When you look down your street every Wednesday and see The Laker/Lutz News in its blue newspaper bag, our hope is that you’ll pick it up to find useful information, compelling photographs and interesting stories.
At the same time, we aim to deliver advertising that helps readers find out about local goods and services that help businesses in our community to thrive.
So, every year we look forward to the results of a report produced by the Circulation Verification Council, known in the industry as the CVC, to see how we’re doing.
This year’s results show that nearly four out of five households receiving our newspaper read it, and 78 percent of readers use the advertising to help plan their purchasing decisions.
Those findings are based on a statistically valid survey that CVC conducts to find out if The Laker/Lutz News is being delivered, what people think about their community paper, and how readers use it.
The CVC is an independent, third-party reporting firm that verifies the number of papers we print and deliver each quarter, and breaks down our circulation by zip code. It also calculates the number of papers we deliver to homes compared to the number that are distributed via newspaper racks and businesses.
We do not pay for this audit — CVC is hired by newspaper associations to audit the circulation of their 3,000 member newspapers in the U.S. and Canada.
The audit covers printing, distribution, circulation, websites, digital editions, mobile, email, social media and readership studies to give an accurate picture of a publication’s reach and market penetration.
“We run our business the same way as financial auditors and auditors of all other media,” said CVC founder and president Tim Bingaman. “There’s no power of influence because publishers do not pay us directly for our services — we are totally impartial and just report the facts.”
So what did CVC report from this year’s audit of The Laker/Lutz News?
The report found that:
- 80 percent of those responding said that they, or someone in their home, regularly read or look through our paper (compared to the CVC average of 74 percent).
- Our average number of readers per paper (pass-along rate) is 1.95 (compared to the CVC average of 1.75).
- 78 percent said they frequently purchase products or services from local business ads seen in our papers (compared to the CVC average of 74 percent).
- 85 percent of our distribution is home delivery, and 15 percent is through news boxes and business outlets.
Our average circulation in 2014 was 42,600 divided among our four editions in Lutz, Land O’ Lakes, Wesley Chapel and East Pasco.
CVC’s Tim Bingaman said the most impressive aspect of our audit is that we’ve achieved these above-average results year-after-year in a highly competitive suburban market.
“Typically, when a newspaper scores so well, it’s in a rural market where it is the only paper in town. For your newspapers to be doing so well puts you at the elite status among all the papers we audit,” said Bingaman.
Bingaman also gave us kudos for increasing our readership scores every year since 2010. Back then, our readership score was 72 percent; today it is 80 percent.
“To increase your readership by 8 percent in such a short time frame is truly remarkable and indicative that you are doing a very good job listening to your readers and giving them the content they want to read,” said Bingaman.
These are impressive numbers, especially today when so many people falsely believe that nobody reads newspapers anymore. In fact, we know that they do, and are proud to be one of the best-read community papers in the country.
I know this column may seem boastful and self-serving, and I suppose in some ways it is. But I want you to know how good it feels to head up a business whose industry report card is far above average. I am incredibly proud of my staff and want you to know that.
I’m also very proud of our community, which consists of thousands of people just like you, who care so much about their neighbors and neighborhoods that they read their community paper every week.
Not all communities are so engaged, and it is gratifying to produce newspapers that so many of you rely on to help our local organizations and businesses to thrive.
These facts for The Laker/Lutz News that were unveiled by our audit are something our entire community can be proud of. After all, without the community supporting us through their readership and advertising dollars, there would not be a community newspaper in your driveway every Wednesday.
The words “thank you” do not suffice to express our gratitude for your continued readership and support, but I hope you realize that our appreciation is heartfelt.
Published April 15, 2015
