It’s never easy to win back customers once they’ve left. Just ask the folks at CBS-Ch. 2, which has been struggling for years to win back viewers after a disastrous leap into tabloid-style news.
Now consider a Herculean effort at customer reconciliation in Detroit, where a bitter and financially disastrous 5 1/2-year-old labor dispute at two newspapers ended this week, when two Teamster locals–the last of six locals that went on strike–ratified contracts and unions called off their boycott. Under the terms of the agreement, cash settlements of up to $3,000 will be awarded to each employee if circulation at the Detroit Free Press and The Detroit News returns to prestrike levels by next fall–roughly 30 percent above the current level.
Account executives at News owner Gannett Co. and Knight Ridder Inc. shouldn’t sweat the costs of issuing bonus checks next year, because the odds are overwhelmingly against the Free Press and News regaining the affections of 300,000 people who quit buying the paper after the strike began on July 13, 1995.
“Dorothy, this isn’t Oz,” is how Ben Burns, a former executive editor at the News and now director of the journalism program at Detroit’s Wayne State University, reacted to the circulation.
Kicking off this effort, the Free Press on Monday gave away 70,000 copies of the paper–almost 20 percent of the average daily circulation of 365,579. The papers also plan to step up broadcast, billboard, direct mail and telemarketing campaigns inviting readers to come back.
“We … want to mark the start of a healing process here at the newspaper and among people in the community we serve,” Heath Meriwether, the Free Press publisher, wrote in a front-page letter to readers.
Burns said he is not optimistic. “From here on it’ll be a marketing campaign … an effort marked by a feel-good, cuddly and lovable approach. But how many people will subscribe based on affection? I don’t think many anymore,” Burns said.
“I’d be surprised if they were able to reach those goals,” added newspaper analyst John Morton of Silver Spring, Md. “In optimal circumstances it is very difficult, and these are not optimal circumstances. It’ll be harder in Detroit than most places simply because of the bitterness of the strike and the lingering effects.”
The strike alienated labor households and others sympathetic to the cause of the strikers. The lingering effects of the strike include a prohibition against either paper’s political reporters obtaining credentials to the Democratic National Convention.
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Even under the best of circumstances, a circulation gain of that magnitude borders on unfathomable. Then-Los Angeles Times Publisher Mark Willes had set a goal of increasing the Times’ circulation by roughly 50 percent, or 500,000, in 1997. The Times gained about 50,000 in circulation, much of it obtained by cutting the price of the daily paper in half at the newsstand.
In an environment of multiplying media choices that have gained prominence in the last five years–free weeklies, online newspapers and other news sources on the Internet, more all-news cable channels–maintaining circulation or viewer stability is effectively a gain. With publicly traded media companies under heavy pressure to increase profits for their investors, the challenge of spending the money to increase circulation is daunting.
The Free Press and News each charge 35 cents for the daily paper, low by industry standards, so there’s not much likelihood of a price cut. “The price, though, is not the motivator,” Burns said. “You start with the proliferation of choices, and then spice it up with a good portion of anger and alienation.”
The size of the slowdown: One need look no further than at the size of technology-centered magazines to get a good read on the extent of the softening ad climate. Business2.0, the self-described magazine of the new economy, weighed in at 9.5 ounces, with 112 pages, in its current edition, compared with a hefty 1 pound 7 ounces, with 274 pages, in its Oct. 24 edition. A similar dietary effect can be seen in The Industry Standard–132 pages in the current 7-ounce edition, compared with 270 in the 13.75-ounce Oct. 16 edition.
Bode update: Is Ken Bode, dean of Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism, headed back to DePauw University? Bode announced in June that he would step down as dean, but has kept the post until a replacement is named. The student newspaper at the Greencastle, Ind., school reports that Bode, the NBC and CNN alum who left DePauw in 1997 to take the top post at Medill, has been house-hunting in the area. Bode did not return a phone call seeking comment.