What Consolidating Florida Newspapers Mean to You

Over the past two years, I've had a unique opportunity to see significant changes in the Florida newspaper industry as I've worked with business reporters covering the Florida home 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 nationwide, newspaper companies continue to struggle with debt, Chapter 11 filings, layoffs, and mergers. 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 the fall of 2008, I lost a tenant that had been leasing 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 little doubt that newspapers have lost huge amounts of paid advertising to on-line websites - and specifically to Craigslist.

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 customers of the newspapers who actually read them was even lower. After these disappointing results I could only think of two things - first a sense of relief that I hadn't paid for a full page ad in this newspaper, but more also a much more important questions: 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 ads, declining circulation, and even less actual 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. Most of the eight newspaper business reporters I'd worked with in the past had been covering the topic for years 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 when the new business reporters are fully ramped up, there are now fewer newspaper pages available 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. A portion of the challenge comes back to a simple fact - our lives are so fast paced that the only thing just about all consumers look at during a typical day is the home page on their web browser.

The ongoing trend of consolidating Florida newspapers and the difficulties faced by other types of media means only one thing to small and medium sized organizations. A new strategy for getting the message to your customer base that includes multiple delivery channels is essential for your success. Traditional media outlets just won't get the job done in today's rapidly changing business environment.


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Michael Letcher is a Fortune 500 executive and a licensed Certified Public Accountant. His on-line guide can help you find low cost alternatives to State Farm Florida Homeowners Insurance. Learn the secrets to affordable Florida insurance in his free newsletter at => http://www.homeinsurancebuyers.org