Newcity alternative newspaper says its doing pretty well thanks to... print advertising?
I've been thinking about Newcity, Chicago's second alternative newspaper, for a while now. It's never been as popular - or as profitable - as Chicago Reader was in its heyday, but it was always worth a read. For a little over 20 years, they've been publishing some great feature stories, art reviews and alternative comics strips. The economy has not been terribly kind to newspapers, especially alternative newspapers, which are free and depend on advertising even more than their mainstream counterparts. And while, by all accounts, Chicago Reader is the only part of Sun-Times Media that's making profit right now, Newcity's financial situation hasn't been entirely clear.
Frankly, I've been wondering if Newcity was about to join a long list of newspapers that shut down since 2006.
That's why I found the recent post by Newcity co-publishers Brian & Jan Hieggelke to be surprisingly reassuring. Newcity was doing alright - in fact, 2013 was its best year since the alt-weeklies' heyday in the 1990s. The advertising revenue has been increasing. And most of that increase came from print advertising.
Yeah - print.
Overall revenues increased more than forty percent over 2012, of which digital was up seventy-five percent but remains a relatively small but important part of our financial picture. Our growth engine in 2013 was good old-fashioned print, both in our core publication Newcity and in a mostly new category for us, custom publishing, which grew dramatically last year.
Now, I've written before about how the big problem that newspapers are facing right now is that print advertising is declining and digital advertising is nowhere close to making up for it. Even in this economy, print advertising is more profitable than digital advertising. So seeing a newspaper - any newspaper - grow its print advertising is a big deal.
Now, as the post itself note, the increase in advertising revenue was partially driven by expansion of Newcity's custom publishing. "Custom Publishing" is basically a term for newspaper inserts, magazine-style brochures, program guides and other products created by a newspaper publisher on behalf of an outside client. Sun-Times Media has an entire division of the company dedicated to this sort of thing. Custom publishing is not exactly new to Newcity, but as the post notes, they've been doing it a lot more.
Now, one may argue that Newcity was able to save some money by cutting its publication schedule - and, indeed, the post confirms that the "mostly biweekly" schedule it's been under lately is here to stay. But, as the post points out, they've also been spending more money.
We nearly doubled our editors ranks last year, and now have dedicated editors covering art, dance, design, dining & drinking, film, literary arts, music and theater. We launched “Linework,” a regular showcase of emerging Chicago talent in comics under the editorship of acclaimed author and cartoonist Ivan Brunetti, whose work often graces the cover of The New Yorker. This feature makes a nice bookend to the extremely popular column “Dime Stories,” which opens each issue, penned by Chicago artist and legend Tony Fitzpatrick.
We grouped several of Newcity’s signature issues-Lit 50, Players, Art 50, etc.-under the umbrella “Leaders of Chicago Culture” and revived a couple of them and launched two more, bringing our annual total to seven.
So while they've saved some money by increasing printing, Newcity has also spent more money. And their profits grew.
One interesting thing about the aforementioned "signature issues" were printed in a different format than the regular issues - slightly smaller, with sturdier cover, better-quality paper that brought out the colors and pages stapled together. Newcity first used this format with its 20th Anniversary issue back in November 17, 2012. From what I understand, the issue proved to be so popular that the special issues started using it as well.
According to the post, the special issue format is going to become a standard format. Which is an interesting development. Back in 2011, Chicago Reader did something similar - it started stabling together its pages, changed its cover pages from standard newsprint to more magazine-quality paper, doing away with pullout sections and adapting a "flipbook" format, with music section on one side and everything else on the other side. At the time, those changes were justified as a way to make each issue more valuable - both to readers and to advertisers.
In the post, Newcity publishers talk about why they think their newspaper has become more profitable.
Our strategy has been to refine our identity, to become even more precisely targeted in what we do. We’re not a mass-reach publication, but rather tightly focused on an audience of city dwellers with a passion for culture in its broadest sense, from music, art, theater and film to dining, design and the urban landscape. Our mission, plainly stated, is to be Chicago’s “Publication of Record” for culture in both print and digital.
Which is a pretty interesting statement. Like all alternative newspapers, both Chicago Reader and Newcity have their political/social issues coverage side and their arts/culture/events side. And they have both done some good work in both areas. But Newcity always seemed to be more interested in the art/culture/event side. It seems to be a more integral part of its identity. You can't imagine Chicago Reader without its political coverage, or its feature stories on topics like poverty, drug trade, gay rights, education, urban development, wrongfully accused criminals, etc. You can't imagine Newcity without its arts coverage and reviews.
Over the past year, I couldn't help but notice that feature stories have become less frequent. Having more special issues was undoubtedly a part of it. But I have to wonder... Will Newcity see even less feature writing going forward? Because, while their feature writing may not be as important as the art and culture stuff, I liked a lot of their feature writing. This year alone, they've published pieces about West Side heroin trade (from the perspective of a heroin addict), one man's harrowing account of sexual abuse... It would be a shame if Newcity stopped publishing articles like this altogether.
Of course, the biggest question Newcity is facing right now is whether or not it could sustain its growth. The publishers are optimistic.
The reality is that print is an evolving medium, not a dead one. The digital landscape changes the economics profoundly, just as the advent of broadcasting did several generations before. And like that time, print continued to thrive, even if the dominant publications of the time did not.
We’re witnessing a growing reconsideration of print as a powerful marketing medium, which we expect to continue in the years to come. We’re seeing this across the spectrum of human experience (who could have imagined vinyl records’ resurgence?), as the digital immersion of our lives accentuates the value of the tangible, of the physical. This is especially true for cultural providers and creative local businesses-the core of our advertising base-as well as larger brands wanting to cement an association with authenticity in customers’ minds.
It's certainly something to think about. I've written before about digital publications creating print magazines. American magazines have seen their advertising revenues rebound, or, at the very least, fall at slower rate. And Chicago isn't the only city where the alternative newspapers, at least, seem to be profitable. So maybe they're onto something.
As someone who works in the newspaper industry, I'll take whatever bit of hope I can get.
Frankly, I've been wondering if Newcity was about to join a long list of newspapers that shut down since 2006.
That's why I found the recent post by Newcity co-publishers Brian & Jan Hieggelke to be surprisingly reassuring. Newcity was doing alright - in fact, 2013 was its best year since the alt-weeklies' heyday in the 1990s. The advertising revenue has been increasing. And most of that increase came from print advertising.
Yeah - print.
Overall revenues increased more than forty percent over 2012, of which digital was up seventy-five percent but remains a relatively small but important part of our financial picture. Our growth engine in 2013 was good old-fashioned print, both in our core publication Newcity and in a mostly new category for us, custom publishing, which grew dramatically last year.
Now, I've written before about how the big problem that newspapers are facing right now is that print advertising is declining and digital advertising is nowhere close to making up for it. Even in this economy, print advertising is more profitable than digital advertising. So seeing a newspaper - any newspaper - grow its print advertising is a big deal.
Now, as the post itself note, the increase in advertising revenue was partially driven by expansion of Newcity's custom publishing. "Custom Publishing" is basically a term for newspaper inserts, magazine-style brochures, program guides and other products created by a newspaper publisher on behalf of an outside client. Sun-Times Media has an entire division of the company dedicated to this sort of thing. Custom publishing is not exactly new to Newcity, but as the post notes, they've been doing it a lot more.
Now, one may argue that Newcity was able to save some money by cutting its publication schedule - and, indeed, the post confirms that the "mostly biweekly" schedule it's been under lately is here to stay. But, as the post points out, they've also been spending more money.
We nearly doubled our editors ranks last year, and now have dedicated editors covering art, dance, design, dining & drinking, film, literary arts, music and theater. We launched “Linework,” a regular showcase of emerging Chicago talent in comics under the editorship of acclaimed author and cartoonist Ivan Brunetti, whose work often graces the cover of The New Yorker. This feature makes a nice bookend to the extremely popular column “Dime Stories,” which opens each issue, penned by Chicago artist and legend Tony Fitzpatrick.
We grouped several of Newcity’s signature issues-Lit 50, Players, Art 50, etc.-under the umbrella “Leaders of Chicago Culture” and revived a couple of them and launched two more, bringing our annual total to seven.
So while they've saved some money by increasing printing, Newcity has also spent more money. And their profits grew.
One interesting thing about the aforementioned "signature issues" were printed in a different format than the regular issues - slightly smaller, with sturdier cover, better-quality paper that brought out the colors and pages stapled together. Newcity first used this format with its 20th Anniversary issue back in November 17, 2012. From what I understand, the issue proved to be so popular that the special issues started using it as well.
According to the post, the special issue format is going to become a standard format. Which is an interesting development. Back in 2011, Chicago Reader did something similar - it started stabling together its pages, changed its cover pages from standard newsprint to more magazine-quality paper, doing away with pullout sections and adapting a "flipbook" format, with music section on one side and everything else on the other side. At the time, those changes were justified as a way to make each issue more valuable - both to readers and to advertisers.
In the post, Newcity publishers talk about why they think their newspaper has become more profitable.
Our strategy has been to refine our identity, to become even more precisely targeted in what we do. We’re not a mass-reach publication, but rather tightly focused on an audience of city dwellers with a passion for culture in its broadest sense, from music, art, theater and film to dining, design and the urban landscape. Our mission, plainly stated, is to be Chicago’s “Publication of Record” for culture in both print and digital.
Which is a pretty interesting statement. Like all alternative newspapers, both Chicago Reader and Newcity have their political/social issues coverage side and their arts/culture/events side. And they have both done some good work in both areas. But Newcity always seemed to be more interested in the art/culture/event side. It seems to be a more integral part of its identity. You can't imagine Chicago Reader without its political coverage, or its feature stories on topics like poverty, drug trade, gay rights, education, urban development, wrongfully accused criminals, etc. You can't imagine Newcity without its arts coverage and reviews.
Over the past year, I couldn't help but notice that feature stories have become less frequent. Having more special issues was undoubtedly a part of it. But I have to wonder... Will Newcity see even less feature writing going forward? Because, while their feature writing may not be as important as the art and culture stuff, I liked a lot of their feature writing. This year alone, they've published pieces about West Side heroin trade (from the perspective of a heroin addict), one man's harrowing account of sexual abuse... It would be a shame if Newcity stopped publishing articles like this altogether.
Of course, the biggest question Newcity is facing right now is whether or not it could sustain its growth. The publishers are optimistic.
The reality is that print is an evolving medium, not a dead one. The digital landscape changes the economics profoundly, just as the advent of broadcasting did several generations before. And like that time, print continued to thrive, even if the dominant publications of the time did not.
We’re witnessing a growing reconsideration of print as a powerful marketing medium, which we expect to continue in the years to come. We’re seeing this across the spectrum of human experience (who could have imagined vinyl records’ resurgence?), as the digital immersion of our lives accentuates the value of the tangible, of the physical. This is especially true for cultural providers and creative local businesses-the core of our advertising base-as well as larger brands wanting to cement an association with authenticity in customers’ minds.
It's certainly something to think about. I've written before about digital publications creating print magazines. American magazines have seen their advertising revenues rebound, or, at the very least, fall at slower rate. And Chicago isn't the only city where the alternative newspapers, at least, seem to be profitable. So maybe they're onto something.
As someone who works in the newspaper industry, I'll take whatever bit of hope I can get.