Useful information is the key to successful audiotex p. 35

By: M.L. Stein

Small weeklies are told how they can keep up with their larger competitors sp.

HOW DO SMALL weeklies beat big dailies in the current frenzy to install electronic information systems?
By coming up with services that the major metropolitan newspapers are not providing their readers and advertisers, said Sue Laris-Eastin, publisher and sole owner of the Downtown News, Los Angeles.
"Value-added, customized and individualized" describe the key elements in the Downtown News' interactive phone-in service, she told an audience at the 106th annual convention of the California Newspaper Publishers Association in Beverly Hills.
One of her paper's projects, Laris-Eastin reported, is Restaurant Central, which gives callers facts about more than 140 downtown eateries. In addition, the Downtown News has faxed, on request, 4,500 menus.
Since the system was launched in May, the Downtown News' Information Central has received more than 500 calls a week, the publisher said. The service is free to callers and to restaurants that advertise in the paper.
Laris-Eastin, who spoke on the panel "Interactive Media: What the Little Guys Can Do That the Big Guys Can't," noted that the Los Angeles Times does not have a restaurant line but said that if and when it does, it could not match her operation.
"We believe it would be limited to a few restaurants from each community," she explained. "If they listed them all, there would be thousands, and therefore the service would not be friendly to callers."
What the Downtown News' system offers in restaurant information, Laris-Eastin said, includes such categories as type of food, happy hour, casual dining, dinner specials, pretheater dining, elegant dining, restaurants with entertainment, outdoor dining, breakfast and brunch, and restaurants that stay open until midnight.
Nonadvertising restaurants are listed under "Area of Town," but only long-term, contract advertisers get the full range of categories.
Laris-Eastin said she had not given a thought to interactive media until her business was affected by the California recession.
"I had been growing at an annual rate of 40% when the recession hit," she recalled. "I was staffed for growth and had a big adjustment to make."
In picking a system, she remarked, "We didn't buy stock quotes, horoscopes or soap opera lines. We used audiotex to keep our existing customer base ? to stop the bleeding and find more ways to give them more for their advertising dollars. We also wanted to give the sales staff something both sexy and useful to sell to new and former customers."
Laris-Eastin said she can show advertisers the number of times their information is conveyed to callers, their menus requested and faxed, and the frequency with which dialers punch "0" to be connected directly to the client restaurant. Menu images are faxed by computer.
The panelist said the cost of setting up the system was about $50,000 ? and worth it.
"Let's take the magic out of the words associated with this technology," she said. "No matter what you choose to call it, for our purposes, interactive media is merely the intelligent and accessible use of telephone lines . . . . We believe that only small and medium-sized newspapers can give this level of value-added, individualized service. We see it as a huge business opportunity."
Another panelist, Becky Splitt, general manager of Brite Communications Systems Inc., a major supplier of interactive services, agreed that small papers can benefit from audiotex, but she cautioned that it must be examined "in the light of your own newspaper's goals and, more importantly, your readers' wants and needs."
She cited the Downtown News' restaurant line as a good example.
Splitt said every successful system she has known achieved that level because the publisher was able to identify exactly who was going to buy the service and why and then customize it to meet their needs.
"Consumers are demanding personalization," she continued. "There are many things the little guys can do better than the big guys because you can more easily identify and target your niche-oriented readership. It requires more time and resources to gain loyalty" from a large and diverse audience.
Splitt said there are numerous niches to be tapped along with eager sponsors. She cited a small Iowa newspaper that generated more than $9,000 in revenue during six months by offering a road construction report. Other possibilities, she added, include tri-
via; homework hotlines, which have brought $10,000 a year to some newspapers; stock quotes; and mortgage-rate lines, in which the typical monthly fee to bank sponsors is $200 to $300.
Voice personals, Splitt said, are profitable for both large and small newspapers. The potential is even greater, she said, noting that the service is reaching less than 7% of the single population older than 18.