Monday, August 10, 2009
A letter from the publisher
That statement may raise a few eyebrows, as many of you have heard about the intense pressures that newspapers and other media are experiencing. Along with the recession, we are seeing structural shifts in traditional media due to factors such as increased competition from the Internet and changing readership habits. Newspapers used to be seen as the ultimate iron-clad franchise in their markets. While most are still very good businesses, in the digital age, they don’t seem unshakable anymore.
Almost everywhere I go these days, somebody asks me how The Roanoke Times is doing. Some of you ask if we will continue to be around. You’ve all heard about the struggles of newspapers in major markets, including some of the country’s largest and most important papers. And understandably, you’ve been concerned about what this could mean for your local paper.
Let me assure you that we are not about to go out of business. We have worked hard to contribute to the prosperity of this region for 123 years, and we are eagerly looking forward to the next 123! While the newspaper you hold in your hands today has evolved throughout our history, our traditions of journalistic excellence, integrity, community partnership and dedication to our customers remain steadfast.
Our goal is always to be the leading provider of information in our region, across media channels. People’s habits will change over time, but the need for the quality content we produce will always be there. And we plan to be here to provide it — in printed form for a long time to come, and increasingly in new media, too. While we are not unaffected by the difficult trends in the media industry, we have advantages that most of our peers don’t.
I want to tell you more about the shape of our business today and what I see for us in the future.
ROANOKE IS A STRONG NEWSPAPER MARKET.
You may think all newspapers are the same, but actually, they’re not. Some face more difficult operating conditions in their home cities than others, making it harder for them to achieve market leadership. The newspapers that are ailing the most tend to be in urban, transient, and therefore extremely competitive media markets. Many of them are burdened by heavy debt taken on by new owners, and contentious labor disputes. Some are publicly owned, which forces them to think and act with short-term results in mind. None of these issues describes our paper.
We are a profitable, debt-free enterprise. Our company is composed of The Roanoke Times, the state’s largest daily newspaper west of Richmond; roanoke.com, Southwest Virginia’s most-viewed Web site; and our targeted publications in print and online, Laker Weekly, Smith Mountain Laker magazine and the Blue Ridge Business Journal.
As you know, the Roanoke region is known for its natural beauty and for being a very livable community. It’s also a great place to be in the newspaper business. Here in our midsized market, we have one of the strongest readership stories in the country, for several key reasons.
WE HAVE EXCELLENT PRODUCTS AND A STRONG, ENGAGED AUDIENCE.
Our finances remain healthy, and the demand for our news, information and advertising continues to be strong. Our readership, the percentage of adults reading the paper in our market, ranks among the highest of any newspaper in the nation. We’re proud to be a top-10 best-read newspaper in the country as ranked by Scarborough, and we have been number one twice in the past eight years.
On an average weekday, nearly 90,000 of you buy the newspaper in print. Since we know that two people or more on average read each copy that is sold, that means more than 200,000 people read The Roanoke Times each day. On Sunday, those numbers are even higher: more than a quarter-million adults in our area read the paper. It is important to note here that these numbers are either audited or provided by third-party sources.
When you combine our print readership with our online audience, we’re read or viewed by more than 409,000 adults in our area in the course of a week, or eight out of 10 Roanoke Valley adults. This includes readers in every age group, including the hard-to-reach 20-somethings. The audience market share for roanoke.com is 64 percent - more than all the other media websites in our market combined, and more than four times that of the next-highest local news media competitor. Thanks to our high readership and audience, we carry a third of the market’s advertising share — advertising that gets excellent results for our customers.
We emphasize local in our approach to covering the news, because we can do that better than anyone else in our market. With nearly 100 journalists in our newsroom, we have by far the region’s largest and most respected newsgathering team. Through the years, we’ve received numerous professional honors and awards for our reporting, editing and photography, and we are highly regarded throughout our state for the quality of our journalism. For two years in a row, we have been honored to receive the Virginia Press Association’s Public Service Award, considered VPA’s top honor. It recognizes not only outstanding reporting and writing but editorial leadership that has resulted in positive change in the community. In the past three years, our features, sports, photo and business teams have been recognized as among the best in the country for our market size by the American Association of Sunday and Feature Editors, the Associated Press Sports Editors, the National Press Photographers Association and the Society of Business Editors and Writers.
You may not realize that our efforts to innovate in online storytelling have earned us a national reputation for excellence. Just this spring, our multimedia series exploring Roanoke’s aging population, “Age of Uncertainty,” was named best documentary in the Pictures of the Year International competition.
Journalism at its best has the power to not only inform but to inspire people to do better. As wonderful as it is to be recognized by our peers, it pleases us much more to know that our work touches people’s lives and makes a positive difference in the region we are committed to serve.
WE HAVE A HISTORY OF INNOVATION AND CONTINUOUS IMPROVEMENT.
Even so, we cannot just stand on our success; we must work hard to stay on top. Throughout our history, innovation has been a cornerstone of our business, and we continue to reinvent ourselves. Last year, we launched three new community publications — The Botetourt View, SWoCO and So Salem. Recently we unveiled a new design and content in the Current, our popular New River Valley community publication, and a new Web site, www.smithmountainlake.com. To maintain our position as the region’s leading recruitment source, this month you’ll see we are launching a redesigned jobs site at www.jobs.roanoke.com.
We realize that our advertisers have felt the effects of the unprecedented recession, and like everybody else, they must look sharply at reducing their expenses. This has led us to create advertising packages in print and online to meet the changing needs of our existing advertisers, as well as offer more affordable, targeted options to appeal to an even broader customer base. Along with community news and photographs that readers enjoy, our intensely local publications and Web sites allow us to offer effective options, including our award-winning ad design, to a broader group of advertisers than we have in the past. We use our consumer research to learn more from readers about the effectiveness of advertising messages that appear in our products — feedback we then provide our advertisers to ensure they make the wisest investment possible. We will continue to invest in new products and reinvent existing ones to meet the changing needs of our readers and advertisers.
To serve the public with excellence, we must produce outstanding business results. Good journalism is expensive to produce and deliver, and it requires us to be profitable. Our business depends on the success of our advertising customers. During this deep recession, like all media, we have seen a decline in advertising revenue — our largest source of income — as our advertisers have been forced to scale back. Though our market has held up better than most, we have found it necessary to streamline our costs so that we remain financially sound at a time when our revenues have dipped below last year’s. We’ve combined news sections of the paper Mondays through Saturdays but did it in a way that still delivers a quality report to our readers.
We froze wages, took five furlough days and trimmed some unprofitable circulation in the outermost areas of our market. We will have reduced the size of our workforce permanently by about 30 full-time positions this year. Unlike many papers, we have not had to resort to mass layoffs; instead we’ve downsized mostly by attrition and other voluntary means, while lowering our profit expectations for this year. The steps we have taken are not a sign of weakness; they are deliberate, strategic actions that have helped offset advertising revenue declines in this tough economy and bolstered our financial strength. I’m happy to report that these decisions have enabled us to weather the recession and will position us to emerge even stronger once the economy turns around. We join all of you in looking for signs that the recession is finally ending.
WE HAVE A TEAM OF OUTSTANDING EMPLOYEES WHO ARE COMMITTED TO SERVING YOU.
We have worked hard in every part of our company to gain more efficiency and lower our costs wherever possible, without compromising the quality of our journalism. You depend on us to bring you the news of Southwest Virginia — stories about people who live here, businesses that operate here, events that are happening here — with the reporting depth that no one else can match. We deeply value your loyalty and your readership, and we know that we must continue to earn your trust.
We are always seeking new ways to better serve you, our customers — our readers, online users and advertisers. So we encourage you to give us your feedback and tell us how we’re doing. Send letters to the editor, comment on our blogs, submit your news ideas and photos for our publications. Join our reader panel, an important group that helps us understand your interactions and expectations for us. These 700 readers take quick online surveys for us and provide a wealth of input on stories and advertisements. They are honest and critical, and we read every word in their responses.
Thank you for reading us, viewing us, advertising with us and patronizing our advertisers, and giving us your feedback to help us become stronger. Your partnership is indispensable to our growth.
I invite you to share your thoughts about this letter, our business and our future by e-mailing me at publisher@roanoke.com or by calling (540) 981-3443.
Sincerely,
Debbie Meade
President and Publisher
