By contrast, Hunke said, early data on digital tablet buyers indicate that they skew 10 to 15 years younger than the typical print reader. That suggests both a different style of presentation and a different content mix.
Thursday, October 21, 2010
USAT | Hunke: print will now target older readers
In a new post for his Biz Blog, the Poynter Institute's Rick Edmonds writes today about USA Today's reorganization, after interviewing Publisher Dave Hunke. (Hunke was at Poynter yesterday for an Associated Press Managing Editors panel discussion about new business models in journalism.) Edmonds writes:
Part of the lengthy internal research that led to the changes, Hunke said, was a conclusion that USA Today and other newspapers may have gotten off track trying to woo young audiences or women with a something-for-everyone approach. He has concluded that the print edition should now mainly target an older, general news audience, who favor a traditional presentation.
By contrast, Hunke said, early data on digital tablet buyers indicate that they skew 10 to 15 years younger than the typical print reader. That suggests both a different style of presentation and a different content mix.
By contrast, Hunke said, early data on digital tablet buyers indicate that they skew 10 to 15 years younger than the typical print reader. That suggests both a different style of presentation and a different content mix.
28 comments:
Jim says: "Proceed with caution; this is a free-for-all comment zone. I try to correct or clarify incorrect information. But I can't catch everything. Please keep your posts focused on Gannett and media-related subjects. Note that I occasionally review comments in advance, to reject inappropriate ones. And I ignore hostile posters, and recommend you do, too."
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
That's shocking news! How many of us have been saying for years that newspapers are abandoning their core (i.e. older) readers chasing readers that will never read our "dead tree" products. From a readership perspective it makes perfect sense to tailor the electronic and print versions differently to attract different readers.
ReplyDeleteAARP Today
ReplyDeleteHooray. No more Lady GaGa; no more rock star interviews; no more lifestyles of Hollywood stars garbage; no more what's in/what's out.
ReplyDeleteWhat's in: Meusli, the wonderful benefits of Benefiber, and dressing up your five prunes for breakfast.
This is, indeed, news to some of us. As I understand Hunke's remark, USAT is now separating print and digital staff after trying to merge them in December 2006, no?
ReplyDeleteJim hits it on the head, again. Yes, out the window is the operating center, and back in fashion is the old-fashioned newsroom. We go up the hill, and we go down the hill.
ReplyDeleteNow it looks as if digital is so special and read by such a specialized audience of youths engaged in tech that it requires a specialized staff. But I see a crunch coming. The staff has been diminished so much there are not enough bodies left around to work for two masters. Digital also is supposed to be 24/7, although these details have not yet been spelled out.
Something is going to give, and my guess under this regime, it's the dead print operation that will give up staffers for the digital wave of the future. That inevitably leads to a degraded paper, lower circulation and fewer ads.
Now you tell us. Come on Dave, give me a break.
ReplyDeleteDuh! Took Hunke, USAT and other publishers this long to figure out that they shouldn't have abandoned their core readers? And for this sort of "vision" they get paid the big bucks. Unbelievable. What a revelation.
ReplyDeleteThere is one thing that newspapers still do well that news websites don't. The newspaper format prioritizes the news better than online versions. Look at the typical home page of any news site and you will find two "headlines" (links to stories) or more. But most of the headlines are the same size, carry the same weight. It's overwhelming, particularly for busy people who just want someone (preferably trained journalists) to sort out the news of the day and present the top stories. Important stories, not Lady Gaga crap or some of the ridiculous internally produced junk USAT showcases from time to time. Front pages of legitimate newspapers still do that wonderfully, whereas websites take the shotgun approach, hoping to get some extra clicks by surfers with the attention span of a tick. Those clicks are a waste of time to hurried readers in search of substantive news, as are all the intrusive ads messing with one's ability to sift through all the content. I enjoy the web but am growing tired of all the obstacles and the dumbing down of the news. I often wonder if possessing news judgment is even a requirement for getting a job at one of these news websites. It appears to me that the only thing that matters in terms of shaping web content is how many clicks it will receive. Therefore, I constantly see some really bad and misleading headlines, captions and even stories. This is a huge turn off to readers who want to trust their news providers.
Look, print and online platforms have different approaches, goals and in many cases, audiences. It shouldn't be print versus online. Nor should the two be totally merged. They are different products, requiring different skills. Publishers have tried to merge the two in order to save some money. While there can be some efficiencies and overlap, they still need to remain separate to a degree.
It's time for USAT and other papers to stop trying to force feed young people something they don't want. But it's also important to not snub loyal print customers. Newspapers still do certain things very well and the format is appreciated by traditionalists, commuters, people tired of looking at computer screens all day long, etc. It's still a product that can be marketed and profitably produced, but only if it maintains certain standards...standards that don't always apply to the web.
And here's one more suggestion for these rocket scientist publishers: Increase the damn point size on body type. Older eyes can't read your damn papers. Gosh, what a simple thing to do, yet there isn't a reader-friendly paper that I know of in this country. It's great that USAT keeps its stories short, but if I can't read them without my glasses, what's the point?
Hunke is the worst "leader" that I have ever known. He lacks integrity, honesty and intelligence... I have absolutely no idea how he has managed to survive all these years. It is a sad commentary on the lack of executive talent within Gannett that Hunke is leading their flagship property. As I read this blog, he is doing the same thing that he did in Detroit... surrounding himself and promoting individuals that won't challenge him... surrounding himself with sycophants. Apparently he promoted his secertary at USAT to some stupid position... he did the same thing in Detroit. He builds/promotes/rewards his "inner circle" while he pays for it by whacking everybody else.
ReplyDeleteWhen he talks, he says nothing. He usually has his VP toadies do the talking and dirty work for him. Lots of charts and graphs that say nothing. He likes to have initiatives going on so he can say they are doing something... it doesn't matter what it is or whether it's successful or even if it gets implemented... it just needs to get him another 6 months until he can come up with some other BS.
Hey, has Hunke started bringing in consulting firms yet? I think he brought in three different ones in Detroit and not one good idea came out of it. He pissed away LOTS of money on that while he was laying employees off, but hey, it allowed him to tap dance long enough to get out of Detroit without doing a thing. He also wasted a quarter of a million dollars on major building renovations for security purposes for the building before he started layoffs... guess he wanted to make sure that an angry employee couldn't get to him. Point is... he wasted a LOT of money with no results to show for it.
Hunke is given credit for the idea of the 3-day home delivery model in Detroit, but Newhouse newspapers in Flint, Saginaw and Bay City did it before Detroit. Hunke has never had an original idea in his life. And credit for the Pulitzer won by the Free Press should go to Paul Anger... Hunke had nothing to do with it.
So while this idiot has somehow got himself to the top, at the end of the day, it will all catch up to him and he will be gone to early retirement or something. But hey, as long as he get his share of the Gannett pot-o-gold, it's okay. The hell with all the employee's lives that he distroys along the way. It's the Gannett way!
WTF is wrong with this picture.
And yet, 2:43, many, many of USAT's top managers post-reorganization have a 100% print background. Look at editorial, for example.
ReplyDeleteAnd two of them -- Hillkirk, Weiss -- have been at USAT since the start, nearly 30 years.
Does this sound like a "radical" management reorganization that's likely to see a shift away from print? Indeed, how many major U.S. papers today are not led by an older white man who has spent his career in print?
Yes, Jim, the old regime is the new regime. Nothing has changed at the top, and I see nothing in this plan that will bring in new advertisers or improve circulation. At best, you can say Hunke's plan aims at consolidating the audience we now have. That's not a bad idea, IMO, but it doesn't offer to attract new readership.
ReplyDeleteThat's why we need a real digital person at the top to guide this. If corporate does indeed read this blog, that is the message they need to read and get.
The answer to the woes of USAT will not be found reorganizing the newsroom yet once again. It has been tried before, and it didn't work then, did it?
USA Today's always been fluff.
ReplyDeleteAlways.
Now it's going to be like USA Weekend. You'll start seeing ads for Life Alert ("HELP! I'VE FALLEN! AND I CAN'T GET UP!", Disney Family and Hallmark Channels, an indepth interview with Susan St. James on what it was REALLY like to work with Rock Hudson on "McMillan and Wife," or how many medical examiners live on a boat, like "Quincy" did...
They're about a decade too late, which is typical.
USA Today is not a traditional, 100% hard-news paper. But it is not, and never has been, 100% fluff.
ReplyDeleteAnd what exactly is Hunke's view on hiring and retaining older USAT employees???
ReplyDeleteI'm in Detroit and 3:41 painted a really accurate picture of how things were during Hunke's time here. I'd offer up more but 3:41 really nailed it...
ReplyDeleteHunke: USAT print will now target older readers
ReplyDelete...um, not for nothing, but didn't that company over the past 3-4 some odd years lay a lot of older people across the country (that would have possibly become older readers) off? Older people that have even more older friends that have friends that ARE in the AARP audience! I keep hearing that song... "Instant Karma's Gonna Get You!"
Here here, 3:41 - you've painted the clearest picture yet of what is wrong at USAT these days. A fish rots from the head down and Hunke is rotten. He has no original ideas, is terrified of dissent and removes any one who might challenge him. The fact that he has created so many new VPs for his now huge MC, proves that he is just trying to buy loyalty. Just as 3:41 said, Hunke is creating a smoke and mirror "transformation" in an effort to extend his fat paycheck a few more years until he can retire. Too bad that he is destroying USAT along the way.
ReplyDeleteWhoa. Whoa. Whoa.
ReplyDelete1. Don't blame Hunke for USAT's first try at a post-print newsroom 5 years ago. He wasn't there. Who was? Kinsey Wilson. Ken Paulson. Craig Moon. John Hillkirk.
2. They got some things right -- Edmonds says USAT's pace of innovation remains years ahead of many newsrooms. But that was pre-smartphone, pre-YouTube, pre-iTouch, before social media, WiFi and GPS were embedded everywhere. It's past time for a new newsroom. Guarantee: USAT will need another in 2 years, about when 4G networks go mass.
3. USAT never had a universal desk. Not for producing content or for publishing it. Not sure what Hunke said or Edmonds heard, but there's no universal desk to dismantle. There are several copy/production/ops hubs.
4. Prune jokes are just ignorant. USAT's audience centers where the NYT and WSJ do -- median age 48. That's just about even with the NFL and network prime-time audiences and probably a decade younger than Katie Couric's audience, or those for most metro papers. And there's little difference between age profiles of USAT or NYT print and website audiences, either. Tablet/mobile users do skew younger.
5. So it made sense about 2005 to combine USAT print and Web staffs, if only to stir the pot. Now it makes sense to launch more ships in more directions.
6. Watch this item that Edmonds put way down: USAT Sports has become a separate business unit.
3:41 Your comments about Hunke are excellent. His problems lie in fundamental management technique, leadership ability and most important, a strong, articulate, well thought out directional plan for the USAT "brand."
ReplyDeleteGlad-handing country club mentality may work fine elsewhere. Not here. It seems he's too busy thinking about making the talking the talk a priority rather than walking the walk. Merely holding a leadership title means more than promoting unqualified, unproven cronies to senior management positions. It certainly doesn't mean misleading the troops with babblespeak and undecipheral plans short on specifics.
It's not all Hunke's fault. One has to blame the visionaries who put him in charge. Hunke is a product of the Gannett system. A system which once boasted local monopolies that were cash machines running on autopilot,fueled by pricey display and classified ads. Forrest Gump could have run a Gannett CP and made 30% margins. Times have changed. Unfortunately, there are too many Gumps left on Gannett's payroll. Like Hunke, they've installed their own talent-less lackies throughout the company. Maybe it doesn't matter at the CPs anymore. They can be chocked with twentysomethings who lack institutional knowledge of the regions they cover. But USAT? If Hunke wants to cater to older print readers (when was he going to tell the staff?) he has to embrace, not jettison, the journalists fitting the demographics he purportedly wants to target. Readers are seeking more sophticated content elsewhere.
It's amazing how a corporation, an American one at least, can study, study, study, come up with the obvious at God know's what cost, and then by the time it executes it's too late!
ReplyDeleteHow the heck did Dubow and Martore figure that by cutting their troops (including many of their most experienced people) they'd be able to develop the kind of newspapers that appeal to boomers?
The answer is they didn't care and they still don't care. Moon was right to believe they're on the path to destroy the community newspapers, and who knows what's going to happen to USA Today.
It's simply amazing how inept the Gannet leadership is!
11:33. Obviously,you have no idea how smart and articulate Dave's management team is. We're working hard to clean up the mess cynics like you have done to poison the atmosphere throughout the building. Susan, Rudd, Heather and other new hires are visionaries who will make sure the high priced deadweight is out in the next year or two. They may have no newsroom experience, but they will make sure senior editors are on board with the new transformation and that that message is passed on to you. If you can't embrace change, leave.
ReplyDelete11:33 I agree with a lot of what you say, but disagree strongly with your contention that CPs can be stocked with twentysomethings. We have that situation now, coupled with editors who are of the new professional editor class and have never worked a reporting beat. Getting rid of the grayhairs has left us in a sea of ignorance, with neither the twentysomethings nor their editors understanding the communities they cover. Corporate was warned this would happen, but blasted ahead with plans I think amounted to age discrimination. It's too late now to reverse course, but it will take years to bring both reporters and editors back up to snuff. And if you don't think this has had an impact on both advertising and circulation, I can take you down to a local diner where the regulars are rolling in the aisles in gales of laughter at what we are publishing.
ReplyDeleteI see where Gannett is hiring a couple of audience analysts. Sounds like they deal with telemarketing. Talk about killing a brand. Yeah, right. Bother people with unsolicited phone calls will really make you a popular and credible news source with boomers. Why don't they spend the money on hiring or rehiring talented reporters?
ReplyDelete12:02 PM
ReplyDeleteThis is a true story, I swear.
I had one of the 20-something editors who had worked only at Gannett. This person was so very well indoctrinated to the management ignorance.
You know those mainstreaming and diversity reports required of reporters? Well, this brilliant editor sent out a glowing email, bragging about the 20 something reporter who got his/her report in ahead of time. I was still struggling with mine because I had so very many entries and so much real work to do covering my multiple beats.
Well, I looked at the "stars" report, and that person had a grand total of 5 or 6 entries---for an entire month. The star, I'm sure, got not only a pat on the back, but a bigger raise than those of us who tried to take mainstreaming and diversity seriously.
Oh, that same clueless editor also told me that the M & D reports were important because they helped the executive editor get bonuses or raises or something.
9:47 - if you can't listen to feelings of your employees, then there is no way you'll ever listen to the voice of your customers. Your superior attitude is what has poisioned the atmosphere. Most people are more than willing to embrace change but Susan, Rudd and Heather are some of the most egocentric people I have ever met. They have no regard for any other opinion than their own. True leadership is not afraid of healthy debate. The current MC is so convinced that they are visionaries, that they can't see the red flags flying all around them.
ReplyDeleteTime will tell who is right on this one.
11:33
ReplyDelete"Hunke is a product of....a system which once boasted local monopolies that were cash machines running on autopilot,fueled by pricey display and classified ads. Forrest Gump could have run a Gannett CP and made 30% margins."
Perfectly said....and 100% accurate.
"Obviously,you have no idea how smart and articulate Dave's management team is. We're working hard to clean up the mess cynics like you have done to poison the atmosphere throughout the building."
ReplyDeleteWhoa. WHO poisoned the atmosphere? Let's start with the furloughs and the layoffs that we were led to believe were necessary to keep USA Today afloat. I'm pretty sure I'm not the only person who resents being forced to take three financially damaging furloughs and watch good people lose their jobs while Hunke stuffed his pockets with a bonus that is equivalent of four full-time positions.
This poison is of your own making, and if you think that dancing around that reality makes you smart and articulate, you're sadly mistakened.
Susan, Rudd and Heather are just what the stale atmosphere at USAT needs. They should be embraced, not criticized. Same with Dave. He's doing the best he can with the cards he's been dealt with. You'll see. I can't wait until they bring their brooms in and shake out the whiny dead weight.
ReplyDelete3:09: So is your reliance on name-calling and your alacrity to wish ill a part of the fresh new atmosphere?
ReplyDeleteThe so-called "whiny dead weight" are the people who put out the newspaper and update the website. We're the ones trying to figure out how we're going to get this done with fewer workers and more layers of management and no real plan from above.
Are we alarmed? Yes. Are we expressing it? Yes. Is anyone paying attention? God, I hope so.