NEWSPAPERS TRY ELECTRONIC TEAR SHEETS

By: Lucia Moses Some Advertisers Resist Innovation


Most newspapers still send out tear sheets by snail mail, but technology is starting to catch up. A growing number of papers are saving time and money by sending tear sheets electronically.

Using this method, ads are sent to a Web site, where advertisers, advertising agencies, and other tear-sheet users can verify publication and quality online.

One of the early adopters is the Ventura County (Calif.) Star. The paper used to have three employees devoted to sending tear sheets. Even so, tear sheets were often late in going out, which made ad payments late in coming in, said Steve McConnell, retail advertising manager. The job was boring, and turnover was high.

Since switching to an electronic process three years ago, the Star needs only one staffer to do the job. Postage costs have fallen, and payments are more timely. "It's more efficient, more friendly," McConnell said.

Still, a number of issues need to be resolved before e-tear-sheeting can become widespread, vendors and users say. Papers must satisfy users that an electronic document can provide the same proof of publication, quality, size, and location as a paper tear sheet.

The process also must be simple. Current methods are cumbersome, said John Stipe, president of the Newspaper Association of America's (NAA) Cooperative Marketing and Sales Federation and advertising manager for Booth Newspapers Inc. in Grand Rapids, Mich. One comment he has heard: "We don't want to have to go to a third place to find an electronic image."

As the Star found, making the switch is far from simple. It took nearly a year to wean advertisers from physical tear sheets -- and some still demand them. "The biggest pushback we get is from national agencies," according to McConnell. Verifying color quality may be an issue, he said, possibly because customers may wonder, "Did someone fudge with this electronically?"

One decision a newspaper will have to make is which electronic version of a tear sheet to use.

Software from Rocklin, Calif.-based Ad Looks Inc., whose five newspaper clients include the Ventura County Star and Houston Chronicle, is used for scanning a print newspaper sent by overnight delivery and storing it on its Web site (http://www.ad-looks.com), which users can access with a password. Another program, called iTearsheets, from Los Angeles-based Shoom Inc., stores a portable document format (PDF) version of a newspaper online. Ad Looks said the published page lets users verify quality, whereas Shoom points out that scanning can degrade the quality.

"What we're showing is what was represented to the [printing] press," said Shoom President Dan Cole, whose product is being tested at about a dozen newspapers. "If the advertiser is concerned about the quality, then the best thing to do is look at a copy of the paper itself."

Both companies offer faster delivery of tear sheets (the ads are posted online the day after publication), cost advantages, and the ability to search ads by various criteria and to view surrounding pages.

Concerning costs, Ad Looks General Manager John Ferra said a metro daily can drop its annual expense from about $55,000 in postage to about $25,000 by using his software.

Many believe that -- given the ability to send large files over the Internet quickly and the potential cost savings -- it's just a matter of time before e-tear-sheeting becomes standard operating procedure industrywide. Vendors are working on the next logical step: combining a bill and tear sheet.

But for e-tear-sheeting to gain traction, it needs to get easier for users, Stipe said. His NAA federation formed a committee trying to do just that, by developing suggested guidelines for newspapers that are considering making the switch.

The group also has proposed a Web site that would serve as a clearinghouse linking all other e-tear-sheet sites so that users could view all their tear sheets using one site. The group is seeking a company or organization to run the proposed site. Others echo the call for some uniformity.

"In the end, advertisers, I don't believe, are going to want to go to 15 different Web sites," Ad Looks' Ferra said. "They're going to want to go to one."



Lucia Moses (lmoses@editorandpublisher.com) is an associate editor covering business for E&P.



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