Folks in small towns read newspapers

According to the 2013 Community Newspaper Readership Study conducted for the National Newspaper Association (NNA) by the Reynolds Journalism Institute (RJI) last fall around two thirds of the residents in small communities in the United States read local community newspapers ranging from one day a week to seven days. The Center of Advanced Social Research of RJI made 508 telephone interviews with adults age 18 and older randomly selected in areas where the circulation size of the local newspaper was 15,000 or less. Since 2005 NNA has had the survey done to examine public attitudes, perceptions and readership of local newspapers in small communities. The response rate of the survey was just over 41 percent. For results based on the entire sample the margin of error was plus or minus five percentage points. In addition to sampling error, question wording and practical difficulties in conducting the surveys could introduce some error or bias into the findings.

The survey showed that 67% of the people interviewed read a community newspaper at least once a week. The readership was 71% in the 2012 survey, 74% in 2011 and 73% in 2010. Further analysis shows that older adults read newspapers more than younger adults. Local newspapers continue to be the primary source of information about communities in small towns and cities. Four out of ten residents selected newspapers as their primary source of information, 94% of readers agreed that newspapers were informative and 80% said they looked forward to reading their newspapers.

In addition 78% relied on their newspapers for local news and 72% said the newspapers entertained them. These findings show what the true assets of community newspapers are and should be considered in order for the newspapers to continue to play an important role in people’s lives in the future. The 2013 survey showed that 92% of residents had a cell phone, which was more than the 84% shown in 2012. More important was that 45% had a smartphone compared to 24% in 2012 which suggested that more people in small towns and cities could be reached by smartphones than ever before. Smartphones were used by 39% of the owners to access local news which was more than 31% in 2012 and 26% in 2011. 53% accessed shopping information with their phones which was higher than 49% in 2012 and 38% in 2011. These results suggest that there is good potential to be utilized by community newspapers to explore and develop digital products and APP’s in the future.

Among other major findings in the 2013 survey were as follows:• The pass along rate of the 2013 survey measured by the average score of the responses to the question about how many of your friends, colleagues, co-workers or those in your household you shared your newspaper with was three people compared to around two in 2012 and 2011. •54% of readers had clipped a story from the newspaper and sent it to a friend or family member in the past 12 months which was similar to 56% in 2012. •Community newspaper readers in the 2013 survey gave high ratings to the accuracy, coverage, quality of writing and fairness of news reporting of the local news. All of the above combined were higher than in 2012 and suggested that local newspapers did a good job in providing quality news coverage. •Seven out of ten readers agreed that newspaper advertising inserts helped them make better purchasing decisions and that in their newspaper they had a better chance of being read than if mailed through the post office. •Readers preferred ads in their newspapers rather than on the Internet with 82% saying they had rather look through their newspaper for the advertisements.

Finally, the Internet has become more influential than ever before when newspaper readers are looking for information about purchasing an automobile, electronics shopping and opportunities for employment. However, readers continue to read their local newspapers for the above thing also.