E&P Reports with Mike Blinder

Last year, the Maag-Brown family, owners of The Youngstown (Ohio) Vindicator, announced it would shut down after serving its local community for 150 years. As a result, 144 employees and 250 carriers were laid off. Not finding a buyer, the family made an announcement to their 34,000+ subscribers in June 2019 that their last edition would be published Aug. 31. Hearing the news, Ogden Newspapers put together a plan to publish a daily product for Youngstown and the Mahoning County, Ohio residents from their operation 16 miles north at the Warren Tribune Chronicle. In just three months, the staff at the Tribune Chronicle approached the Maag-Brown family and negotiated the purchase of the masthead, subscription list and Vindicator website (Vindy.com), and began the task of generating a quality local news product for the residents. One year later, the investment has paid off with close to 70 percent of the Vindicator's old subscribers receiving the new product.

E&P publisher Mike Blinder interviews Tribune Chronicle and Vindicator publisher, Charles Jarvis, to learn how they were able to save the Vindicator in such a short period of time and how they are doing today serving both counties with their dual products.

The Local Journalism Sustainability (LJS) Act is a bi-partisan bill that would provide tax credits to support subscriptions, advertising and journalists salaries for the news industry. Introduced in Congress on July 16 by Arizona Democratic Rep. Ann Kirkpatrick and Washington state Republican Rep. Dan Newhouse, the bill was the "brainchild" of Francis Wick, CEO of Wick Communications who began championing in March when he saw the effects the COVID-19 pandemic was having on the news industry's revenues. Currenetly, industry trade organizations, with more than 30 congressional leaders, have pledged support for the LJS Act in hopes that it can be fast-tracked through Congress in the very near future. Mike Blinder, publisher E&P Magazine, goes one-on-one with Francis Wick to learn how the LSJ Act got started, where it is today and what is needed in order to get it passed.

Called a "take back the night" movement, The Relevance Project is a coordinated promotion and marketing campaign by The Newspaper Association Managers (NAM). It's designed to reposition, rebrand and harness the collective reach of 9,600 newspapers throughout the U.S. and Canada to create a uniform voice spreading important messages about the unique value community newspapers deliver to their readers and advertisers. Earlier this year, NAM hired industry veteran Tom Silvestri to lead and coordinate the project.

In this installment of E&P Reports, E&P publisher Mike Blinder interviews Silvestri, along with executive director of the New York Press Association Michelle Rea and Steve Nixon, NAM director and executive director of the Saskatchewan Weekly Newspapers Association, about how The Relevance Project is going. Plus, they discuss the newspaper industry's current challenges and how to meet them.

The entire industry was stunned when WEHCO Media announced they were planning to stop printing their flagship statewide newspaper, The Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, and only deliver it to their subscribers via a paid web/ APP based platform. After many market tests, their final solution to keep their audience was to purchase iPads and offer them to their print subscribers for free. Now more than a year later, the paper publishes just one print product a week, while profiting and retaining more than 70 percent of their audiences and saving hundreds of jobs as well.

E&P publisher Mike Blinder checks in with Walter E. Hussman Jr., WEHCO's CEO and publisher of the Democrat-Gazette, to see how the project is going and how they have expanded the concept to other WEHCO properties. Hussman also chats about his thoughts on moving newspapers to non-profit status, surviving in a COVID-19 world, and if Facebook and Google should pay for the content they receive from the news publishing industry.

Ryan Dohrn is a globally recognized media revenue consultant who has helped newspapers, niche publications, broadcast stations and online publishers generate more than $500 million in new revenue. Recently, Dohrn and his company, 360 Ad Sales, reached out to media partners to send in their sales proposals that closed deals and those that did not. After analyzing the results, they learned what common factors helped gained orders and which ones failed to work.

In this one-on-one interview with E&P publisher Mike Blinder, Dohrn reveals to the industry the results of the study as well as reviews the best tactics and practices he sees in order to continue to drive revenue through COVID-19.

In March 2018, the McClatchy-owned Idaho Statesman began to print their newspaper in Twin Falls, a 2.5 hour drive from the Boise market. That June, the Adams Publishing Group's (APG) Idaho Press decided to take advantage of this change by implementing an aggressive plan to expand its news coverage and distribution area by doubling down on traditional print publications and increasing local news coverage and home delivery across the entire city of Boise. In addition, APG purchased the alt-weekly Boise Weekly and established a Boise bureau in their downtown office building. The result has been a steady decline in Statesman readership and a more than 40 percent growth in print subscriptions for the Idaho Press.

Matt Davison, publisher of the Idaho Press, outlines this entire winning strategy in this one-on-one interview with E&P publisher Mike Blinder

Read more here: https://www.idahostatesman.com/news/business/article202238419.html#storylink=cpy

With the unpredictability of COVID-19's impact on the local advertising ecosystem, Borrell Associates has revised its 2020 advertising and marketing forecasts. The bad news is that the previous 2019 forecast, which revealed local ad spending would increase, has been revised to show a decrease of 13 percent with print, broadcast and radio advertising dropping even more. However, there is some good news in what local advertisers say that they will do with their ad dollars on the backside of the pandemic.

Mike Blinder, publisher of E&P, goes one on one with CEO of Borrell Associates Gordon Borrell to unpack these forecasts.

Evening Post Publishing, parent company of the Charleston (S.C.) Post and Courier, is investing in new markets, starting with Greenville and Myrtle Beach, S.C.

The newspaper will hire and station reporters and editors in both markets to cover news as it occurs--direct from the source in two markets who already have daily newspapers owned by Gannett (Greenville) and McClatchy (Myrtle Beach). With papers already in place in Columbia (the state capitol) and Aiken, does this mean that the Post and Courier could become the statewide newspaper for South Carolina, and how smart is this move when the economy and industry as a whole are both in such a flux?

Mike Blinder, publisher of E&P, goes one on one with SVP of Evening Post Publishing P.J. Browning and chief revenue/marketing officer Chris Zoeller to ask these questions and learn more about this new expansion.

Remote work, new products and workforce cuts are just some of the most likely outcomes predicted in a new study of Local Media Association (LMA) members. In May, 127 members responded to the survey that revealed in response to the COVID-19 crisis, new modes of communications with ad clients, new products and workforce cost reductions may have the most staying power once the crisis abates. Also, media leaders' opinions vary regarding how long it will be before that happens: half said nine months or less, and the other half said more than nine months.

E&P publisher Mike Blinder discusses the findings with LMA COO Jay Small.

Second Street, an audience engagement software platform used by more than 4,000 media companies, is moving their 7th annual summit from a two-day conference in St. Louis to a free, month-long virtual series in June that anyone can attend. More than 15 speakers from a wide range of traditional and digital media are scheduled to present on topics covering lead generation, recurring revenue, database growth and email.

E&P publisher Mike Blinder chats with Second Street president and co-founder Matt Coen about the summit and why they decided to provide the content free of charge.