By: On New Year's Eve 2007, the Cincinnati joint operating agreement died a rare natural death as it reached the end of its term. But then the surviving paper, Gannett Co.'s Cincinnati Enquirer, accomplished something even rarer: It not only grew its circulation to match the JOA's combined total ? it kept the subscribers.
With four years to plan for its post-JOA era, the Enquirer targeted key geographic areas, especially across the Ohio River in northern Kentucky where the former Cincinnati Post still had a stronghold. In 2008, overall Enquirer circ was up 2% in a year when other metros were recording double-digit declines. More important, northern Kentucky circ jumped 9.3%. A year later, the newspaper is retaining more than 80% of subscribers, and total circ is back to year 2000 levels.
Editor and Vice President/News Tom Callinan credits the watchdog and public service journalism and the "audience-first mission" of the re-christened Enquirer Media. "We are a connector," he says. "We connect buyers to sellers, we connect people to each other and communities, both demographic and geographic, and we connect them to local information they need to live and thrive."
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