless of the package in which it's delivered.

Despite its challenges, DeLuca pointed to the opportunities the industry can exploit to extend its relevancy and life span. In his estimation, the perception of the failing newspaper industry has become one of its biggest obstacles to overcome. To that end, DeLuca said newspapers need youth on their side, to bring new knowledge and a new level of enthusiasm back to the industry.

"What Generation X person wants to work in a dying industry?" he asked. "We have to stop this perception – we've become our own worse enemy."

A look at circulation
Another challenge to circulation numbers: As older readers die, they are not being replaced in equal numbers. DeLuca cited the following statistic: For every four older readers that die, just one is replaced with a new, younger reader.

Another chink in newspaper readership's armor, of course, came with the advent of the Internet. Publishers first began seeing circulations dip in 1990.

Further accelerating circulation declines, DeLuca said, was the creation of third-party sales, citing distribution to hotels, airlines and restaurants that were paid for by other companies. "These numbers falsely inflated our actual circulations," he said.

"Newspapers rely on annual paid circulation figures to lure advertisers and develop pricing for advertising – they felt the need to inflate the actual circulation numbers."

The Alliance for Audited Media (formerly ABC) changed its rules to add these additional newspapers to the circulation counts, further clouding the trend in declining circulations, DeLuca said.

"Companies purchased newspapers and took on enormous debt loads (and) unfortunately during this time we experienced two recessions," he said. "In order to service the debt and reduce expenses, newspapers eliminated the third-party sales, which had an immediate and negative effect on the circulation levels."

Further complicating the situation, DeLuca said, was the fact that newspapers began constricting coverage footprints.
 
"Some of us stepped away from local newsgathering, which was our strength," he said. "We stepped away because it was expensive and labor-intensive to cover our own local backyards – so newspapers became less relevant and our readers turned to the Internet."

To that end, DeLuca said, the industry's placement of blame on the Internet as the main culprit for sinking readership numbers is somewhat misplaced, although he acknowledged that parts of the business, such as printed classifieds are gone forever because of it.

"Many young people will never use our products," he said. "However, they do use digital devices and as they move on in the stages of their lives, they will need local news to educate themselves on family purchases, health and education."

Newspaper's saving strategy
So what is the saving grace for newspapers, according to DeLuca?

"We have to understand our product value especially as it relates to local coverage," he said. "We have to value high-caliber journalism and locally relevant advertising content."

A big key to that is developing distribution channels that readers will use, he noted.

DeLuca said newspapers must also change their historical perception as "control freaks."

"We decide everything for our readers – we decide what time our readers will get their paper, what the paper will look like, what the reader will find in his paper," he said. "We control just about everything about this choice. We are starting to lose control as our readers are now making their own decision as to how, where and when they will receive information – and this concept is hard for some of us."

All the publisher should really control, he said, is reporting locally relevant news with the highest quality of journalism. DeLuca cited Patch's ill attempt to infringe on newspaper's territory as a local news source.

"They didn't invest in the content and relied on repurposing press releases," he said.

Strategy
Once newspapers restore local content with quality journalism, the next step is building a platform of distribution channels.

"It would be short-sighted not to have a portfolio of products to move our content to whatever device our readers demand," DeLuca said. "These distribution channels are expanding and we will need to continue to service them."

Furthermore, he pointed to the importance of a highly trained advertising sales staff that understands audience needs and knows on which devices they are most likely to consume content.

"We need to continue to foster creativity and continuous improvement in our operations and distribution areas," he said. "We can make a difference in the quality of people lives – and that story will resonate in Generation X's lives."

Mary L. Van Meter is publisher of News & Tech.  She can be reached at vanmeternt@aol.comRead the July/August 2013 edition of News & Tech.

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