Readership For All Ages

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Readership ForAll Ages

• Survey and Analysis by McKenzie Boyd, Aaron Fox,
  Cristina Sambursky, Matt Snively, Sarah Stowe

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Objective

• To determine the relationship between age of
  readers and readership of The Columbia
  Missourian.
• In addition, to acknowledge trends in newspaper
  readership for residents of Columbia, MO.

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Known Facts

• Community newspapers are great communicators of
  important information and create coherence in
  society.
• They handle issues that are important to its
  readers.
• They give small communities a voice in the nation
  and get politicians attention.

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Facts Continued

• They allow local advertisers a cheap and
  accessible medium to promote their products.
• However, there has been a decreasing trend in
  readership and circulation.

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About the Missourian

• It has many forms of competition, both print and
  non-print
• Main threat Tribune
• Closely associated with the J-school
• Negative reputation
• Student newspaper perception
• Staffed by students and faculty
• Unique to MU

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About Age and Readership

• From primary research we discovered
• Oldprint readers, Tribune a large threat, more
  subscribe, want local news
• Youngonline readers, Maneater the largest
  threat, want entertainment, sports, national news

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Our Hypothesis

• As age increases, readership will increase as
  well.

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Methodology

• Framed survey questions using secondary and
  primary data already gathered.
• Group completed 51 random phone calls
• Consolidated data into one source.

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Methodology Continued

• Analyzed data using a standard codesheet
• Analyzed data focusing on
• Age
• Frequency of reading
• Types of reading
• Types of papers
• Newspaper supplements

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Research Findings

• 39 of 51 respondents had read a newspaper in the
  past seven days.
• This number was spread out over all the age
  brackets., with rates ranging from 70 to 100
  readership.
• Surprisingly, the data was quite balanced

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People who have read a daily in the past week
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What Papers are they reading?

• The Tribune dominated all other daily papers.
• The Missourian was next, but a long way off.

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Which papers are being read?
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Different MediumDifferent Story

• Online, younger readers are far more prevalent.
  While less than a quarter of older readers had
  read a paper online in the past week, over half
  of younger readers had read an online publication.

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Online Readership
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So we know people readdoes anyone pay for it?

• 86 of the youngest age group do NOT subscribe to
  any newspaper
• In the higher age brackets, subscriptions reach
  60

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Subscription rates for dailies
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Research Analysis

• Results are based on the idea that as age
  increases, readership increases
• Our data showed that this is true when examining
• Daily readership
• Subscriptions
• Print readership

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Online Analysis

• When age increased, readership decreased.
• Only 25 of age group 66-75 read an online
  newspaper, while 83 of age group 26-35 read an
  online paper.

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Online Analysis Continued

• There are two factors that could sway this
  number
• One is the use of technology. Although online
  readership decreases with the increase of age, it
  is also more common for the younger age group to
  be more technologically savvy
• Also, once the participants reach the age of
  retirement, they may not feel the need to stay
  current with all news evens other than their
  local coverage

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Findings

• With they hypothesis supported in the majority of
  the findings, it is difficult to determine how
  community newspapers are in decline
• Based on findings from the survey conducted, the
  problem does not appear to be that the younger
  age group is not reading a community newspaper,
  but they are simply finding other methods that
  the traditional print version.

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Findings Continued

• The younger age bracket is going tot he online
  versions or supplements such as Vox. Also,
  possibly due to the University of Missouri being
  in Columbia, several participants from the
  younger age groups receive their news from campus
  publications instead of the daily community
  newspaper. For example, 43 of 18-25 year-olds
  sampled read the Maneater weekly

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Limitations

• Interviewer/Interviewee bias
• Time constraints
• Only called 51 people
• Need more representatives for each age bracket
• Misrepresentation of data from respondents

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Recommendations

• Focus of Brand Awareness
• Focus on one demographic
• Focus on the strength of the Journalism School

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Brand Awareness

• Advertise during nightly news or on NPR/KBIA
• Sponsor community events
• Sports tournaments
• Charity events

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Demographics

• Focus our your target audience.
• Ads should include both old and young elements
• Ex. Grandparents/grandchildren reading together
  with the tag line, Knowledge doesnt skip a
  generation.

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Strength of the Journalism School

• Best journalism school in the country
• So play it up.
• Make people aware, dont ever downplay this fact.
• Associate The Missourian with quality.

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Further Research

• Placement of newspaper dispenser
• Proximity to community and senior citizens
• Cost/benefit analysis

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Further Research Continued

• Expanded Survey
• At least ten members of each age group to form an
  accurate representation of that group