A Portrait of a Digital Newspaper Reader

admin    media     digital newspaper, reader

An online dating site is a great value-added product for digital newspapers.

If you are still reading the print version of the newspaper, you are likely older, less educated, and less affluent, according to a new study by Pulse Research conducted in September, 2011.

The average age of the online reader of the newspaper is 44 compared to an average age of 51 for print readers.  Of those 30 and under, there are 60% more digital readers than print readers with 61% reading online and just 39% reading the print version.

Income was another category that favored online readers.  Digital readers average $65,480 versus $53,776 for print readers.  Of those earning $100,000 or more, 82% more read the digital version.

Advanced Telecom Services provides an online dating site for digital newspapers.

EXTRA, EXTRA: Read All About It!

admin    media, mobile marketing     advertising, mobile, mobile marketing, spend

TV gets its fair share of ad dollars. Why not mobile?

Time spent on mobile phones per day increased by 30% in 2011.  That makes total mobile time 1:05 and greater than the 44 minutes per day devoted to the combined use of newspapers and magazines, according to a new eMarkter study.  Last year, both mobile time and print read time was at 50 minutes per day.

Other time spent per day is 2:47 on the internet.  Watching TV increased by 10 minutes to 4:34 per day.  Radio listening dropped by 2 minutes to 1:34 per day.

Total time spent with all media was 11:33 so nearly half of our day and more than half of our waking hours are spent with media.

The interesting thing is that mobile continues to not get its due in terms of advertising dollars invested.  While TV accounts for 42.5% of all media time and a corresponding equal share of the advertising market, mobile claims 10% of the consumer’s time, but only 1% of the advertising spend.

Sure, time is spent on the mobile phone talking so that may be time that counts into the overall numbers, but clearly more and more searches and internet browsing are done on mobiles so it should be doing better than 1%!  After all, nearly any business can do text message marketing at the very least.

Looks like more businesses need a mobile strategy.

Categories of Text Message Marketing by Radio Stations

admin    media, Text Message Marketing     radio, text message marketing

Text message marketing by radio stations has been a big part of our business at Advanced Telecom Services and 84444.com.  That’s why Radio Ink magazine asked us to pen an article about the types of text messages that radio stations use.

Read the article in Radio Ink about radio text message marketing by Advanced Telecom Services’ president Bob Bentz.

Why People Subscribe to the Newspaper

admin    Dating, media     newspaper, study, why subscribe

Ipsos recently conducted study of newspaper subscribers as to why they subscribe to the print paper. Here is a look at the percentages for all the reasons that people subscribed:

All Reasons for Subscribing Percentage

This young couple met at an online personals site.

Saying “Yes”
Local News 85 %
Coupons 67%
National &
International News 58%
Habit 37%
Obituaries 35%
Columnists 33%
Other 12%

With local being such an important part of the reason to subscribe, it certainly makes sense then that a newspaper web site would offer an internet dating product such as that of MatchLink–a product of Advanced Telecom Services.  If you are a newspaper employee or just want a new online dating affiliate program, please give us a call.

Newspaper Online Revenues 2011

admin    Dating, media     2011, newspapers, online revenue

Newspapers online showed 10% growth

One bright spot for the newspaper industry has been its continued increase in revenues from its online advertising revenues.  The first quarter, 2011, revenues from the Newspaper Association of America showed a 10.6% increase in online earnings from $730 million to $807 million.

Advanced Telecom Services offers its MatchLink online dating affiliate program for newspapers to help enhance its online revenues.  MatchLink offers a custom online dating product to newspapers with the power of the Match.com database, but a custom online dating site.

How Generation Y Accesses Newspaper Content

admin    media, mobile marketing     mobile, newspapers

Generation Y encompasses 70 million Americans born between 1977 and 2002.  Here is how those teens and young adults access newspaper content.

12% read on mobile phone.

• Online — 65%
• Print Newspaper — 19%
• Mobile — 12%
• E-Reader — 2%
• Don’t read newspapers – 2%

When it comes to reaching Generation Y, it is increasingly important to offer your newspaper on a mobile web site.  At 12% and climbing, reaching young adults with a mobile version of your newspaper is becoming more and more important. 

(Source — Editor & Publisher; April, 2010)

Radio Advertising Revenues 2011

admin    media     radio advertising, radio revenue

Local radio enjoyed a modest advertising rebound in 2010 as revenues grew 5.4% from $13.4 billion in 2009 to $14.1 billion in 2010, as per a study by BIA/Kelsey.  The Radio Advertising Bureau tabbed the 2010 radio market at $14.2 billion.

Radio advertising to show a 3.7% increase in '11.

For 2011, the study anticipates a 3.7% increase.

Radio’s online revenues are projeced to grow from $405 million in 2010 to $494 million this year.  Online revenues for radio stations will reach $783 million in 2015.

It is still a long way back for local radio, however.  According to the projections, it will be 2015 until local radio revenues exceed where they were in 2007.

Advanced Telecom Services provides text message marketing for radio stations and an online dating solution called MatchLink for radio stations.

Strike Three for Newspapers

admin    media     baseball, demise, golden retrievers, newspapers

Like most middle-aged guys, newspapers have been a big part of my life.

My first job was delivering newspapers.  I majored in journalism in college when print media still ruled.  My breakfast as a child and teen was not complete without checking out the box scores from the night before.

In fact, I recall my parents, in a moment of austerity, threatening to cancel the afternoon edition of the newspaper, and save $1.35 per week, in my then hometown of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.  I’d have none of it.  How else would I get the west coast scores that were too late to be included in the morning edition of The Patriot-News?

In 1900, there were 600 cities in the USA that had two daily newspapers.  Today, there are 6.  We’ve stopped counting the two-newspaper towns and are instead starting to count the no newspaper towns.

Times have certainly changed.  A teenage baseball fan gets his baseball information from SportsCenter.  That is, if his local cable or satellite company doesn’t also include MLB Network.  That is, if he hasn’t already been online to check out the baseball results or received information from his Facebook or Twitter account.  Or, watched the game on MLB At Bat app on his smartphone!

Do you think that the teenage baseball fan of today is willing to wait for the evening edition of the newspaper to get the west coast results?

I still get the newspaper, but every time I read it, I feel old-fashioned.  I get it for two reasons really.  I get it because I want to clip the high school softball results for my daughter’s scrapbook that I keep for her.  I also continue to get it for another unlikely reason: it is the highlight of my golden retriever’s day when he runs out in the morning to get the newspaper.  Ironically, the only one who can’t read in our family, my dog, would be the one most disappointed if we cancelled our subscription.

But, it’s not all timber for the newspaper industry.  According to comScore, 57% of the American online internet audience visited a newspaper web site in 2010.  More than 32 million visit the New York Times online newspaper alone in a month.  I don’t feel old-fashioned reading Philly.com today.

And, I don’t have to wait for the afternoon to get the Dodgers scores.

Bob Bentz is President of Advanced Telecom Services which provides MatchLink — an online dating solution to newspapers.  You can follow him on Twitter @BobBentz or you can just wait outside his home and leave a message for him when his golden retriever gets the newspaper each morning.