Daily Circulation: 50,203
Sunday Circulation: 60,264


List the major steps you have taken in the last four years to increase readership. Please organize your response under four headings: content, brand, service, culture.

Content
Include more diversity in our coverage to represent a broader range of faces and voices — including young readers and especially above the fold;

Increased the number of local news stories by offering more briefs and writing tighter stories;

Provide consistent same-day and “coming up” content promotion as part of news hole;

Expanded our “outdoor” coverage on Thursday and Sunday to meet the unique needs of our market;

Developed a “rail” and call-out boxes to drive readership throughout the paper;

Developed a partnership with a local television station to promote next day content in the evening news;

Launched an online news product in 2000, developed Web Extras and cross promoted online readership;

Expanded online entertainment coverage in 2003 and used news hole to drive traffic online for more info;

Localized the business section and provided more local faces and careers info, also put careers up online

Brand
Conducted focus groups and developed a Brand Campaign to drive sales, frequency and readership in 1999.

Used multi-media in 1999 through 2001 to launch brand message that the ritual of the daily Burlington Free Press adds value to consumers’ lives and connects them with the community. This campaign won a Best of Competition and Best Brand Campaign Award from Gannett in 1999.

The brand message “A Local Custom” is used consistently with all customer contact today and readership ads today.

Service
Converted to youth carriers in 2002 (going from 0 to 17%) and increased the number of walking routes to provide more personalized service;

Began an initiative to return to porch service at 2,300 homes of our subscribers by the end of the year. This represents an additional 7% of our home delivery subscriber base.

Extended the service of re-delivery of missed copies to another 6,800 subscribers and shortened redelivery time overall from 45 to 30 minutes.

Culture
Engage every section editor in planning and cross promoting “extra” content for the Web;

Demonstrate more community leadership and instill employee pride by doing more investigative and Freedom of Information (FOI) work.

Focus on training and improving the fundamentals. We deliver a consistent local presence in all sections and have improved overall writing, headlines and photojournalism.



What is the most innovative, successful or noteworthy thing you have done on readership that you think other papers might learn from or want to emulate?
The Burlington Free Press can offer a strong case study for FOI training. The newsroom organized three FOI training courses in 2002. A metro editor was assigned as the FOI expert. A book was created with all FOI letters and responses, which became a standard reference for all reporters to learn how to use leverage of the law to get information the public deserved to know. Not only was the newspaper recognized with national awards including the George Polk awards, but our public service changed state law to give health consumers greater knowledge of physician competence by opening up state records. The response and involvement from the community, including the many letters to the editor, let us know that our relevant local coverage paid off in terms of readership.



What is the most persuasive indication you have that your readership efforts are producing results?
Our readership as measured in our ABC audited readership studies has increased steadily since 1994. As of our 2001 study daily readership has increased 17% to 112,300 since 1994 and Sunday readership has increased 5% to 122,400 over the same time period. We also have been successful in reaching a larger audience through BurlingtonFreePress.com, our daily news Web site. Since launching in August of 2000, we currently register 1.6 million monthly page views and 106,000 monthly unique visitors. Finally, measurable service gains indicate that we are not only growing readers, but also increasing the likelihood that current readers will remain so. Home delivery complaints per thousand deliveries have fallen from 2.4 daily in January 2001 to 0.9 currently. Sunday complaints per thousand have fallen from 4.2 to 1.7 over the same period.



What is the most important lesson you have learned as you have worked on readership in the last few years?
We have learned the importance of strong planning, establishing priorities and providing a consistent local focus.



What would you like to do on readership that you have not been able to do and why haven't you been able to do it?
We would like to increase the volume of local news, increase the bulk of our product and provide more marketing support. While we have made very good strides through focus and planning, a tight economy and reduced headcount has set news hole limits.

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