By: Steve Outing The Web site of the News-Times in Danbury,
Connecticut, has not won any prestigious national awards for its content
or
its design. At first glance, it looks like many sites of small- and
medium-sized newspapers.
But there is something about the site that seems to strike a chord with
local readers. The 6-year-old site, which does not feature original news
but does include full content from the print edition of the newspaper,
these days gets about 20,000 unique visitors per day. That's pretty good
when you consider that the print circulation of the newspaper is about
41,000 (for the Sunday edition; slightly less for weekday editions).
And the site has another characteristic that executives at similar sized
newspapers might be envious of: It's turned into a decent profit center
for the News-Times, even though it operates with a staff of only
three. When measured by earnings before interest and taxes
(proportionate to the size of the department compared to other parts of
the company), the online division performs better.
Business model first
The person who heads up the overall strategy of the site is Paul
Evans, director of new business development for the newspaper. He's
responsible for other departments at the paper, too, but Web site
Internet systems manager Dan Wheeler reports to Evans. Perhaps
it's this reporting arrangement that puts the emphasis on finding
profitable revenue streams for the online operation.
Evans says that while the site certainly is willing to experiment with
new services and content, they must quickly prove to be money-makers or
else they're discarded. 'We don't treat the Internet any different than
any other business decision,' he says. 'If it won't make money, we
probably won't do it' or keep it.
Like most newspaper online operations, the News-Times' milks a
variety of revenue streams. There's the obvious banner and classified
advertising, and the site is just beginning to get into e-commerce with
a homegrown system (after dropping a relationship with Internet
Tradeline). It recently signed a contract with the dominant local
shopping mall and will build an e-commerce site for it.
Web site design and hosting services are other major parts of the
business. The online staff built a site for the local chamber of
commerce, for example, in which it performed the work for no fee but
gets a cut of ad banners that the chamber sells into the site. As a
result of that work, Evans says, he recently got calls from an oil
company and an accountant who want the paper to build them Web sites.
Affiliate relationships with e-commerce sites are another added revenue
stream. Though such deals (where sales referred through a site to an
e-tailer result in a commission on each sale) often offer modest
revenues, Evans says his site's traffic is high enough that the deals
are worthwhile.
Killer content: It's not news
The News-Times site is predominantly a news source, running full
news content from the daily print edition. You won't find original
online local news reporting - Evans can't afford to pay for that
- but rather articles from the newspaper's reporting staff doing
double duty on the Web, plus wire service copy. The only local news
content that goes on the site that's original is a 'News at 5' feature
written by the paper's editor, who sometimes talks about news that's
breaking, or promotes upcoming stories in the next print edition.
Nevertheless, Evans believes that having 'killer content' on the site is
critical to gaining substantial repeat traffic. He thinks his site has
it, though it's not all created in-house. The original content that the
site publishes is not local news, but rather content about kids, women,
medical/health, sports, etc. - stuff that supplements the daily
news, and keeps people coming back.
The Web staff is partial to doing content deals with partners - as
long as the content fits the needs of the local market and can turn a
profit. For example, the site offers golf content and services from GolfServ,
a golf content, directory
and services site. Evans says that with 157 golf courses in the
immediate region, it made sense for the site to offer golf content. Food
content, including a recipe database, is licensed from Culinary.net.
Health/medical content comes in the form of a service called CallMD, a
sort of audiotext-for-the-Web health advice feature.
Next to be added will be local high school sports scores via a
relationship with SportsHuddle.com. And for kids' content, Evans plans
to use Freezone.com.
In all these relationships, the content is presented with the
News-Times' branding integrated into the third-party content. And
Wheeler does a lot of homework to determine if a content partner will
actually make the site some money.
Promotion is key
Evans says the Web site has made a commitment to acquiring locally
relevant local content for the last two years, which coincides with its
healthy, consistent increase in site traffic. (Obviously, he realizes
that repurposed print news is not enough.)
But just as importantly, the site has benefited by strong promotion of
its content in the daily newspaper. The NewsTimes.com URL is ubiquitous
throughout the paper's communications. You'll find it in the front page
masthead of the print edition, and on every business card, piece of
stationary, outgoing fax, etc. Every issue of the newspaper carries an
ad on page 2, promoting some different element of the site or content
each day. Promoting what's on the Web site (that is, content beyond
repurposed print news) is a top priority for the newspaper and a key
element in monetizing its online investments.
The increasing traffic has led to some problems, with site users
occasionally getting turned away because the server the site resides on
(operated by parent company Ottaway Newspapers, which hosts all the
company's Web sites) occasionally gets overloaded. Evans says the
News-Times site is due soon to get its own server, which should
increase traffic as users will no longer get turned away
periodically.
The profitability thing
The News-Times is a newspaper that looks upon its Internet
operation as a profit center. It's way beyond treating the Internet as
R&D. Evans says the site was profitable within six months of its
debut half a dozen years ago, when the only employee was Wheeler (who
has a programming background). Since then, it added a webmaster
(currently Sean
Clarke) and an online editor (Jennifer Kessler).
The site does not have a dedicated ad sales staff, with the print sales
force handling Web sales as well. Much of the advertising actually comes
in unsolicited, says Evans. The site's designers add banners wherever
they can. For example, there's a video library featuring video
clips on such topics as how to tell if your tires are aligned and how to
bake cookies. Banner ads are sold for those video pages at $79 a month,
and there are currently 150 videos. Evans is optimistic he can make this
site feature profitable.
A mortgage marketplace feature is a new online
revenue stream. Originally a print feature - a listing of mortgage
companies and their current rates - it was converted to a
print/online service where the companies are charged $75 a week to be
included. Typically, between 35 and 37 lenders participate per week, and
half of the resulting revenue goes to the online side.
It's such new features that over time have resulted in a profitable Web
site. Evans says that the mistake of many similar sized newspapers has
been hiring a large online staff, buying high-end equipment, then not
having a business model to support the high costs. His strategy, in
contrast, has been:
Start small, and add staff cautiously.
Keep costs low.
Don't waste time on unprofitable site features. If something doesn't
work, dump it quickly and get on to the next idea.
That's not a strategy for everyone. But for small publishers with
limited resources, this site does demonstrate that profitability is
achievable.
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This column is written by Steve Outing for Editor
& Publisher Online. Tips, letters and feedback can be
sent to Steve at steve@planetarynews.com.
(c) Copyright 2000, Editor & Publisher
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