Newspapers jump into tabloid fray to capture fleeing, younger readers

Daily newspapers, trying to figure out how to lure younger readers back into the morning news reading habits of their parents, are coming to a startling realization: Maybe they can?t.

And since their future customers are the 16- to 22-year-olds of today, that finding doesn?t bode well at all for circulation, which has been trending downward nationally at major news corporations.

It?s a two-edged sword. As they redesign, add new features and hire younger staffs, newspapers also can?t alienate older subscribers who fire off letters to the editor every time a slightly racy photo gets on a page. After all, it?s the older readers who turn up in newspaper studies with the most ?robust? usage.

Now newspapers ? taking a new tack against the increasing popularity of free, alternative newspapers ? seem to be saying: ?If you can?t fight ?em, join ?em.?

That?s why I wasn?t totally surprised to hear that Boulder Publishing, publisher of the Daily Camera and Broomfield Enterprise, is launching Dirt ? a free, five-day-a-week newspaper and Web site aimed straight at the younger market.

The Camera was keeping its project under tight wraps, with plans to launch as CU students return to town, when The Business Report called to report the story for our last issue. The day after we called, the Camera announced Dirt with a business page story.

If you?ve been asleep deep in a cave somewhere and haven?t noticed the splash on TV, radio and the Internet, the younger market is hot, hot, hot with advertisers, who?ve been relying less on newsprint to capture them.

Every year, many editors head to their respective industry meetings, and I just returned from our annual conference of business magazines and newspapers.

And guess what I heard?

If we want our business-to-business publishing strategies to continue to succeed, we can?t ignore those younger, entrepreneurial-minded readers, many of whom are dropping out of bigger companies to launch their own small businesses. (Small businesses, by the way, also are suddenly hot with advertisers.)

Dirt will join other newspapers around the country launching tabloids a lot like the ones they used to disdain for lack of integrity or ?real? news.

In Chicago, where our conference was held, the Chicago Tribune and Chicago Sun-Times are dueling it out with youth tabloids to counter their ?graying? readership. The Trib?s RedEye had a cover on ?Silicone Teens? and how breast implants are the new graduation gift. Readership has zoomed past the 200,000 mark.

The Sun-Times publishes the Red Streak, and bright red newsstands for both tabloids, featuring bite-size stories and flashy graphics, are on every corner in the city.

Describing the youth tabloid strategy, a Sun-Times editor in a NewCity Chicago column said, ?We?ve had our heads in the sand for a long time.?

What do you think the big topic is at the alternative newspapers conference this year as more of these young urban commuter papers pop up? Hello serious competition.

The Readership Institute at the Media Management Center at Northwestern University recently completed a ?New Readers? study, which focused on younger adults in 52 different markets. You can read parts of it at www.readership.org.

Young readers haven?t abandoned newspapers completely, but their weekday reading time is light at only about 20 minutes with a little more time on Sundays.

This might explain why one of the fastest-growing tabloids in Paris with more than a million readers is aptly named 20 Minutes.

20 Minutes promises its readers just that ? a fast, quick read for a youthful society with far too many Web sites to surf.

If newspapers want to engage the younger and more diverse audiences, Northwestern?s experts say they?ve got to ?get into their heads, understand how they live and what hot-button experiences to push.?

For years media of all ilk have been increasing the number of women and minorities in their newsrooms, but I?m guessing more reporters as well as ad staff will be sporting nose rings and pierced body parts.

The print news business is like every other ? it must innovate to survive.

Readers must have a strong, powerful ?experience? with our newspapers. We?ve already been told to be ?engaging? with more local news and award-winning photography. But now the Northwestern study says we?ve got to deliver ?strong motivating experiences.? For those who do, it?s very simple. Advertising works much better. Advertisers like that.

As a walking testament to the notion of a ?graying? editor, I?ve got to let all this sink in a bit. But I do have one question?

Does it hurt much to get your ear pierced?

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