It looks like the Canadian Community Newspaper Association is finally getting the credibility and attention it’s been looking for, now that the much-anticipated results are out for its ComBase research project.
Advertisers like Goodyear Canada have dabbled with community papers in the past, but because buys were exclusively made on circulation figures, with little to no information on readership, there’s been little confidence in their effectiveness. However, with the release of the ComBase results, the tire giant is reconsidering its position on community papers.
‘Business has always been too important to play the game without research support,’ says Ian McIntosh, general manager of advertising and marketing services for Goodyear Canada. ‘We’ve always been afraid to drop the dailies to gamble on the community papers. Now that they’ve done that research, we’ll get into it in 2004. If the numbers are there, I think community papers are a huge opportunity for all of us.’
Province by province, the numbers consistently show higher readership for community papers in comparison to dailies (See sidebar for details).
Virginia Dymont, media director at Toronto-based Goodyear agency Due North Communications, is excited about the possibilities of mixing community papers with radio, which has been the company’s primary medium for the past few years, says McIntosh. The tire company’s strategy has been one of using local media on a national basis to support its local dealers and address the timing of the seasons.
‘(The study provides) good ammunition for community papers to be out selling and redirecting media dollars,’ says McIntosh.
ComBase president Elena Dunn expects the study will translate into increased advertising revenues this year, as she started getting inquiries from some of Canada’s largest agencies soon after the release of the national results this past October.
ComBase held launch events on Oct. 7 in 10 centres across the country. There was, however, a two-week delay in getting the data into the hands of media buyers, because the size and complexity of the study, required longer processing and number-crunching time to format for use with agency planning software, says Dunn.
The results verify the initial findings of the pilot study of five markets in 2002.
‘Readership is in the 70%-plus and sometimes 80%-plus region for the average issue across Canada. It didn’t seem to matter if the newspaper was paid or free, it was just consistent,’ says Dunn.
‘Saskatchewan has the strongest numbers and there was no surprise there because there is no overlap of markets. The community papers own the markets they are in. There are no dailies coming in.’
The ComBase study, launched in 2001, covers 400 markets and sub-markets in all provinces. Readership of a total of 700 publications – including dailies, alternative, ethnic, shoppers, and agricultural publications – is measured, as well as 900 radio stations. The data was gathered through more than 24,000 interviews. It is title and market specific and provides both demographic and readership information.
And because the ComBase study measures major centres and their surrounding suburbs, it has reported higher daily newspaper readership numbers than NADbank 2002, which only calculates major centres or Census Metropolitan Area/Central Market Area.
For example, the Ottawa Sun average issue audience (Monday to Friday) results were 153,200 (ComBase 2003) compared to 125,600 (NADbank 2002). The Ottawa Citizen average issue audience results were 302,700 (ComBase 2003) and 294,700 (NADbank 2002).
Karin Macpherson, managing partner of The Media Company, says agencies are going to welcome this new information.
‘Advertisers are able to get broad coverage in dailies, but when you know you’re not getting coverage, you expand the buy. That’s why you use community papers, because you’re not getting sufficient coverage with just dailies. Before, we could only look at them from a circulation point of view, but now we can look at them from the readership point of view.
‘It might change some of the choices. Where you can prove it, you’ll use it.’
That said, Tim Wilson, VP of research for MBS/The Media Company, says now that the community papers have put themselves on a level playing field with daily newspapers, they must also be competitive with dailies on a cost-per-thousand rate.
‘The goal is to get as much of the daily paper advertising as possible. They’ve developed the tool to do it. But they’ve set this up to measure community papers and dailies together. That means they’re going to have to be competitive and play the CPM game if they want to get anywhere near that daily pie.’
In the Vancouver area, for example, the Kootenay Weekly has an audience of 9,400 and a CPM rate of 16 cents, while the North Shore News has an audience of 98,100 with a three-cent CPM and the Georgia Strait reaches 255,100 with a two-cent CPM; and
On the other hand, the Vancouver Sun has an average issue audience, Monday to Friday, of 332,300 (adults 25 to 54) with a CPM rate of three cents, and the Vancouver Province has a CPM rate of three cents with an audience of 364,400 for the same demo.
Wilson says ComBase was smart to measure both community and daily papers and is well positioned to take over as the number-one print measurement tool.
‘I don’t think you can make a sweeping statement that all of a sudden everyone is going to start spending a lot of money in community newspapers, but this helpful information will help to start drive those kind of decisions,’ says Macpherson
ComBase (Community Newspaper Research Database) is the research arm of the community newspaper industry and is a standalone incorporated company. The study was funded by 326 CCNA member newspapers and newspaper groups.
There are 1,000 different community newspaper titles in Canada with a total circulation of 11.2 million copies weekly. It is a $1 billion annual business.
Community papers vs. dailies – A cross-country analysis
According to ComBase results, 70% of Canadians read the last weekday issue of their community newspaper and 48% read yesterday’s weekday daily.
In Ontario 63% of readers reported reading the community papers, versus 52% reading a daily. This segment of the Ontario survey included 61 newspapers, but with Toronto GTA data released in 2002 there will be more than 140 newspapers measured.
In English Quebec (eight newspapers), 58% read the last weekday issue of their community paper and 47% read yesterday’s weekday daily. But in every province, the numbers varied from market to market. For example, in Shawville 78% read the community paper and 36% the daily.
In Saskatchewan, based on a total of 85 newspapers, 85% of those surveyed read the last issue of their community paper, while 26% read yesterday’s weekday daily. Nearly half the readers – 46% – do not read a daily newspaper.
British Columbia and Yukon, based on a total of 35 newspapers measured, found that 76% read the last issue of the community newspaper while 53% read any daily (any one of four dailies).
On the other coast, in Nova Scotia, where 15 newspapers were involved, 69% read the last weekday issue of their community newspaper and 44% read yesterday’s weekday daily. Sixteen newspapers were included in the survey of Newfoundland and resulted in 53% of people reading their community paper and 22% reading the weekday daily. Twenty-seven per cent of the readers in that province read community newspapers exclusively.
