Daily Circulation: 373,344
Sunday Circulation: 438,848


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
The reallocation of staffing and coverage in the zones resulted in increases in the percentage of thorough readers of the metro sections from 1999 to today.

We have centered resources on the expansion of our watchdog role. Readership studies confirm that a core competency for a metro daily newspaper is to represent the interests of the public against the illegal or unethical behavior of elected officials or other public figures. To that end, we have devoted resources to getting results. In the past 36 months, results have been plentiful. Here are some tops of the waves examples: We exposed Port Commissioner David Malcolm's conflict of interest and our reporting led to his subsequent conviction. Our reporting led to the ousting of the director of the county's humane center as well as the overhaul of that organization. We called into question the revenue distribution habits of the Red Cross of San Diego and that investigation led to the resignation of the director, Dodie Rotherham and the overhaul of the board. On a zone level, we unearthed corruption on the part of the Santee city manager and our reporting led to his resignation. Behind each of these examples is a significant resource commitment that pays dividends by cementing the U-T as the community watchdog for San Diego.

The creation of a bulldog edition (6/2000) to increase readership and use of the advertising, inserts and editorial material in the Sunday paper. Currently the Bulldog averages nearly 20,000 copies per week.

We added zoned editorial pages that have resulted in increases in the percentage of readers thoroughly reading the editorial and opinion pages.

Addition of Eventos Latinos in Night & Day to reach the growing English-speaking or bilingual Hispanic market. In addition to Eventos, we have given new emphasis to Latin America coverage including a weekly roundup of events in Mexico in Sunday's AA section and established a soccer page in sports.

Creation of Currents Weekend on Friday. (1/2003). No qualitative measurement of readership change is available but, anecdotally, entertainment based advertising has increased since the modifications were made.

Better organization of pages A1, A2 and A3 in an effort to answer our reader's heavy demand for hard news in the newspaper and present it with focus and utility. These changes have yielded the intended results. We have seen thorough readership of the front page increase.

Development and expansion of the topic of coverage titled "Urban Aggravation." Each week, a multitude of stories in both zoned and full run, address reader hot button concerns such as traffic, education/schools, lack of affordable housing, crime and growth. Stories on these related topics are found in every section of the paper from Homes to Business, Metro to Currents. With the exception of crime coverage, our current readership study does not track, either qualitatively or quantitatively, our effectiveness of in covering those topics. Anecdotally, we receive a significant number of reader calls and emails about these stories signaling that they are both highly read and highly effective.

To reflect the changing face of the San Diego sports fan's interest, we reconfigured the use of page two in sports to emphasize soccer's popularity as well as outdoor participatory sports. This has led to an increase in the readership of the Outdoors material as well as world soccer coverage.

Online operation: Changed Web site to emphasize breaking news and focused on business day audience

Brand
We have consistently put forward as our brand proposition that we are the single most authoritative source for local, state, regional, national or international news and information available in San Diego County. Each one of the newsroom's strategic or tactical decisions has been based on that premise. The most recent readership study clearly concludes that the U-T is the "one source for information residents of San Diego County need to have in their daily life."

Online operation: Promoted Web site as adjunct to, rather than replacement for, the printed newspaper

Service
Away from the news of the day, the newsroom staff performs service to readers in many areas. We have made a part of many of our popular Solutions packages a "how you can help" area. We provide local community groups assistance in getting their listings into our various FYI and calendar sections through informational sessions and handouts. Each day, the news assistant pool fields dozens of calls from readers wanting to know everything from where to get a license for their dog to a copy of a recipe for pumpkin pie that ran in the Food section last fall.

Online operation: Offered easy online access to subscriber assistance

Culture
We have created a positive and progressive work environment between staff and managers.

We contributed to the overhaul of the performance management system. The effort resulted in increased trust and accountability between management and staff. The hoped-for alignment between competing interdivisional interests has yet to be realized.

We have aggressively moved poor performing employees out of long-held positions. Nearly 20 of these employees are either no longer managers or no longer with the company. Many have been replaced by managers and staff members who are regularly recognized by the leadership and their peers as making a significant contribution to our excellence.

We have intentionally promoted from within to create career paths for aspiring leaders and retain much of the talent we have grown.

We have hosted community dialogues as well as diversity sessions where readers can be heard by newsroom leadership and staff on topics critical to their lives. Many of these sessions have produced stories or packages of stories in the news pages of the paper.

Online operation: Developed a quick-turnaround culture



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?
With the website, emphasized breaking local news, using local and state wires as well as early stories from the newspaper staff.



What is the most persuasive indication you have that your readership efforts are producing results?
The positive results in our readership survey in areas we have invested time and talent in improving.

Readership surveys of the website showing double-digit growth inlocal and national readership.



What is the most important lesson you have learned as you have worked on readership in the last few years?
Extraordinary results only come about because of an extraordinary commitment to change and improve.

Readership, at least the way we measure it, includes equal parts editorial content, advertising content, circulation and advertising customer service.

We have no mechanism to measure how we have used our online presence to increase our print readership.

On the website, while coverage of national events is a requirement, local readers are primarily interested in local news and local people.



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?
Establish an ongoing qualitative research program. This will enable us to find out the why's behind our reader's buying and reading habits. This will assist us in having a better understanding of what dives people to read the paper.

Take fuller advantage of turning morning breaking news into comprehensive midday extra editions to capture readership and more fully command the breaking news stories. To do so we will need to find ways to reallocate our newsroom resources, press capacity and make available a single copy sales force. It is clear from the sale of many of our extras including the 17-day Olympic effort that netted 750,000 additional sales, the 9.11 extra and many others that a midday market exists in high-traffic areas of the city and county.

Re online, develop a breaking news culture among the newsroom staff in terms of putting news on the online site.

Creation of a distinct Street edition of the newspaper to appeal to the unique demographic that prefers to buy single copy. With the plummeting single copy numbers as starting point, drive an increase by the smart marriage of content, promotion and distribution.

Our marketing efforts to date have yet to focus on the newspaper as an essential tool for everyday life. Instead, the promotional work involves creating interest in a variety of sections designed to add value to the core, not the core itself. Without leveraging the unique importance a daily metropolitan newspaper contributes to a city, we risk having others define our role and value.

Getting Traction on Readership

Survey Responses by Topic & Newspaper