Last week, Bernadette Tracy shared some insights on the complex relationship between television and the web. The last traditional medium she will examine for us as far as its relationship to the internet goes is the newspaper.

    They’re actually doing pretty well. My research shows that 51 percent of the current online population visit newspaper sites regularly. This breaks down into 53 percent of all online men and 49 percent of all online women.

     Not necessarily. Regular visitors to newspaper sites include 52 percent of the online population aged 35 and up but also 49 percent of the online population that’s under 35. 
     And going to newspaper sites online seems to be something that people grow into online. While 43 percent of newbies—that is, people who have come online in the last year—regularly visit newspaper sites, this goes up to 55 percent of people I call "pacesetters," or those online for three or more years. 
     So this points to a growing audience. By 2002, newspaper sites should have a significantly larger audience than they already do now.

     They’re going to both local and national newspapers. Seventy-eight percent of regular visitors to newspaper sites go to local newspaper sites, 70 percent go to national and 48 percent go to both. People who go online regularly are real news hounds.

     Yes. It’s quite a competitive advantage newspapers have over television stations on the web. Because only 34 percent of online users say that they regularly visit TV news sites. 
   So people going online for news coverage are much more likely to be looking for the kind of in-depth coverage that they associate already with newspapers in print—as opposed to more of the top-line, breaking news coverage that are associated with TV news coverage, and by extension with TV news sites.

    No. I think it’s a perception. If someone really really wants to dig into a story, get the full details behind something, where are they going to think to go online, a newspaper site or a TV site? I think if people are looking for full coverage, they believe they’re more likely to find it on a newspaper site than a TV site. I’m not saying this is accurate but it’s the perception.

     Well, that’s the big question, isn’t it? 
    But it turns out that we’re not seeing really significant attrition, and it’s not getting any worse. 
     According to my research, 18 percent of the entire online population says they are reading fewer print newspapers as a result of being online. This breaks down to 21 percent of all online men, 15 percent of all online women. 
    Happily for the newspaper industry, there has been no significant change in these numbers for the last three years. And there’s not a big difference here between new users and more experienced users—18 percent of newbies say they are reading fewer newspapers now, and 20 percent of pacesetters.
   Simply put, the newspapers are not going to go out of business. 
    I don’t think newspapers should be overly concerned about attrition. I think what they need to do is devote their full attention to the internet as an extension of the already positive perception the public has of them in terms of trust and interest.

    First and foremost, they want local news—that’s what 80 percent of regular visitors to newspaper sites go there for. Next comes weather, which is what 70 percent of them go there for. National news is next, with 69 percent, then sports at 46 percent and general merchandise, 41 percent.

     This is actually a very important category for the newspapers. It means that one of the reasons people go to newspaper sites is to get, essentially, general information about stuff they’re interested in. 
     They’re not only looking for information about specific products, they’re also hoping the newspaper will provide them with additional information about an entire product category, including tips about purchasing whatever it happens to be. I see this as a real opportunity for newspapers to do some innovative, niche marketing online.
    This is especially true for complex product categories, which could be anything from a new sound system to remodeling your house to buying insurance.
    After general merchandise, 34 percent of newspaper site visitors are looking for automotive information, and 32 percent go specifically to find a local store that will sell them what they’re looking to buy. 
    Right there I see a great opportunity to sell online advertising to local retailers, especially advertising aimed at women, since 37 percent of women go to newspaper sites for this reason, as opposed to 28 percent of men.
     Twenty-seven percent of newspaper site visitors go for real estate listings and information, and 20 percent go for stock quotes. This last figure tells me that the newspapers are no longer the primary source for stock quotes.

    And it fits in to what newspaper site visitors are looking for in general, which is in-depth information, analysis and recommendations. Newspapers don’t have to be the place people get stock quotes anymore.

Well, first of all we found that 38 percent of people online say they notice advertising on newspaper sites, compared to overall web advertising, which is noticed by 26 percent of everyone online. 
   But the real whopper here is that 54 percent say they are likely to visit an advertiser’s web site based on content, advertising or hyperlinks on a newspaper web sites. This is a big opportunity for newspapers. Ads are getting noticed and they’re working.

      Here’s one thing in the bad news column: 40 percent of the current online population says that they have used the internet as an alternative to traditional classifieds. Breaking this down, 16 percent have used online classifieds for general merchandise, 11 percent for employment, 10 percent for automotive, 3 percent for real estate.
     So if you take this category by category it’s not at this moment a major threat. But it’s something that newspapers should pay very close attention to.
    Having said that I like to point out that the Chinese word for crisis is a combination of the characters for "threat" and "opportunity." 
      So while many people in the newspaper business are seeing the internet as a crisis, they should spend less time on the threat part and focus more time on the unprecedented opportunity it offers.

    Well, I think the coming wireless explosion offers a lot for newspapers. My research shows that 56 percent of newspaper web site visitors already have wireless devices of some sort, but only 5 percent are so far using any of these devices—whether they’re cell phones, beepers or Palm Pilots—to access the internet. 
    We forecast that by the end of this year this is going to explode. Wireless is going to become universal a lot faster than the internet did. Because they already own the device. So we’re not going to see the same sort of learning curve that we had on the internet. And because these people are proven multi-taskers—they’re very familiar with the internet, and they’re very familiar and comfortable with their wireless devices. 
    Newspaper sites are in a good position to anticipate and market to this burgeoning audience. You can’t fold up a newspaper web site and read it while you’re hanging on a subway strap, but you can read The Wall Street Journal on your Palm Pilot on a train, and more and more people will be doing this.

     Definitely there’s a business model. The thing is, newspapers are still living in the old economy where you had value as a basis for an investment and then you had a very short-term pay-out period. 
    The new economy has totally flip-flopped our investment mentality. And what the newspaper web sites have to realize is that there is a new business model now with a very long-term pay-out period compared to what they’re used to.
     I’d like for you to name for me an internet stock that is now showing a profit. And if you did I would definitely not invest in it because it would tell me they have the wrong model. 
    What we’re dealing with is that newspaper companies have to look at the internet as a totally new business. They have to think of their web site as a start-up company--a startup company with a lot of inherent trust and built-in relationships to customers it’s true. But they can’t expect to turn that into a profit overnight. It’s a building process, it’s a marketing process. A lot of it has to do with educating the advertisers. To do this you have to hire a separate sales staff. It’s basically a whole new way of thinking.
    To quote the great Wayne Gretzky, when asked about his success, he said: "It’s not only important to know where the puck is but to know where the puck is going, and to be there when it gets there." Look, if newspapers do not completely destroy their existing mindset and business model, somebody else is going to do it for them.
   Right now very few if any newspapers that I’m aware of are really aggressively pursuing this. A few that I can mention that I do feel quote-unquote "get it" are The Wall Street Journal, the Chicago Tribune, and oddly enough the Portland Oregonian.
   An important thing to note is that newspapers, unlike some of their online competitors such as the portals, are fighting the limited online advertising budgets of their traditional advertisers. 
    Whereas the portals are picking up tons and tons of what I call funny money, because there’s no accountability for it—funny money from the dot.coms. Newspapers aren’t getting this money, either online or offline. 
    And I don’t think the newspapers have the glitz that even TV offers the dot.coms. So for the dot.coms they’re a complete afterthought. But I think if they tend to their knitting and market to the kinds of advertisers they already have, they’ll end up just fine. But make no mistake, it’s going to take a whole lot of effort.

-Jeremy Schlosberg is the senior editor for new media. 
-Bernadette Tracy, a respected authority on the internet, is founder and president of NetSmartAmerica.com  (http://www.netsmartamerica.com) an online consumer motivational research firm that specializes in spotting emerging trends. She appears every Friday in the pages of Media Life. 

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