Daily Circulation: 92,490
Sunday Circulation: 93,337


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
Strengthened coverage of high-impact local "bread and butter" concerns, e.g., energy crisis, transportation, homeless and educational issues, state financial crisis impacts.

Special embedded reportage of 40,000 local Marines in Iraq. Book coming.

Increased coverage of celebrations and "small town" community news published in zoned community news pages.

Increased attention to women-oriented coverage and story telling.

Expanded coverage and sensitivity to Latino community.

Brand
Major public support of Marines at war, including recent fund drive raising $700,000 to educate children of local troops killed in Iraq.

North County Times charities fund levers local donations for local charities.

The North County Times Women of Merit program has become one of our most successful promotions. Many event sponsorships.

Newspaper "Hawker" program both sells 1,500 papers a day but is the primary funding source for a well-respected program for homeless men.

Well-developed house ad program sponsoring local events and charities, each labeled as "another community service of the North County Times."

Host monthly and bi-monthly Latino and African American roundtables, attended by community leaders.

Active leadership involvement throughout community.

Service
Improvement in delivery times and reliability. Service errors cut.

Easy-Pay subscriptions now at 60% of home delivery, sharply reducing churn and improving churn-related service errors.

Culture
Created a must-read community forum in the letters pages by publishing almost all local letters with minimal editing. Honored locally as the "Best Letters Page in the Known Universe."

Emphasis on integrity throughout organization, including moving all advertisers to card, public airing of ethical blunders, really making corrections.

Open the organization for internal and external communications. No offices or office doors to close; outreach for community feedback.



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?
Easy Pay: Absolutely critical for future success of newspaper industry in post-telemarketing world. Cuts churn in half. Doubles value of new orders. We underestimated the demand for this service. Just crossed 60% of home delivery and continues to rise. About 80% of new sales are Easy-Pay.

Unfettered letters section. Print every letter you can legally print. Must read connection with community. Agenda setter. Opens paper.

Local emphasis: intense zoning, local topics, community news. Local is our franchise.



What is the most persuasive indication you have that your readership efforts are producing results?
Extraordinarily high readership PER COPY SOLD: 34 minutes daily, 1 hour, 17 minutes on Sundays. Under Readership Institute methodology, only one reader per household is counted, so these figures are understated.

Rising percentage of women readers.



What is the most important lesson you have learned as you have worked on readership in the last few years?
Newspapers are a growth industry, not a declining one. We are well positioned for growth as part of the information sector because of our local connection. We can grow profitably if we go for it and build on our competitive strengths. Don"t rearrange deck chairs. Make a better, faster ship.



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?
Intensify local zoned news report, strengthen Sunday package with emphasis on appealing to upscale suburban women, intensify in-depth reporting of critical local bread-and-butter issues. LIMITS: Constrained by resources, but less so as our growth rate accelerates.

Intensify circulation sales and retention efforts to overcome telemarketing rule-change debacle. This will require quick and intense action to rethink and reconfigure our circulation efforts. LIMITS: We have no choice to respond decisively. The challenge is bigger than many realize; need sense of urgency throughout industry.

Getting Traction on Readership

Survey Responses by Topic & Newspaper