Daily Circulation: 90,432
Sunday Circulation: 110,846


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
Editors have formed teams to study the Readership Institute research and have developed action steps. They have added new A-section content on medicine, science, the world and other topics. They have reassigned reporters to connect closer to the community and are thinking through the new overhaul. We will get closer to the community.

Brand
We have created a new positioning statement - For Your Life - and are beginning to execute it. I am now recruiting a new brand manager, and plan to dig much deeper into this opportunity.

Service
We have excellent circulation service records, so we are trying to fine-tune here. We are interested in learning more about how we can improve the way we do business with our customers in all areas of the company. Sales and billing are targets now.

Culture
While we believe we have a customer-focused culture that is connected to the community, we do not believe that is the perception. So we are working to figure this out. I believe some change will come as the new brand manager helps us refresh our culture. Interestingly, the newsroom is having success with involving reporters in figuring out how to connect with readers and give them more of what they want, so that we can give them what they need.



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?
In one of our major growth areas, we have assembled a large collection of community columnists who write about the joys and sorrows and events in their neighborhoods. It has built good will, serendipity and we know readership is growing. It is not particularly innovative, but our execution and focus has been noteworthy.



What is the most persuasive indication you have that your readership efforts are producing results?
The Scarborough Research numbers tell me it is so, and we hear more talk on the street, particularly in our competitive markets.



What is the most important lesson you have learned as you have worked on readership in the last few years?
That you can grow it if you want to.



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?
I think we need to go deeply into understanding what this trust thing is all about, and what we can do to fix it. I think it takes more research and more conversations, and new solutions.

Getting Traction on Readership

Survey Responses by Topic & Newspaper