A subscription opportunity
Ever since measures entered the world of newspapers -- in our shop it was about 15 years ago -- I've thought that a telling metric would be the number of employees who subscribed to the paper. Measure the newspaper's penetration within the company against the penetration level in the circulation area. If you are not significantly higher, you've got some work to do. After all, if you can't get your own employees, people whose bread is buttered by the paper, to subscribe, what does that tell you about the rest of the readership, people who can take you or leave you?
I've never gotten very far; there's a personal intrusiveness to it. Now comes a circulation exec with the beleaguered L.A. Times who wonders why more Times employees aren't subscribing (via Romenesko). And getting ridiculed for it.
I don't know how many N&R employees or newsroom staffers subscribe. I know it is not 100 percent. We give employee discounts, but they can get the paper free when they come to work. Still, it's a loyalty thing. If you believe the paper has value, why wouldn't you be proud to be a subscriber? If you work in the newsroom and you believe you and co-workers produce good journalism -- well, you're great but everyone else is still pretty good -- isn't it worth showing them support?
I've occasionally advocated that when new employees fill out the first-day paperwork we also stick a subscription form in their hands, too. That hasn't gotten anywhere, either, and it probably shouldn't. Forced attraction never seems to work out. But it has mystified me over the years that employees wouldn't want to buy the product they work so hard to produce.
Comments (5)
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I run into the same thing at television stations - people who work at the station rarely watch their own channel. You won't get anyone to admit it; but, when you listen to the conversations around the break room and other general areas you hear the talk of other stations and other programming.
The worst case had to be a station I was visiting out west. I watched it the night before I went to visit and saw what I considered a major snafu. The folks at the station weren't aware of the problem until the night shift arrived later in the day.
I could see where folks who would be charged for something they could get for free might have an issue with subscribing; but, think of it as a business expense. Your employees would be field testing and quality control for the distribution channel as well as the print channel.
Posted on March 10, 2007 12:31 PM
I understand your confusion that those who work so hard to create a great product wouldn't be sold on that item themselves. I have to wonder, though, how many people on the registers at Wal-Mart want to be there on their day off? Does your child's teacher really want to volunteer at her own offspring's school?
When you are surrounded by something all day, being forced to be amongst anything (no matter how enjoyable), because that is precisely how you afford both the butter and the bread on your table, you absolutely, completely, definately do not want to be confronted with it in your down time.
My Aunt worked in a factory, after leaving school. Cadburys. One of the biggest names in chocolate in Britain and quite generous it would seem. Certainly, while she was working there, the workers on the assembly line were told 'Help yourself to anything you want to eat'. She made free for two weeks until she became so sick of the taste and smell of the stuff she stopped completely. The management, it must be assumed, realised that you can only take so much of anything, no matter how wonderful, well made and to your taste it may be.
Maybe your better move would be to give your new employees that subscription form for their family members? A small consideration in the price, for being part of the team, might make the idea of giving the gift of the workplace more palatable.
If your people are working hard and producing a great paper day in and day out, perhaps they shoud like to hear that you know that, rather than feel they need to show further loyalty by paying for something they are surrounded with, 9 to 5,noses to grindstone?
Posted on March 10, 2007 3:48 PM
Good Grief !
Kind of depends upon the product wouldn't you think? I spent 35 years working for the telephone company and while there I used the telephone each and every day many times and still continue to use it even today. One of my beer drinking buddies sold cars for a living and now in retirement continues to drive a car each and every day. The young & pretty thing accross the street is a grocery store cashier and guess what - she buys groceries each and every week!
Posted on March 11, 2007 10:20 AM
Heather, let me put it another way. If your role in that chocolate factory was pouring milk into a batter and that's all you did, wouldn't you want to taste the final product? Few people in a newspaper consume the entire product before it is distributed. Few people know everything that is in the paper before it is distributed. There are still a world of surprises there.
And you're right. We have a great staff that works hard day-in and day-out. I think they know it, but it never hurts to say it again.
Posted on March 12, 2007 5:09 PM
Funny -- you wrote this post the same day I got around to subscribing to the newspaper I work for. I was supposed to get my first paper this morning.... I didn't.
Posted on March 15, 2007 1:02 AM