Too late
The good news for the Enquirer is: Circulation is up, about 3% to 212,369, from 206,320 a year ago.
The bad news is it's too late to reverse the slide in advertising. The industrywide decline is so bad that the Conference Board has decided to stop publishing its help-wanted index, which used monthly newspaper classified ad totals to gauge the strength of the labor market. The Conference Board began publishing the index in 1951. So much advertising has moved online, that newspaper totals are no longer the indicator they once were.
The bad news is it's too late to reverse the slide in advertising. The industrywide decline is so bad that the Conference Board has decided to stop publishing its help-wanted index, which used monthly newspaper classified ad totals to gauge the strength of the labor market. The Conference Board began publishing the index in 1951. So much advertising has moved online, that newspaper totals are no longer the indicator they once were.
posted by Newsache at 8:12 PM
24 Comments:
I'm far from an expert on this stuff, but isn't this small gain just a product of the Post's closing?
The Post closing, more emphasis on EZ pay and Bonus Issues - the latter of which is far to frequent and is used to buy newspapers for people who have basically already said no.
Let's face it, the numbers are almost certainly bogus.
Shouldn't bump have been more of a spike given the Post closing in the six-month reporting period?
"Bonus Days" are a joke.
It is just another way The Enquirer inflates circulation figures. Even paying subscribers have no choice of not taking "Bonus Days" delivery and being charged for them.
Just as The Enquirer mileage reimbursement of 33 cents per mile is inadequate and forces employees to absorb what should be a company expense. It's all about maximizing the bottom line at the expense of employees, subscribers and non-subscribers.
The Post had somewhere around 25,000 daily circ when it folded, so the Enquirer managed to get 20% of it. The telling numbers will come with the next audit and the one after that. The paper's circulation head left for another Gannett paper and a new guy (also from another Gannett paper) has to learn the lay of the land.
But circulation isn't as critical as whether the paper is meeting the ad revenue goals set by the suits at corporate. If not, look for more cost-saving measures.
For now, it's happy days on the 20th floor. Maggie's boys (Callinan, Simpson and DiSanto) all won President's rings, circulation news is good on the print and online sides, and the CincyMoms manager without a staff was named one of Gannett's managers of the year. What do the people doing all the work get out of this? They keep their jobs and Hollis Towns orders in pizza now and again.
Lois Lane
Happy days are here again,
the idiots bought our bullshit again,
we can cash in those bonuses and keep cutting staff,
happy days are here again!
Will the last one out please turn out the lights?
By Lana Lang
Please tell me you'll be weighing in on a second day of coverage of the Anderson Twp student who got in to four (count 'em, four!) Ivy League schools. The first article said his mom was a journo--I just have to think she has to be friends with someone on staff at the Enquirer. The tone of these articles has made me want to scream.
--Nasty, Brutish & Short
This site kills me; if the circulation was down this site would be throwing a party.
Ever since the marketing department's takeover of the Enquirer's newsroom some time back, news is determined by measurable demographic criteria called "keys." There are 13 subject "keys," 34 community "keys" and 17 school district "keys." In the case of the whiz kid accepted at the Ivy League schools, no less than six "keys" came into play: Local town/Neighborhood News, Good Things Happening, Education-School Year, Raising Families, Anderson Twp. and Forest Hills Schools. That was a six-bagger for the scorekeepers at the Enquirer. At the end of the year, company managers count up their "key" points to determine promotions, bonuses and coveted corporate "rings." Nowhere in the incentive program is the word "Pulitzer" mentioned.
How many keys does this alleged action meet?
http://gannettblog.blogspot.com/2008/04/reader-someone-pulled-cherry-hill-in.html
Sounds like someone should spend a little more time to better understand Enquirer employee's demographics.
To 1:35. WTF???? i work there, in the thick of things, and I have NO IDEA what you're talking about. what year was that?
Today's another special bonus day, which means I paid to have the litter that is the Fishwrap thrown into my drive. And of course, there's nothing at all in it that would merit it being s special edition, but it plumps their "paid circulation" numbers artificially.
I work there, too, and that document, from around 2006, still governs many of our news decisions. Ask Hollis about it. It's the list that deliberately omits poor/black neighborhoods like Price Hill, Bond Hill, Westwood, Silverton and Forest Park from "key" coverage areas, except for crime news and the occasional drop-in for one token story just to show we know they're there. It's why we load up so much on suburban coverage and chase 35-49 year-old soccer moms with school news and tips on how to improve their anal sex. It's why we bought the Community Press papers to further blanket the burbs and leave the inner city behind.
It is true that as far back as management strategic planning sessions in the 2004 period targeted neighborhoods and groups, including those outlined here, received very high priority. It was clear that, with the exception of Over the Rhine, where powerbrokers own significant tracts and want maximum good publicity to rent and sell them, the inner city was being abandoned. Why? because the money is in the suburbs, the subscribers are there and the computer-access for website exploitation is much higher. There is a little hypocrisy in the internal demand for diversity in hiring and in lip-service paid to multicultural voices in stories. That being said, management recognizes where the market is and is exploiting it.
http://www.forbes.com/2008/05/02/internet-newspapers-cincinnati-biz-media-cx_0502howwedidit.html
So this is how they did it.
Dear Anon 10:47--
Ha! You are kidding, right??? The online data center and hyperlocal sites have nothing to do with circulation numbers. ABC counts paper copies, not page views. You are delusional if you think online content or even news hole coverage has anything to do with the EQ "gaining" circulation.
As explained in earlier posts, those inflated Enquirer numbers are a result of Premium Days, extended grace, and discounted/free newspapers. Stay tuned though, because word has it that ABC is clamping down on Premium Days, and that the expense of the discounted and free newspapers (discount dollars) have been dramatically cut from the Circulation budget....
Buchanan has said more than once, if she couldn’t grow it (circulation), she'd buy it.
And, if she’s finally being forced to cut this practice due to ABC’s tighter scrutiny, and to save money for continued shortfalls in advertising, then it’s likely that no one is happier than DiSanto, as he left at the top of this “game”.
May 5-- another bonus day! Why, I'm so excited!
11 days and counting since the last post from "the worst newspaper blog in the United States." Guess no prizes have been announced.
I am grateful for each and every reader of this blog, and more grateful for everyone who posts a comment. The comments are what make this blog. They are more interesting and informative than the drivel I write.
However, it must get boring for the readers here to read my nitpicking at the Enquirer. And I don't enjoy saying the same things over and over again.
I also have important things happening in my life that demand a higher priority than this blog. There are things I'd like to post about, such as the Cincinnati magazine article and the new look for Cincinnati.com blogs, but I haven't had the time. I might have more time in the future, and I might not.
Please use my email link to send me suggestions, and to point out things in the Enquirer that I might have missed.
Bonus days...that the ticket. Not so many years ago there were 8 bonus days each year. One for each of the main Holidays and the day after Thanksgiving. Last year, there were 58! Add all of the weekend subs to a daily day and..poof, you have circ increases. All while Ad revenue continues to plummet. The expense of these "Bonus Days" is not cheap. $100 per M for carrier delivery expense plus at least $250 per M for print and newsprint. Maybe Mgmt should spend expense dollars more wisely instead of cutting more staff.
Other Circ Directors have a nickname for DiSanto. The "Great Pretender" who, is laughing all the way back home to his retirement job. Heaven help the new Enquirer Circ Director who has to keep up the bogus circ numbers.
The beauty of this - that MB and DiSanto like was that subscribers unknowingly end up paying for it. Though, someone once share that a complait was filed with Ohio's AG. If so, what happened?
You know, a little "viral" marketing might help. Imagine if a friend told a friend, who told a friend... about being overcharged so often. And, imgaine if advertisers moved to only those days as the frequency of this would work well for them.
For all of you that are complaining about bonus days, it is extremely easy to not get bonus day papers.
Call in and tell them you don't want them. They take you off the list. Not all subscribers receive bonus day papers, but most people do just because they never call in to be taken off the list.
Granted this is a ploy on The Enquirers part because they are betting that you won't call in.
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