What a Consolidating Florida Newspaper Industry Means to the State

During the past two years, I've watched from the front row as the Florida newspaper industry as continued to consolidate as I've worked with business reporters covering the Florida homeowners insurance crisis.

Over this period, I've established great relationships with eight business reporters who have ultimately lost their jobs in restructurings or seen their hours cut from full to part time.  It's been a real eye opener for me.

Both in Florida and across the USA, the death of newspapers continues as media companies struggle with debt, Chapter 11 reorganizations, mergers, and layoffs.  This multi-year downward trend has been blamed on everything from debt levels to liberal bias in the print media.  As I've operated my own consumer organization and managed my own real estate portfolio I've had some surprising experiences with the newspaper print media.

In September of 2008, I lost a tenant that had been renting a home that I own in Port St. Lucie Florida.  In prior years I had taken out newspaper ads that ran about $150 for a two week period that had some limited success attracting prospective tenants.  This time I didn't bother.  Instead I purchased ads on multiple on-line websites that ran for about one month for about the same price as newspaper advertising.  Those ads didn't work either.  My tenant ultimately came from a free ad I placed on Craigslist.  There is no doubt that newspapers have lost a massive amount of classified advertising to on-line websites - and to Craigslist in particular.

My consumer website for Florida home insurance is another case study that outlines both the circulation and readership declines that Florida newspapers have experienced.  As my site was launched I was very pleased with the newspaper coverage I obtained and the relationship I built with the business reporters at each newspaper.  There were times when even a full feature story on the front of the business section in certain newspapers resulted in disappointing traffic to the website.

While the stories were very well done by the reporters, my take was that in certain cases, the circulation numbers of these Florida newspapers was far below the published numbers.  And the number of subscribers who actually read these newspapers was even lower.  All I could think of after these disappointing results was two things - first a sense of gratitude that I hadn't purchased a full page ad in this newspaper, and second a much more important question:  What do I have to do to reach my customer base?

Each of the examples above highlight three major problems faced by Florida newspapers - competition from on-line advertising, dwindling circulation, and even lower readership.  And these areas don't even begin to address the quality of the content in the newspapers.

One thing I've noticed as these Florida newspapers continue to consolidate is a lot less coverage of the Florida home insurance crisis.  Many of the eight business reporters I'd worked with previously had spent years learning the ropes and were experts on the subject.  Some of the newer reporters now covering this area were being asked to do this on a fill-in basis and it takes a lot of time to learn a complicated topic like Florida home insurance.  Even after the new business reporters are fully up to speed, there are now a lot less space available in the paper itself to cover this topic.  That will give public officials sort of a free pass because there won't be as much scrutiny of the policy decisions they are considering.  The on-line news media still standing won't give state public officials the same scrutiny that these newspaper business reporters did.

Which leads me to the final question:  "How do businesses reach their customers in a world where Florida newspaper circulation and readership continues to decline?" Newspapers have plenty of company as far as media companies are concerned.  Unless you have a budget capable of reaching a national television and radio audience, getting the message out to your customer base is becoming increasingly difficult.  Even home town radio and TV stations are facing difficult times.  Part of that challenge comes back to a basic fact - our lives have become so busy that the only thing many consumers see during the course of an entire day is the home page on their web browser.

This ongoing trend of consolidating newspapers in Florida and the challenges faced by other media forms means only one thing to small and medium sized organizations.  A new way to reach your customer base that includes multiple delivery methods will be vital to your success.  Traditional media outlets just won't get the job done in today's rapidly changing business environment.