As I look around and see the changes that are descending on the industry at the speed of, oh, roughly light, it naturally makes me wonder what the DNJ will look like in five years, ten years, or 20 years.
A lot of people think they know what is happening within the DNJ. Here are a few simple facts:
- We sell roughly 75,000 to 80,000 Daily News Journals each week. Yes that is down from three, five and ten years ago, but there aren’t many local businesses that sell that many units each week.
- Around 52,000 homes receive Rutherford AM and another 12,000 or so receive Smyrna AM each week.
- More than 10,000 people receive Murfreesboro Magazine 10 times per year.
- About 300,000 individuals visit the website every month.
These numbers aren’t bad and they far outweigh the numbers any of our competitors are putting up.
That doesn’t mean we don’t have work to do.
One of the biggest shifts is that people are now paying to access dnj.com. This is a substantial shift from how digital media has worked over the last 20 years or so.
So what is the newspaper of tomorrow going to look like?
To be honest, I’m not certain. I believe print will be around for a very long time. Obviously digital will be more important. Also mobile and tablet are huge – we are seeing double digit increases in DNJ readership on both smart phone and tablet every month.
Clearly this is where we’re headed.
Ultimately I think it will be a mix, just as it is now, but the ratios will be different. You’ll have print products (newspaper and magazine) and you’ll have digital products and things available on the .com and smart phones and tablets via apps.
The mix today will be different than the mix in five years or the mix in 10 years or the mix in 20 years. What does that mean? Again, I don’t know.
The funny thing is that while our competitors are trying tell everyone our circulation is dropping, our readership has actually grown and we reach a larger audience than ever before – hundreds of thousands of readers in print, online and via smart devices.
The mix is changing, but the numbers are growing.
For now, we continue to focus on the entire range of products – a seven-day paid daily newspaper, two direct-to-home free distribution papers, a strong magazine ten times per year, a web/mobile/digital product that is by far the best in Rutherford County, and a variety of niche products – print and online – that exist to serve the needs of our readers.
Who knows what the paper will look like in 10 or 20 years. But I’m excited to find out.