Daily Circulation: 46,497
Sunday Circulation: 49,171


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
Redesigned the newspaper to add more entry points and make it easier to navigate and more inviting. We transitioned to a 7-column format on the front page to make it newsier and increase story count up front.

Reconceived and redesigned the features section to appeal more to a younger audience. The front cover contains more, shorter topics with bolder visual presentation. Inside, we added daily themed pages, like relationships & family, fashion, and arts & entertainment, to give readers the variety they wanted in features.

Created a daily Communities page to give readers more "good" news and to cover "local, local" news and events.

Created Healthy Living and Food & Drink weekly bonus specials to give readers more tailored information and advertising on high-interest topics. Each of these sections gives readers a specific reason to read on the days they are published.

Created Snapshots, a weekly 6-page section filled entirely with photographs of local community events and everyday life shots that you typically don't find in newspapers.

Redesigned TV Book from a quarterfold to a tabloid with more entertainment highlights, more channel line-ups and programming information, and easier to read grids.

Redesigned thedesertsun.com to make online navigation easier. The home page is designed to quickly get visitors to the wealth of news, information and advertising content on the site.

Redesigned and retooled Weekend entertainment to include more things to do, an anonymous restaurant review and more extensive restaurant listings. The redesign also included more information on things to do throughout Southern California, not just locally, something we learned was important to young adults in the Palm Springs market..

Expanded the national and international news report in response to reader feedback. We set aside two half pages in the A-section to do more in-depth stories.

Brand
Committed to at least one brand campaign each year including television, radio and billboard, to reach out to occasional and non-readers, and to convey attributes of the newspaper that help build our credibility.

Added news ears on the upper left corner of section fronts to promote same-day and upcoming content to help drive readers through the paper.

Devoted a left hand rail on the front page to promote same-day and upcoming content.

Developed a "Directors Campaign" which introduced each department head to the community, along with his or her commitment to our readers and the community at large. Each ad also invited readers to call, email or write with concerns or comments. Each week in the operating committee meeting, directors would share comments, and if necessary, take action on items brought forth from readers.

Developed the tag line, "Get It Into Your Life" featured on all print, TV, radio, outdoor and novelties.

Formed a company-wide committee to develop a 75th anniversary plan. The elements of the plan covered a wide array of readership and branding opportunities including the making of a commemorative coffee table book with historic pictures of the market, a television commercial and special section supported by vendors chronicling the history of The Desert Sun.

Entered into a convergence agreement with KMIR TV, the local NBC affiliate. The agreement calls for a daily on-air promotion of content for the next day's Desert Sun. KMIR's weatherman is featured daily on the weather page.

Service
We created an "over the top" customer service program, as a component to a company-wide initiative called C.A.R.E.S. There are five "opportunity teams" that make up C.A.R.E.S.: Advertising Quality, Recruitment and Retention, Communication, News Credibility and Culture. Each opportunity team was conceived to improve quality, service satisfaction across all of our touch-points with customers. This mix (through the Culture Team) includes a commitment to our employees to make The Desert Sun a "great place to work." Some of the service components of C.A.R.E.S. included:

Work-out sessions: We created a weekly meeting that addressed specific complaints from advertisers. We followed a problem to its root, to uncover faulty procedures, poor workmanship or other reasons that resulted in the complaint. The work-out sessions usually result in the writing and implementation of a new or adjusted standard operating procedure, and is communicated to all affected departments.

C.A.R.E.S. card: At the roll-out of C.A.R.E.S., every employee received pocket-sized cards that contained newspaper contact information for all departments. If an employee encounters a reader who complains about service, content or any other matter, the employee gives the name and number of the person who can address the issue. That person is expected to call the customer within 24 hours of receiving the call and confirms the outcome with the initial employee who encountered the customer.

Two-week credit: Every employee has the ability to grant a subscription credit of up to two weeks if they encounter a dissatisfied customer.

New subscriber offer: Every employee has the ability to offer non-subscribers an introductory 13-week subscription for the price of 9 weeks.

Declaration of Commitment: At the C.A.R.E.S. roll-out meeting, every employee was asked to sign a Declaration of Commitment to the program. There is a signed declaration for every employee on file.

Telephone Training: We took every department through telephone training to standardize our approach to service when customers called in. The training also eliminated blind transfers and encouraged all departments to take care of customers' requests, even if they were not related to that particular department.

Culture
We learned from the Culture Team that it is well-documented in other industries that how people are managed and the culture in which they work has a major effect on how they respond to their customers and their co-workers. The Culture Team become the steam engine for the other four C.A.R.E.S. opportunity teams. Their initiatives included:

Internal Focus Groups-to share perspectives, gauge progress of change initiatives and ultimately reinforce a culture movement.

True Colors/Operating Philosophy: Part I: True Colors (much like Myers-Briggs program), through personality assessment, we identified co-workers' strengths and working styles. Part II: Adopted an operating philosophy that reflected desired changes in the way we do business and established principles of accepted behavior - the key to a successful culture change.

Work-Out Sessions: Analysis of work activities versus contributions to our success, with goals of streamlining or eliminating processes for better efficiencies, and greater balance between work and home, throughout the company.

Planning Mode: Institutionalized a planning model created through strategic planning sessions, with goals to improve project execution, communication between departments and buy-in on top company priorities.

Conflict Management Training: Give all staff Thomas-Killman Conflict Training, lead to a greater ability to deal with conflict in a positive manner. Expected outcome of the training was to foster openness, innovative thinking and adaptability and look at mistakes at learning opportunities.

360-Degree Feedback: Administer the Acumen 360-Degree Feedback training to directors. This initiative has helped develop the company leaders and foster a culture where we take responsibility for our own personal and career development.

Managers' Reward Toolbox: Provided managers with toolbox of small tokens (movie tickets, t-shirts, etc) to spontaneously reward and recognize staff for hard and smart work and to reinforce behaviors outlined in Operating Philosophy.



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?
One year ago we launched Snapshots, a weekly 6-page section filled entirely with photographs of local community events and everyday life shots that you typically don't find in newspapers. In Snapshots you'll find your kids' ballet recital, a Saturday soccer match, a spontaneous round of play in the community water fountain in front of the movie theatre, fun at the doggy park and local, local events your neighbors might have attended. Twenty local businesses sponsor Snapshots and receive a strip ad once per month in the section. The proceeds, after section expenses, go to our NIE nonprofit fund to purchase newspapers for area schools. In addition to the strip ad, sponsors receive one-quarter page ad each month thanking the business for supporting Newspapers in Education. Since its launch, Tuesday single copy sales have increased 3% or an average of 500 newspapers. We have also received a significant amount of positive feedback from community members, moms and even school-aged kids who see themselves in the newspaper more often.



What is the most persuasive indication you have that your readership efforts are producing results?
We have measured readership three times over the past four years through an independent market study. Daily and seven-day reach in each survey were as follows:

	Daily	Seven-Day
1999	115,959	150,516
2002	121,472	175,200
2003	136,090	181,454

What is the most important lesson you have learned as you have worked on readership in the last few years?
We have learned how critically important collaboration is to grow readership. Readership does not stem from the work of any single department. The news content is obviously critical, but so is the advertising content. The same can be said for the way we promote and sell the newspaper and the work culture we have fostered.

We know that the way we present information can be as important as the information we present. We know hard-hitting stories and "chicken dinner" stories are both important and both deserve a home in the newspaper.

We have also learned to be bolder and more daring. Newspapers are conservative creatures by nature. Change does not always come easily or quickly. In the various enhancements we have made, we have realized that we often need to be bolder than we first thought we could be. We have learned to take more risks.



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 need to expand our Local section. It's too skimpy and we have known that for a while. We have a task force working on that right now and expect to launch a bigger section in October.

We would like to grow readership more among young readers and among Hispanic readers. Both groups read us, but with less frequency than other readers. All newspapers struggle with these groups. Finding more experienced Hispanic reporters has been challenging.

Getting Traction on Readership

Survey Responses by Topic & Newspaper