In light of BostonNow’s closure this week (apparently for investment-related reasons), I’ve been mulling over the future of free metro papers in the U.S. The Chicago Tribune, The Washington Post and The San Diego Union-Tribune are among newspaper companies that have developed free (or discounted metros). Some have done so in response to a deep pocketed effort by Billionaire Philip Anschutz, and his Examiner papers, to storm their markets.
There are now Monday-Saturday print editions of Examiners in San Francisco, Washington D.C. and Baltimore. The company seem to be geared up to publish additional editions via regional offices. Its Internet editions are published in 57 markets, and now reach two million unique visitors, according to Examiner collateral.
When initially launched a few years ago, on the backbone of the dying San Francisco Examiner, the papers did not have an Internet strategy, according to company insiders. But now, synergies with a snappy Internet edition are clearly a main part of the strategy. This is combined with a red-line philosophy that focuses its print distribution on upper demographic households. Seventy percent of its readership is college educated; 85 percent have a household income over $75k.
Content-wise, the newspapers largely make do with wire copy for news, sorted under various “examiner” themed sections (i.e. “Automotive Examiner,” “Right Side Political Examiner” “Go To Education Examiner,” “Celebrity Examiner.” For local flavor, they are building a strong base of columnists/bloggers in several markets. Baltimore, for instance, appears to be among the most developed.
On the websites, the local information is filled in with syndicated content. Traffic information comes from Traffic.com and Outside.in (providing conversations about traffic — nice). Events come from Zvents. Yellow Pages are provided by Yellowpages.com. Movies are provided by Fandango. Shopping is from ShopLocal.com. And weather comes from Weatherbonk.com.
There are also links with other Anschutz projects, such as Christian-themed Walden Media (“Adventures of Narnia” movie) and The Foundation for a Better Life, as well as his AEG Wordlwide entertainment conglomerate. The links alone might not have passed the objectivity tests of most newspapers.
But most of the package is fairly attractive and compelling — especially for a generation getting its headlines on Yahoo! Mobile. It is a nice 1-2 print/online punch with a breaking news factor that isn’t always emphasized enough in local news/blogger aggregator sites (Topix, Outside.in, OurTown, AmericanTowns).
Examiner is currently advertising for account executives for auto, real estate and recruitment. Auto dealers are getting the biggest push, and are provided with significant discounts over local dailies. That’s not hard to do. But are the dealers dying to support another newspaper effort? It is still hard to establish the readership value of these metros.
My own free metro in San Diego, Today’s Local News, comes from The San Diego Union- Tribune. It is delivered to every household that does not subscribe to the flagship paper from Wed. to Sunday – whether they like or not. My neighbors usually have several copies littering their driveway by the end of the week. But I like it. The problem is I only spend about 45 seconds on it. Is that a good place for Hoehn’s Honda to advertise? I read The LA Times for over 25 minutes.
I am pretty sure there are only three print Examiners. (See advertising info here: http://www.examiner.com/advertise/mediakit/)
As a former employee back when they had no Internet strategery, it has been interesting to see it fill out.
Thanks for the careful reading Dave. I have corrected it in the post.
Peter, excellent post.
I advised a consultant supporting this rollout. Discussed adding a classifieds/Craigs layer across the whole network of indep sites…search local classifieds anywhere thru a single search interface in your locale. If I recall, they hard-bundle online with print now…blur the lines to hedge against possible print readership declines.