Dailies Look To E-Editions | New delivery method to stop bleeding of print subscribers
Declines in print circulation at dailies in Central Massachusetts range from an annual drop of 4.5 percent at the Worcester Telegram & Gazette to a 9.8 percent drop at the Milford Daily News, according to the most recent annual Audit Bureau of Circulations reports.
The Fitchburg Sentinel & Enterprise saw the smallest annual drop (only 1.5 percent), while the Milford Daily News’ circulation fell by 6.7 percent.
The Gardner News, an afternoon daily that publishes six days a week, stopped reporting its circulation numbers to the ABC earlier this year. The paper’s publisher, Alberta S. Bell, did not return a phone call seeking comment for this story.
Regional Variation
While the story of daily circulation is universal decline in Central Massachusetts, the regional dailies are faring better than the two papers in Boston: The Globe’s Monday-Friday circulation fell 13.7 percent while the Herald’s dropped by 17.4 percent. (Click here to see how the numbers break down.)
Some in the industry are pinning their hopes that electronic editions (or e-editions) will help stop the bleeding at daily papers.
The e-edition is designed to look exactly like the print publication, just delivered online. The e-editions most often display the print advertisements and have varying degrees of usability. Some are simply PDFs of the printed page, others are more interactive.
Locally, the T&G, owned by the New York Times Co., the MetroWest Daily News, owned by Gatehouse New England, and the Sentinel & Enterprise, owned by Media News Group, have begun offering e-editions.
The benefit of the e-edition, aside from the added exposure for the print advertisers, is that e-edition subscribers are now counted by the ABC in circulation totals. So, they offer dailies an opportunity to add to their dwindling circ numbers and potentially lure back some advertisers.
However, the adoption of e-editions has been slow locally. The T&G only introduced its e-edition in June, so it hasn’t reported its total number of subscribers to ABC yet. Katie Donahue, consumer marketing director for the T&G, did not provide the WBJ with an e-edition subscriber total and said only that the publication is “happy with the results” of its e-edition trial.
“It’s a new product, and all new products do take some time to get maximum traction,” she said.
By contrast, the MetroWest Daily News, and its parent company, Gatehouse New England, has been experimenting with e-editions for more than a year, according to Paul Felicissimo, vice president of circulation for the newspaper publishing group.
However, the numbers at the MetroWest Daily News are still relatively small. The average Monday through Friday circulation for the e-edition is 316 — only 1.4 percent of the publication's total circulation.
Although the e-edition numbers are low, Felicissimo said that Gatehouse New England will be pushing them in 2010.
“It’s a marketable opportunity for us,” he said. “But it’s not going to happen overnight.”
From an advertisers perspective, the tumult in the daily newspaper industry has prompted a wait-and-see attitude, according to Rich Suitum, president of Exsel Advertising in Spencer.
“I really think the jury’s still out” out the move to e-editions and electronic advertising, he said. “Advertisers are looking for guidance. They need to know that the ROI is really there.”
The other advantage of an e-edition for dailies is that they can charge for them.
That’s the case at the MetroWest Daily News, where an e-edition subscription costs $12.75 per month. The T&G has an introductory rate for its daily e-edition of $6.95 per month, or $69.95 for an annual subscription.
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