Delivering Somebody Else's Newspaper p.

By: George Garneau

Oak Ridger may be the first to do it, but a consulting firm has been suggesting it to smaller papers for the past year sp.

WHY IS THE Oak Ridge, Tenn., Oak Ridger selling subscriptions to the Sunday New York Times and Atlanta Journal and Constitution?
To replace the defunct Sunday Oak Ridger and satisfy its five-day-a-week subscribers who want the full-service Sunday paper, full of world news and special sections, that the Oak Ridger couldn't produce.
This is an unusual relationship despite the relentless flurry of companies announcing "strategic alliances" and "partnerships."
New York Times Co. spokesman Bill Adler said several of the company's regional newspapers market the Sunday Times but he had not heard of any non-Times Co. papers doing it.
"Everybody gains from this," he said.
The Oak Ridger may be the first small paper to buy other companies' metropolitan Sunday papers from an independent wholesaler and market them ? but it's not the first to be advised to do so.
Pulse Research Inc., a research and consulting firm in Portland, Ore., has been telling small newspapers to do just that for about a year, said Tom Stearns, vice president and general manager, who takes responsibility for the idea.
"There's a demand for comprehensive national and international news that is best met by national newspapers, particularly at a time of declining resources for local papers," he said. "The partnership is very logical."
The arrangement creates "a stronger relationship with readers," in which the local paper is "viewed as the information link within that community, which is where we think newspapers need to be," Stearns said. "They have to be seen not as newspapers but as information companies."
Stearns said he got the idea in 1990 while discussing how the Washington Post Co.-owned Everett (Wash.) Herald could improve its international coverage. He thought: Why not deliver the Washington Post? The notion brewed until last year, when he first began recommending it to clients.
The Oak Ridger apparently is the first to try it.
Oak Ridger publisher Pete Esser said most of the 150 to 200 people who opted for a Sunday paper from out of town already are daily subscribers.
"It just gave us the opportunity to offer readers a product on Sunday that we couldn't deliver," Esser said. "We are simply trying to offer customers a service, and we felt that if we could offer them that service instead of our competition, we would be in a better position."
He expected the Sunday offering would have little effect on the Sunday Knoxville News Sentinel, which has more than 50% penetration in Oak Ridge. "Our niche is local news. We don't compete with the New York Times and Atlanta Journal and Constitution. We offer them as a complementary package," he said.
At $169 a year for Sunday home delivery of the Times and $83 for the Journal and Constitution, the Oak Ridger "will make enough money to recoup costs, but it won't be a big money-maker," Esser said.
While one experiment, still unproven, does not make a trend, Stearns said, "What definitely is a trend is that in any given market, according to our surveys for 1,350 clients, there is a strong interest in national and international news, and small papers can't do that job."
Surveys indicate that 25% to 30% of people have a strong interest in national and international news.
While the idea of delivering an out-of-town paper obviously is not universally applicable, Stearns said it makes sense for a small daily such as the Oak Ridger, provided that there is demand for world news, the small paper cannot put out a full-fledged Sunday package and it does not compete for advertisers with the papers that it offers.
For a small paper competing with a larger nearby paper, the arrangement can fend off incursion into its core market, said Stearns, who has recommended that small papers consider such partnerships ? daily as well as Sunday ? with the nation's largest half-dozen papers.
"Most small dailies should be capable of delivering another company's Sunday paper, or two, without adding much to the cost of their existing delivery systems," Stearns said.